GUNS N’ ROSES‘s video for the classic ballad “November Rain”, has surpassed two billion views on YouTube. The clip, which was first released 31 years ago, wasn’t uploaded to the platform until December 2009.

Released on 1991’s “Use Your Illusion I” album, the original version of “November Rain” clocked in at nine minutes and seventeen seconds. The accompanying music video follows the story of a troubled rock star (played by singer Axl Rose),his girlfriend (played by Axl‘s then-real-life flame Stephanie Seymour),and her mysterious suicide.

Back in 2018, the “November Rain” video became the oldest music video to reach one billion views on YouTube. “That was an epic production,” Slash recalled to writer Clay Marshall. “That was all more Axl‘s vision than anything I had to do with it. My contribution was (that) I would write my own part, where the leaving the wedding and doing the church thing was concerned. The way that (director) Andy Morahan shot it, I thought, ‘This is going to be the last thing I ever do,’ because these helicopters were flying (right) at me. I thought, ‘It’ll look cool doing it, and that will be my last day.’ Because it was such an elaborate production, being a very sort of stripped-down rock guy, I was like, ‘Oh, God. All this stuff!’ But it did come out pretty fuckin’ awesome. Now, all this time later, it’s more of a hats-off to Axl than anything that it’s reached that threshold. I always knew that that was a cool song. I never count my eggs as far as in advance how epic or how big, because always whenever you feel that is when it goes the opposite direction. You just do it; you enjoy it in the moment; and wherever it goes, it goes. But I always knew that that was a really great song.”

Slash revealed in his autobiography that an early 18-minute version of “November Rain” was recorded at a session with guitarist Manny Charlton (of rock band NAZARETH) in 1986, before the sessions for GN’R‘s debut album, “Appetite For Destruction”, began.

In a 2014 interview with HuffPost Live, Slash admitted that he didn’t know what the “November Rain” was all about. “You know what?! To tell you the truth, I have no idea,” Slash responded when he was asked about the meaning of the clip. “Well, it was a concept. The song itself is pretty self-explanatory, but the video is so complex. And I remember when Axl was writing it, it just became… It was so epic, it was like a movie. And I, not being a huge videos and making videos especially, I just showed up for my scenes. I (would) write my own scene and (I would indicate what I wanted to) do in my section. I never paid attention to the rest of the whole production. So at the end of the day, I never really knew… I knew there was a wedding in there somewhere and I was not into the concept of the wedding.”