When you think about Guns N’ Roses, you think excess.

Excessive riffs. Excessive attitude. Excessive backstage carnage. Excessively long waits for albums. And, quite often, absolutely massive live shows. 🤘🔥

But here’s a statistic that’s genuinely bonkers.

Across the core original material released on Appetite for Destruction, GN’R Lies, Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II and Chinese Democracy, there are just FOUR songs that Guns N’ Roses have never performed live.

Four.

That’s it.

And even stranger?

🎩 Every single one comes from the Use Your Illusion era.

So grab the top hat, locate the nearest wah pedal and try not to start an argument with Axl Rose, because we’re digging into the four remaining members of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most exclusive clubs.

🎸 Guns N’ Roses Have Played Almost EVERYTHING

It’s easy to forget just how much of their catalogue Guns N’ Roses have dragged onto a stage at one point or another.

They’ve played the obvious monsters hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Welcome to the Jungle.

Paradise City.

Sweet Child O’ Mine.

November Rain.

You Could Be Mine.

Mr. Brownstone.

Nightrain.

But Guns have also been remarkably willing to dig into the cupboards and pull out tracks that more casual fans might not even recognise.

Their shows have frequently been enormous affairs, too. During the Not in This Lifetime… Tour, performances could comfortably stretch towards the three-hour mark, giving the band plenty of room for hits, covers, solos and deep cuts.

When researchers previously compared the band’s live statistics, they found that virtually the entire original catalogue had received a live outing. (Loudwire)

And yet these four little buggers remain.

1️⃣ “Don’t Damn Me”

💿 Use Your Illusion I – 1991

Right.

We need to start with the one that will probably make the biggest number of Guns N’ Roses diehards shout:

“HOW HAVE THEY NEVER PLAYED THIS?!”

“Don’t Damn Me” is an absolute belter.

Released on Use Your Illusion I, it’s got that snarling, dangerous GN’R energy running straight through it.

Slash fires off a filthy opening guitar riff before the whole thing erupts into the kind of frantic hard rock Guns N’ Roses were frighteningly good at making.

And Axl?

The bloke barely stops for oxygen.

The vocals race along at such a ridiculous pace that performing the track live night after night would probably require three lungs, an oxygen tank and the cardio fitness of an Olympic runner.

😂

Perhaps that has something to do with why it never became a live staple.

Whatever the reason, Guns N’ Roses themselves have still never given “Don’t Damn Me” a full live performance. (Hauraki)

There is one delicious twist, though.

Slash has since performed the song outside GN’R with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, meaning the riff has finally escaped captivity — just not at an actual Guns N’ Roses show.

Still counts as unfinished business in our book, mun.

2️⃣ “Get in the Ring”

💿 Use Your Illusion II – 1991

Now we’re getting into peak Guns N’ Roses chaos.

🔥🔥🔥

“Get in the Ring” isn’t merely a song.

It is basically an angry letter with guitars attached.

The track famously takes aim at sections of the music press and contains Axl challenging his critics in spectacularly confrontational fashion.

Subtle?

Absolutely bloody not.

But this was Guns N’ Roses in the early ’90s.

Subtlety had already been thrown through the hotel window.

The weird thing is that “Get in the Ring” feels almost designed for a live setting.

You’ve got the crowd noises.

You’ve got the aggression.

You’ve got Axl sounding ready to fight half the music industry.

You’ve got Slash tearing away underneath it.

Yet Guns N’ Roses have apparently never performed the complete song live. (Hauraki)

Imagine them dropping it into a stadium set today.

Axl:

“GET IN THE RING!”

50,000 people:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Security:

“Oh for God’s sake.”

😂🤘

3️⃣ “Shotgun Blues”

💿 Use Your Illusion II – 1991

Another Use Your Illusion II survivor.

And another track dripping with attitude.

“Shotgun Blues” isn’t one of the gigantic Guns N’ Roses songs that casual listeners immediately recognise, but it’s exactly the sort of nasty little deep cut that hardcore fans love.

It’s dirty.

It’s aggressive.

It’s confrontational.

It’s basically Guns N’ Roses distilled into four minutes of musical violence.

Yet somehow it never made the jump from record to stage.

According to the live-performance research, “Shotgun Blues” remains without a documented Guns N’ Roses concert performance. (Hauraki)

And that’s a shame.

Because imagine Slash ripping into that thing during a modern GN’R show.

The opening notes kick in.

Half the stadium looks confused.

Meanwhile, somewhere down the front, one 55-year-old bloke who’s owned every GN’R bootleg since 1988 immediately loses his mind.

“THEY’RE PLAYING SHOTGUN BLOODY BLUES!”

Beer everywhere.

Glasses gone.

Voice destroyed.

Worth it.

🤘😂

4️⃣ “My World”

💿 Use Your Illusion II – 1991

Ah.

Yes.

“My World.”

😈

Possibly the least surprising entry on this entire list.

If you’ve ever listened to Use Your Illusion II from beginning to end, you’ll know exactly what happens.

You’ve survived the sprawling majesty of “Civil War”.

You’ve had “14 Years”.

You’ve gone through “Yesterdays”.

You’ve been battered by “You Could Be Mine”.

You’ve experienced the enormous “Estranged”.

Then “Don’t Cry” returns.

And after all that…

Suddenly:

WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THIS?!

😂

“My World” closes Use Your Illusion II with just over a minute of bizarre industrial/rap experimentation that sounds like Axl Rose accidentally wandered into another recording studio at 3am.

It’s weird.

It’s aggressive.

It’s completely unlike almost anything else in the classic GN’R catalogue.

And yes…

Guns N’ Roses have never played it live. (Hauraki)

Of the four songs on this list, we’d say this is comfortably the least likely to suddenly appear in a set.

But then again…

Imagine the scenes.

A stadium goes dark.

Everyone expects “Paradise City”.

Then suddenly…

“YOU WANNA STEP INTO MY WORLD?”

Half the audience would think reality had malfunctioned.

We’d absolutely love it.

🌹 The Four Unplayed Guns N’ Roses Songs

So the surviving quartet is:

  1. Don’t Damn Me – Use Your Illusion I
  2. Get in the Ring – Use Your Illusion II
  3. Shotgun Blues – Use Your Illusion II
  4. My World – Use Your Illusion II

And that’s where things get particularly interesting.

Three of the four are sitting on Use Your Illusion II.

The sprawling 1991 double-album era gave Guns N’ Roses a mountain of material, yet remarkably almost all of it eventually found its way onto a concert stage. (Loudwire)

🤯 Even Chinese Democracy Has Been Properly Raided

This is perhaps the most surprising part.

You’d imagine Chinese Democracy would contain several songs that never escaped the studio.

After all, its famously tortured creation stretched across years, featured a dramatically different Guns N’ Roses line-up and arrived in 2008, long after Slash and Duff McKagan had left the band.

But nope.

The album was extensively represented during the Axl-led era, and its material continued appearing after Slash and Duff returned.

Even deep cuts such as “Prostitute”, “There Was a Time” and “Riad N’ the Bedouins” have been performed.

Meanwhile, songs originating from those sessions have continued emerging in reworked form. Recent years have brought material including “Absurd” and “Hard Skool”, while further reworked Chinese-era material has subsequently appeared in the live repertoire. (Loudwire)

GN’R clearly aren’t frightened of opening the vault.

Which makes those four Illusion tracks even more intriguing.

🎤 Could Guns N’ Roses Finally Complete the Set?

That’s the big question.

Because we’re now at the point where doing it would almost become an event in itself.

Imagine walking into a Guns N’ Roses show and suddenly hearing:

“DON’T DAMN ME!”

That would immediately become the story of the night for hardcore fans.

Forget “Sweet Child O’ Mine”.

Forget “November Rain”.

Forget Slash standing onstage looking cooler in a top hat than any human being has a legal right to.

The GN’R nerds would be on their phones screaming:

“THEY FINALLY BLOODY PLAYED IT!”

And there’s reason to never completely rule out a surprise.

Guns N’ Roses have repeatedly dusted off rarities and changed their repertoire over the years.

So could one of these four eventually disappear from the list?

Absolutely.

🔥 The Riff Report Verdict

The genuinely impressive thing isn’t that Guns N’ Roses have four songs they’ve never performed.

It’s that there are only four.

For a band whose career has included break-ups, enormous gaps between albums, endless line-up changes, infamous tours and one of the longest-running reunion stories in rock, they’ve covered a staggering amount of their catalogue onstage.

And if we’re choosing one that desperately deserves to break the curse?

🎸 “DON’T DAMN ME.”

Come on, Axl.

Come on, Slash.

Come on, Duff.

Give the hardcore fans five minutes of absolute carnage.

We’ll even forgive you for playing “My World” afterwards.

Maybe.

😂🌹🔫

🤘 OVER TO YOU, RIFFERS!

If Guns N’ Roses agreed to debut ONE of these four songs at their next show, which are you choosing?

🔥 Don’t Damn Me
🥊 Get in the Ring
🔫 Shotgun Blues
😈 My World

Drop your pick and defend it like you’re standing outside a gig at midnight arguing with your mates over the best Use Your Illusion album.

Because that’s what rock ’n’ roll journalism was invented for.

Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. 🤘🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

The Riff Report Blog