Story of the clip
It is very dark, stormy, and windy. Axl is in his bedroom on the bed. He takes some pills and lays down to sleep. The song starts. A concert hall is shown. An orchestra is there with the band. Axl is at a piano in a red suit with glasses on and a bandana. A church in a desert is shown. The door opens and it is ragged place and Axl is inside playing the piano. The walls of the church change into a field with dark clouds over it. Duff raises his arms and Matt hits the drumbeat. A nice church is shown. Flower girls are walking down the aisle. Axl is shown sleeping in his bed. A crucifix is shown and a tear of blood runs down Jesus’ face. Stephanie is shown walking the aisle with maids behind her. The band is shown performing again and is shown every once in a while throughout the entire video. Axl grabs Stephanie's hand and raises her veil. The Rainbow Bar is shown. Axl, Stephanie, and the band are there having fun. Axl and Stephanie light up cigarettes. Stephanie puts on Slash’s top hat and Dizzy is doing the dance that Axl does in the "Sweet Child O' Mine" video. They all make a toast and Axl kisses Stephanie. The wedding is shown again. Slash can't find the ring. Duff has it to him and gives it to him. Slash walks up and gives it to the priest. The priest looks at him strangely and smiles. Axl puts the ring on Stephanie. Axl is wearing a weird claw like ring. Stephanie puts the ring on Axl. Dizzy is shown with his wife. Axl and Stephanie kiss. Slash begins walking down the church aisle. He comes out of this small church in the middle of nowhere in a desert setting. It's real windy. He has a guitar in hand. He does an amazing solo. Axl and Stephanie are coming out of the church. People are talking pictures and throwing rice and flowers. They jump in the car. Axl is smiling while Stephanie seems sad. Slash does another awesome solo in the desert. Axl is shown walking alone through a western type town at night. He walks by a store that says "GUNS". The wedding reception is shown. They are cutting the cake. Riki Rachtman is in the crowd. They all make a toast. The black bodyguard guy (Earl Gabbidon) is dancing with Stephanie. Kids are running around. They see storm clouds. It begins pouring. People are running in panic. A man runs into a table. Duff shelters himself under a table. A man collides right into the wedding cake and knocks over a bottle of red wine. Slash gets on top of the piano. The setting is now a funeral. Stephanie is in the casket with a mirror splitting her face. Axl is crying. They carry the casket down the aisle. Axl, Slash, Duff, and the rest of the band follow. Slash is doing an awesome solo on top of the piano. People start getting out of black cars at a cemetery. They carry her casket to the grave. People stand around for the funeral. It starts raining. Everyone opens an umbrella. They begin to leave. Axl is shown waking up with a fear on his face. Stephanie is shown throwing the bouquet behind her. It is shown flying through the air. It lands on the casket at night. Axl is at her grave by himself. It is still pouring. The flowers fade from red to white.
This video was based on the short story, "Without You" by Del James.
Victoria's Secret model Stephanie Seymours stars in this video. Axl and Stephanie got in a year-long relationship after making this video.
This video won the "Best Cinematography in a Video" VMA and was nominated for the "Best Art Direction in a Video" VMA at the 1992 MTV Music Video Awards.
This video is the #16 most played video of all time and the #1 video of 1992 on MTV.
This video is the #2 video on VH1's Top 40 Hard Videos
This video costs over $2 million dollars to make.
Quotes about November Rain
"I was in the process of being 'fucked over' when November Rain was coming out. For a period of time I was going to buy the video from the band and put it in storage, but decided to 'rise' to it and put it out." - Axl
Source: The Making of Estranged - Part IV of the Trilogy!!!, 1994
"I'm really proud of November Rain. I really like the writing, and the story, and putting all the scenes together." - Axl
"I wanted to get rock music to all kinds of audiences, and my way to do that was to make some pretty elaborate, detailed videos." - Axl
"Sometimes it's very surreal like when we got married, Slash looks up at me and goes, 'Dude I want you to get married nine times!'" - Axl
Source: MTV interview, 6/4/92
"I was just trying to do something that would "out-epic" somebody else. I remember at the time Slash wanted to, well you know Richie Sambora can stand on a mountain and play guitar for Bon Jovi, then I want you [Slash] to come out of a church in the middle of nowhere. - Andy Morahan, director of November Rain
Source: VH1 interview
"With November Rain you just get a perfect sense of how a band can get caught up in their whole rock n' roll fantasy, it's literally the signature video for that time period." - Paul Gargano, Metal Edge Magazine
"There was something about the whole wedding ceremony that I didn't agree with anyway so when it came to writing my own scene, and it's basically leaving the wedding. Then I had a helicopter ten feet away from me diving in at me, and so every take was like that last take as far as I was concerned. That came out looking really cool." - Slash
"When he just goes walking out of the church all of a sudden he goes like from the wedding outfit with the real puffy shirt and everything to the leather jacket with no shirt on, the hair back, blowing out in the wind and the raging guitar solo, that just, you know, marked Guns N' Roses. - Paul Gargano, Metal Edge Magazine
"Then during the performance, Slash gets on top of the piano. That's kinda like the bonding moment between the two members of the band to be one during the performance." -Lonn Friend, KNAC.com
"The two solos, the movie aspect, the beautiful camera work, the orchestration, it was just like the most wonderful, excessive, yet artistic production maybe in the history of rock videos." - Lonn Friend, KNAC.com
Source: VH1's Top 40 Hard Rock Videos
"Axl said to me, 'I want to make videos more out there than Michael Jackson's.' When we made the 'November Rain' video, we brought all these models in. Axl desperately wanted Stephanie Seymour - period. That night they went to the set, which was being built in an airplane hangar out in the Valley. That was their first date. She left Warren Beatty the next day." - Josh Richman
The church in the November Rain video(where Slash does his solo) was set up just for the video.The crew had it brought in from some rental place
The Orchestra in the November Rain Video wasnt actually used on the final song.
November Rain was #6 in North America.
November Rain was #5 in Canada.
Axl orginally wanted to record November Rain on AFD,but then rejected the idea.
November Rain was orginally the longest music video.It was then shortened to 8:53
The two women singing in the November Rain video went on tour with GN`R.
The November Rain video was #45 on much music's top 100 videos,on July 29,2000.
Actually November Rain is the one of the best rock ballads of the rock history.
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Story of the clip
A baby is shown and we zoom into his eye. A crow is shown and it is snowy. A revolutionary war soldier (Axl) is freezing to death and struggling to live. He takes his gun out. Then shown is present day Axl with gun in hand. Then you see Stephanie Seymour. She tries to take the gun and they get into a struggle. She takes the gun and is slammed into a wall. Then a green Axl is shown underground with his hands held up. It rises to Axl and Stephanie sitting in a cemetery having a picnic. Axl then sees the procession for his own funeral go by. Axl is underwater with Stephanie bracing onto him. The band is now shown performing on a rooftop at night. Shannon Hoon is with them. Izzy is not there. Helicopters are flying around it. A sign has the words "Where’s Izzy?" on it. Stephanie is then shown looking at pictures. She finds a picture of Axl and another girl. The picture now turns into life. Axl is sitting at a piano with the girl; Stephanie walks up and sits down on the other side of Axl. Stephanie smacks the girl and starts beating her up. She throws a glass at her. The band is shocked and somewhat amused. We are now back at Stephanie looking at pictures. The band is shown on the rooftop again. Slash is shown driving a Mustang through a canyon. His girlfriend is in the car with him. Duff and his girlfriend are shown arguing. She throws a bottle at him. Slash’s girlfriend is yelling at him. Slash goes through the guardrails and off the cliff. The car explodes on impact. Now Slash is on the cliff where his car went off playing guitar. He finishes the solo and throws his guitar over the cliff. Axl is shown in a gown on a table in a psychological ward. A crow is sitting in the background. Another Axl comes through the door. Then the another Axl opens the door and sees both Axls and goes through the mirror. The band is shown on the roof again. Axl is talking to a psychologist. Axl gets out of a black car and starts walking through a cemetery. Slash is shown breaking his guitar on the rooftop. Axl walks up to a grave where the tombstone read "W. Axl Rose 1962-1990". The underground green Axl is shown reaching to the sunlight. Now we see the baby again. The screen says, "There's A Lot Goin On".
Victoria's Secret model Stephanie Seymour stars in this video.
Quotes
"Don't Cry is...personally I am more proud of it than anything I've done. Those video's are hard to look at." - Axl
Source: The Making of Estranged - Part IV of the Trilogy!!!, 1994
"The frozen man was a methapore. It shows someone trapped in space and time, there is no even exact reality of where the person is now, it's like a past life or something." - Axl
[About the grave]"It says 1990 because it was a very suicidal year, some things were really good but then with the marriage not working and stuff like that, it just made me realize if things had ever really worked and I had to get through it and figure out why so many things continuously go wrong". - Axl
Source: Makin' F@*!ing Videos Part I - Don't Cry, 1993
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Seagulls are heard in the background. An empty playground is shown. There are cops at Axl’s house. They bust in the door. Axl is woken up from a dream. He is sleeping in the shelf of a closet. The cops shine the flashlights everywhere they shine them at a toy dinosaur which makes a big shadow on the wall. He sees images of Dylan. The view is now at a concert. The band is performing. Slash has a double-necked guitar. Axl is getting out of a limo. Some beautiful women are watching the performance on television. Different clips of Axl being escorted around before a concert are shown. Axl is shown on a couch in his dressing room. The rest of the band is shown in their dressing room. Axl’s soul comes out of his body and gets in the shower while his body is still laying there. The concert is shown again. Little kids are shown playing at a playground. Axl’s house in Malibu is shown. People in all white suits begin to walk out of his house. The one with the red beard is Axl’s half brother, Stuart. The kids are now shown with an elephant at a playground. The people dressed in white begin putting suitcases in the back of a limo. Axl is now walking through his house being escorted by a black guy (Earl Gabbidon). He gets in his limo. On the limo is an emblem of a dolphin. The police are escorting his limo from his house. An airport is shown. The band’s cargo plane is there. The crew is moving things around. The band is shown walking by. A cargo door opens and dolphins come out of the water, which seems to be inside the plane. The girls are shown again watching dolphins on television. Axl is smoking outside the window of a TV store. (Maybe the one from "Welcome to the Jungle?") He begins walking down the street and a river of water parallels with him and dolphins are swimming down it. He walks by The Roxy. He walks by the Rainbow Bar. Slash comes out doing a great solo in a crowd of people. An oil tanker is shown. Axl is walking on it. He gets on the rails and jumps over. He hits the water. Gilby throws a lifesaver to him, he pushes it away. Duff in a rubber rescue boat tries to save him. He goes under. He is underwater and dolphins are swimming around him. He touches one and the water turns orange. Slash comes up from out of the water and does an awesome solo. The performance from the concert is shown again. A Coast Guard helicopter with Matt in it is flying around. They fly by where Axl jumped in. A diver jumps in. He gets Axl and brings him up, Axl’s tennis shoe is shown floating to the bottom. The video ends with Axl in a robe smiling while sitting by a dolphin. The screen says, "Lose Your Illusions".
Quotes
"I don't necessarily know of anyone who's made a video like this, you know, showing their own emotional destruction and the process of transcending it. Another thing about this video is also a communication with Dylan, he is someone I'm not allowed to communicate with and someone who feels that I abandoned him and I didn't. I was told one thing and shown another and Dylan is robbed of certain things that he likes and I'm also, so trying to transcend that and deal with that. So making the video is like what's really going on, I'm trying to show it. It was really wild when we filmed that scene because in this room (Dylan's room)there's a shelf and ever since Dylan moved out of the house I've always pictured myself sitting on that shelf, just looking at his room. When it came time to film that scene I went up to sit on the shelf, and at the end I just laid down and went on sleep and had the most peaceful sleep, because I really needed to do that for myself and I really needed to be there in his room, and like it was a very strange way for me to spend time with Dylan in my own mind, that I hadn't taken the time or found the time and it happened on film, but it meant a lot to me, I don't know how long I must have slept, maybe and hour but it felt like five hours but I had a heavy sense of peace that I really like". - Axl
"November Rain is a song about not wanting to be in the state and having to deal with unrequited love, Estranged is acknowledging it and being there. And having to figure out what to fucking do, it's like being catapulted out into the universe and having no choice about it and having to figure out what the fuck are you gonna do because the things you wanted and worked for just cannot happen and there's nothing you can do about it". - Axl
"I wrote the song basically about who I am and how I feel and the breakup of my marriage with Erin and how I didn't want it to die. I also applied it to other situations or friendships or family and things you knew it had to end". - Axl
"Dolphins symbolize a state of grace and a state of peace". - Axl
"You still have emotions and feelings, not wanting something to die, caring about another person, not wanting members destroy themselves, so this song can be applied to Steven Adler, it can be applied to a lot of people, members of my famyly, relationships I had with Erin and with Stephanie and there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it, so to me, at the present time, sitting here right now, this and Coma are the two heaviest songs I've ever written." - Axl
"At the conclusion of November Rain things changed. There was an evolving that took place. It's very hard to rise to or transcend the story the way it was intended." - Axl
"After it was done, I felt so good inside cause it pulled all this stuff out of me". - Axl
"It is wild to be doing this video with the things going on at home and with family. It would've been nice if it happened with Stephanie and I, but the woman continually worked very subtly at destroying that, and trying to keep me from being here for some fucking reason. I don't know..it's amazing, certain things are happening, and it's nice to realize that - wow, it wouldn't be as cool if she was here, as when she was the person she was with me. Very strange. Deep inside all the emotions you realize you do love this person and care about what happens to them. But, not to the point of being a martyr or hurting anyone in my life." - Axl
Source: The Making of Estranged - Part IV of the Trilogy!!!, 1994
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