November Rain
Axl
"Vocally, l purposely wanted the sound I have on that. I'm very happy with it, even though it's very abrasive. /../ One of the things like about the vocal roughness in "November Rain" is that anyone can think that they can sing it as good or better. They can feel like a part of it."
[James (1992) I, Axl, RIP - Sep/Oct/Nov, 1992]

Slash
"It’s a song that when it first surfaced it was Axl playing the piano. It was way before Appetite For Destruction came out, and we’ve been ditting around with it for years. It used to be like 25 minutes long. Everything’s that’s on the record, most of it, all the melodies and all that, just came off the top of my head. When we finally decided to record it, it pretty much came naturally. There’s some new stuff in it."
[Guns N' Roses: The Hits - 1992]

"I came up with most of the picking lines that go throughout the song when Axl was playing on a piano and I played it on acoustic. Usually you get an idea in a day, whether or not the song's worth doing. If you decide the song is worth doing, then you work hard on it during the course of a night, to get it to where everybody's comfortable. It evolves after that. When we'd finally gotten an arrangement for "November Rain," years later I came up with a couple of new parts. When we went in the studio, I came up with most of those solos. The tail-end solo, that high-pitched thing, I came up with when Axl came up with the piano chords a long time ago."
[No Illusions, Guitar - April, 1992]