Guns N' Roses' video for 1992 single November Rain has now been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube.
Originally featured on part one of the Los Angeles hard rock band's two volume 1991 set Use Your Illusion I and II, November Rain was selected as the third single from the collection.
The song reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, with much of its popularity attributed to its epic nine minute 16 seconds video, directed by British video director Andy Morahan, based on a story by Gn'R collaborator/songwriter Del James. The storyline focuses upon a troubled, grieving rock star (played by Axl Rose) struggling to process the loss of his partner (portrayed by Rose's real-life girlfriend Stephanie Seymour) who died by suicide after learning of her lover's repeated infidelities.
The famously-expensive video, which cost a reported $1.5 million to make, features a number of set-pieces: a wedding in a white chapel, Guns and their girlfriends chilling at LA's infamous Rainbow Bar And Grill, footage of the band onstage at The Ritz club in New York, a helicopter-filmed sequence of a bare-chested, cigarette-smoking Slash soloing outside the church, and scenes with an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen, who would go on to work with Metallica on their 1999 S&M album.
As reported by Blabbermouth, in a 2014 interview with HuffPost Live, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash admitted that he wasn't fully clued-in as to the concept of the video.
"You know what?! To tell you the truth, I have no idea," he replied when questioned about its meaning.
According to former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former US President Donald Trump believes the video to be the greatest music video of all time.
"The president told Hope [Hicks] and me in the Oval [Office] he wanted the classic Guns N’ Roses song November Rain added to his rally playlist,” wrote Huckabee in her book Speaking For Myself. “He told us it was ‘the greatest music video of all time’, and made us watch it to prove his point, even though neither of us disagree.”
Axl Rose performed a tender, emotional version of November Rain last month at a memorial service for his friend Lisa Marie Presley at Graceland, her childhood home in Memphis, Tennessee.
