“Don't Cry” by Guns N Roses

"Don't Cry" is Guns N' Roses caught between tenderness and swagger, and it came out in 1991 twice over: the original-lyric take sits fourth on Use Your Illusion I, while a rewrite shows up as track 13 on Use Your Illusion II. The music is the same; only the verses change, with different words and a slightly different meter and melody. A third version, cut back in 1986 during the Appetite for Destruction sessions, surfaced only on the single.

Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin wrote it, and Rose shares the lead vocal with Shannon Hoon while Stradlin adds backing vocals. Slash and Stradlin play guitar, Duff McKagan bass and Matt Sorum drums, with Mike Clink producing and engineering and Bill Price mixing. The power ballad went top ten in the UK and the US, topped the charts in Ireland, Finland and Portugal, and got a video from Andy Morahan and Mark Racco.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.