One in a Million (Guns N' Roses song)


"One in a Million" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses. It is the eighth track on the album G N' R Lies and was released in 1988. The lyrics describe Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose's experience of getting hustled in the Greyhound bus station upon first arriving in Los Angeles.

Controversy

The song's lyrics caused great controversy among many different groups, and accusations of homophobia, nativism, and racism were leveled against Guns N' Roses' lead singer and song lyricist, Axl Rose. Music critic Jon Pareles noted that:
In a 1989 Rolling Stone interview, Rose explained the lyrics:
The cover of the GN'R Lies EP, which was designed as a mock-tabloid newspaper front page, actually contained an advance apology for the song, suggesting controversy was anticipated. A small "article" entitled "One in a Million", credited to Rose, ended: "This song is very simple and extremely generic or generalized, my apologies to those who may take offense."
In response to the following accusations of homophobia, Rose initially stated that he was "pro-heterosexual" and "I'm not against them doing what they want to do as long as it's not hurting anybody else and they're not forcing it upon me", and spoke of negative experiences in his past, such as a seemingly friendly man who let him crash on his hotel room floor and then tried to rape him. He later softened this stance, and insisted that he was not homophobic, pointing out that some of his icons, such as Freddie Mercury and Elton John, as well as David Geffen, the head of his record label, were bisexual or gay.
Axl Rose was also accused of being biased against police due to the negative lyrics in the song which mention them. Rose responded by claiming when he was a teenager he was once mistaken for a girl by two police officers, who then proceeded to make sexual comments towards him, infuriating him so much he attacked the officers, resulting in his arrest.
Nevertheless, others - including some of his peers in the music industry - accused him of racism for the use of the word 'niggers' in the song. When Guns N' Roses and Living Colour supported The Rolling Stones for a concert in Los Angeles in 1989, Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid publicly commented on "One in a Million" during his band's set. After hearing this, Rose in turn suggested they play the song for their opening act "just to piss them off."
By 1992, however, Rose seemed to have gained new perspective on the song and its lyrics. In one interview, he added, "I was pissed off about some black people that were trying to rob me. I wanted to insult those particular black people."
In his final public comments about "One in a Million" in 1992, Rose stated, "It was a way for me to express my anger at how vulnerable I felt in certain situations that had gone down in my life."
The song was not included on a 2018 box-set reissue of Appetite for Destruction, which otherwise included the remaining songs recorded for G N' R Lies on a bonus disc.
The song would continue to be decried later, as publications such as WMMR, Loudwire and Medium listed it last or near last when ranking Guns N' Roses songs from best to worst.

Response from bandmates

Before the release of Lies, the other members of the band tried in vain to make Rose drop the track from the record. Fellow GN'R member Slash, whose mother is black, noted that he did not condone the song but did not condemn his bandmate, commenting in a 1991 interview with Rolling Stone: "When Axl first came up with the song and really wanted to do it, I said I didn't think it was very cool... I don't regret doing 'One in a Million', I just regret what we've been through because of it and the way people have perceived our personal feelings."
In 1988, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin told rock critic Nick Kent that the lyrics simply reflected the poor race relations of inner city Los Angeles.
In a 2019 interview, McKagan said the song was misinterpreted, stating "One thing about Axl is if you’re going to try to compete with him intellectually, you’ve lost, because he’s a super smart guy... He’s a super sensitive dude who does his studies. When we did that song, I was still drinking but he was way ahead of us with his vision of, ‘Something’s gotta be said.’ That was the most hardcore way to say it. So flash-forward to now. So many people have misinterpreted that song that we removed it... Nobody got it.”

Personnel