they've been playing Don't Cry live since the club days before AFD came out
and it's one of the 1st songs they wrote as a band
http://www.gnrinfo.tk/Written by: "Don't Cry" was written by Axl and Izzy. Izzy probably wrote most of the music, while Axl and Izzy wrote the lyrics.
Written in: "Don't Cry" was written in late, 1984 or early 1985.
Performed live: "Don't Cry" was a regular in the setlist during the Use Your Illusion tour. It was probably performed for the first time in 1985.
In Their Own Words:
Duff: It's one of the first songs that we started playing as a band in the intercalation, and it really kind of put us across in the clubs.
Axl: It was the first song written for Guns N' Roses. Actually we weren't Guns N' Roses yet, but we were starting to become a reality, and Izzy and I wrote a song and we decided we needed to get back together
Axl: It was [about] a girl that Izzy had gone out with, and I was really attracted to her, and they split up, and we wrote the song.
Axl: I was sitting outside the Roxy, and you know, I was like really in love with this person, and she was realising this wasn't going to work, she was doing her things, she was telling me goodbye, and I like sat down, and just started crying, and she was telling me 'don't cry'. Next night we got together and wrote the song in 5 minutes. He'd been through some things with her, himself.
Axl: They liked Welcome To The Jungle and stuff, but Don't Cry was like the most popular song.
Dizzy: It's one of the only songs I remember from the club days, because it was like the only audible song, cos the band was so damn loud.
Duff: It was something we wanted to record for the first record but...
Axl: ... it never came out feeling right.
Axl: Since it was our most successful song, [we decided to] save it.
Shannon Hoon: I got it on a shitty ass tape from someone who knew someone who knew someone. I used to play in a cover band in Indiana, and we used to cover the song Don't Cry, cos there was song that no one back there knew - everyone back there were into GnR - but these were songs that wern't on the Appetite-album.
Duff: We didn't play it for four years.
Shannon Hoon: It was kinda an open mic night at the Record Plant in Hollywood. I was singing along with it, and I think, Axl came in and Axl asked me if I knew the song and I said 'yes', so he had a coupla background parts, and I went in a sang the background parts, and it sounded cool, and he was like 'oh, fuck, lets just sing the whole song together'
Axl: While I was recording the original version I started hearing another melody and words in my head. It really surprised me. I told Mike Clink, our producer, "Put me on another track! I don't know what's happening here but I've got a different song coming through my head and I want to get that on tape.
Axl: I prefer the new version
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