"Dead Horse" is a song by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

. It appears on their 1991 release, Use Your Illusion I

Use Your Illusion I

Use Your Illusion I is the third studio album by the American rock band Guns N' Roses. It was the first of two albums released in conjunction with the Use Your Illusion Tour, the other being Use Your Illusion II. The two are thus sometimes considered a double album. In fact, in the original vinyl...

. The composition starts out with an acoustic section, which features a guitar riff written by lead vocalist Axl Rose

Axl Rose

W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...

. The electric guitars soon come in for the heavier section which dominates the song. After the final climactic chorus, the opening section is reprised for another bar. The song ends with an audio effect featuring the song being fast-forwarded.

Although the song was only released as a 5" CD single, a music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 was made in 1993 directed by Louis Marciano. This appears on the Welcome to the Videos

Welcome to the Videos

Welcome to the Videos is a DVD released in 1998 featuring music videos by the American rock group Guns N' Roses. All the videos featured were made between 1987 and 1994...

compilation.

Personnel

Guns N' Roses

• Axl Rose
  Axl Rose
  W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
  
   - lead vocals, acoustic guitar
  Acoustic guitar
  An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
  
  , production
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  
• Slash
  Slash (musician)
  Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...
  
   - lead guitar
  Lead guitar
  Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
  
  , production
• Izzy Stradlin
  Izzy Stradlin
  Jeffrey Dean Isbell , known by his stage name Izzy Stradlin, is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder and former rhythm guitarist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, which he left at the height of its fame in 1991. Following his departure, he led his own band Izzy...
  
   - rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
  , backing vocals, production
• Duff McKagan
  Duff McKagan
  Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan is an American musician and writer. He is best known for his twelve-year tenure as the bassist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
  
   - bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , backing vocals, production
• Matt Sorum
  Matt Sorum
  Matthew William Sorum is an American rock drummer and percussionist. Sorum is most famous for his 7-year stint in Guns N' Roses and supergroup Velvet Revolver , which is comprised in part of former Guns N' Roses members Duff McKagan and Slash .-Early career :Matt Sorum was born Matthew William...
  
   - drums, production

Additional musicians

• Mike Clink
  Mike Clink
  Mike Clink is a record producer who started his career as an engineer at Record Plant Studios, recording such bands as Triumph, Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth, UFO , Jefferson Starship, The Babys, Heart, Eddie Money and many others.Clink began producing in 1986...
  
   - nutcracker
  Nutcracker
  A nutcracker is a mechanical device for cracking nuts. Usually they work on the principle of moments as described in Archimedes' analysis of the lever...
  
  , production