"Used to Love Her" is a short, sardonic hard rock song credited to Guns N' Roses, primarily written by guitarist Izzy Stradlin with lyrical contributions from Axl Rose and Duff McKagan. Composed around 1987 and first performed live at CBGB on October 30 of that year, it was released on the 1988 EP G N' R Lies on Geffen Records. The song originated as a darkly humorous parody of a self-pitying radio ballad, reportedly by Great White, about a mistreating girlfriend. Frustrated by the original's wimpiness, Stradlin rewrote it with a twisted punchline, turning the heartbreak narrative on its head with deliberately provocative black humor. Musically, the composition is built on a straightforward, riff-driven foundation with a simple verse-chorus structure and a mid-tempo groove rooted in basic rock-blues chord progressions. Its gritty, bar-band feel emphasizes rhythm guitar and a memorable lead guitar hook, while the concise arrangement prioritizes attitude and brevity over elaborate development. The song's no-frills approach and punchy construction made it well suited for live performance, and it became a fan-favorite deep cut that Guns N' Roses played regularly from 1987 through 1993 and revived during reunion tours in 2006 and 2016. Within the band's catalog, it exemplifies the raw, irreverent sensibility of their acoustic-flavored material, contrasting with the epic scope of their more ambitious compositions.
