From: alexa@county.lmt.mn.org (Dave Alexander)
Subject: Re: GnR's One in a Million
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 13:14:33 GMT

In article <17AUG199213354287@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov>, bimson@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (GREG) writes:
> 
> As far as I can recall, the last time I looked up the word nigger it 
> mentioned as the definition "An ignorant person".  Axl himself 
> apologized and defended the song, and many people, including blacks, 
> understood that the remark in the song was to bash ignorant people, 
> not *all* black people just those and other races that are ignorant.
> 
> Greg
> 

Here's what Axl had to say about it in Interview Magazine (May 1992):

INTERVIEW: 1 know everyone asks you this, but l want to ask for myself: What about 
the famous lyrics that caused all those problems? I think one of the lines was 
"Niggers and faggots, out of my way."

AXL: No, that's not what was said. That's what's being *said* was said.

INTERVIEW: O.K. Can you talk to me about this?

AXL: People have taken two parts that they were offended by and combined them into 
one sentence and said that's what I said. l find that amazing. What l said, and the 
first thing said, is, "Police and niggers, that's right, get outa my way." That's 
what I said.

INTERVIEW: You said what?

AXL: l said, "Police and niggers, that's right, get outa my way." I'd had four or 
five black guys trying to rob me who were all junkies. And a couple of other guys 
trying to sell me gold chains. l had just gotten off the bus and people were 
grabbing my backpack. It was a very scary, heavy situation for me. l just got off 
the bus, into boom "You're in Hell, son."

INTERVIEW: Just one thing --

AXL: And, a black man --

INTERVIEW: -- can you just straighten something out for me a sec?

AXL: Wait, wait, one second. A black man is the one who got me out of that 
situation, and l call him an angel. l always have. The police were shoving me out of 
the way.

INTERVIEW: Is this line a lyric, though, or is it something you said on the stage?

AXL: No, that's a lyric. It's a lyric in a song called "One In a Million." It was 
originally written as comedy. It was written watching Sam Kinison during one of his 
first specials. I was sitting around with friends, drunk, with no money. One of my 
friends had just gotten robbed for seventy-eight cents on Christmas by two black 
men.

INTERVIEW: And the other lyric, where you use the word "faggot"...I'm asking you 
this -- 

AXL: -- that's O.K. -- 

INTERVIEW: -- because l want you to talk to me about this thing where people say, 
"Axl Rose is homophobic."

AXL: Well, a lot of people have used the word "faggot," and they're not getting told 
they're homophobic. But, homophobia? O.K. I'll repeat myself -- this is something 
that l just said in Rolling Stone. I don't know, maybe l have a problem with 
homophobia. Maybe l was two years old and got fucked in the ass by my dad and it's 
caused a problem ever since, but other than *that*, l don't know if I have any 
homophobia. How was that?

INTERVIEW: Well...

AXL: That's a fact. That's something that happened and that's some of the damage 
I've been working on.

INTERVIEW: Jesus!

AXL: O.K. So anyway, homophobia? The song is very generic. It's very vague, it's 
very simple, it was meant to be that way, it was written that way. It was like, 
O.K., I'm writing this song as l want to -- l want this song to be like "Midnight 
Cowboy." That guy was very naive and involved in everything. The cowboy. My friend 
who got robbed, he was like Dustin Hoffman's character. l wanted the song to be 
written from that point of view. l wrote it to deal with my anger and my fear and my 
vulnerability in that situation, that l still felt uncomfortable with, that happened 
to me. That was the "police and niggers" line. But now we move on to another line 
that says, "Immigrants and faggots, they make no sense to me/ they come to our 
country and spread some fucking disease." O.K., l wrote that, being a songwriter, 
and being an abstract songwriter and using my artistic license. The "immigrants" 
line, the part that says they come to our country -- wait, I just said my own verse 
wrong. I said what someone else said it was, that I'm really upset about. Sorry. It 
says, "Immigrants and faggots, they make no sense to me/ they come to our country 
and think they'll do as they please / like start some mini-Iran, or spread some 
fucking disease / and they talk so many goddamned ways / it's all Greek to me." 
O.K.? I can understand not understanding what the hell I meant in that, because I 
jumbled two thought patterns together.

INTERVIEW: Among other things, that was interpreted as though you're saying stuff 
about AIDS.

AXL: It goes back and forth, it twists... Well, I am saying stuff about AIDS. The 
line about "faggots" was written after I heard a story from a sheriff about a man 
they had just arrested after just releasing from jail, and he had AIDS, and he was 
back out on Santa Monica Boulevard hooking. We were like, "Oh, my God." And this 
just happened to get stuck in the song, since we had a radical line like "police and 
niggers" --  we might as well go all the way now, we'll write something else just as 
obnoxious, because we were just writing off-color humor at the time. We were dealing 
with a situation that was really heavy, ugly, and scary, and so we were making light 
of it. l was being encouraged to write as l was writing.

INTERVIEW: Are you saying to me that you wrote what was going on in your mind?

AXL: And what was going on in the room I was in. And what was going on with a lot of 
people that I knew. There was a lot of confusion about a lot of issues, a lot of 
confusion about racism. We were being told this is "We Are the World." It wasn't 
fucking "We Are the World." It was "We Are the World" for a chosen few who did a 
nice little song or something, but dawn in the streets, it was war. That was being 
just glossed right over. People have said that I've devastated the consciousness of 
"We Are the World" and rah-rah-rah -- It's like, "No, your 'We Are the World' 
consciousness was a nice try, but all it did was gloss over the shit that's going 
on.'" And somehow, by some freak act of God, l exposed it all. You know? And people 
had to deal with the issues.

INTERVIEW: So you're saying to me that you exposed what was around you and yourself?

AXL: Yes.

INTERVIEW: Would you say that these acts of self-exposure are because of your own 
needs to know why you feel that way about all these things?

AXL: Yeah, about certain things. But there wasn't really any racism in my family or 
any thing. l didn't experience racism until l came to L.A. Then we move on to the 
gay issue. I hitchhiked a lot and I got hassled an awful lot. I was very naive, and 
very tired, and a guy picked me up and said l could crash at his hotel, and l woke 
up with the man trying to rape me. l almost killed this man, l was so frightened. l 
had a straight-edge razor and was freakin' out: Don't ever touch me again! Then the 
guy ran out the door. l was so scared and l felt so violated. l didn't know that l 
felt even more violated than l was in the situation because of what had gone on in 
my childhood and what l had pretty much buriedand didn't even remember.

INTERVIEW: When did you find that out? Was it with your father or your stepfather?

AXL: it was my real father.

INTERVIEW: When did you find it out?

AXL: l suspected it about two years ago, because all of a sudden the thought crossed 
my mind. When it crossed my mind l had to stop the car and I just broke down crying. 
Such an outpouring had never come out of me.

INTERVIEW: Now that you understand, if you hear that a man is gay how does it make 
you feel?

AXL: People can do whatever they want to, but I'm more pro-hetro. I'm not knocking 
it -- I have friends that are gay. It's just that it's not my cup of tea, l guess. 
That's all. People can do what they want. l can sit and watch the Madonna movie and 
enjoy it very much and feel I'm learning something, and then I have other friends 
that can't handle it at all.

INTERVIEW: I should tell you, because we're talking to each other about all this so 
honestly and I'd feel dishonest, I'm gay.

AXL: Mmmm.

INTERVIEW: Uh...

AXL: I don't make any judgment, you know. Sometimes we can be stupid, like somebody 
rooting for their team and just going, "Oh, our team's the best." That song sounds 
like l am, because when we went in the studio it came out very forceful. l played it 
on guitar and it was done very slow and in a different tone of voice and done very 
humorously. Well, that didn't work out when we recorded it because I had Duff play 
it on guitar -- because he could play it better and in better time -- and Izzy put 
this other guitar thing to it, and it evolved into something of its own. We didn't 
plan that song to be as forceful as it was. We walked into the studio, and boom, it 
just happened.

INTERVIEW: I think that self-exposure is a very important thing; it's how you find 
out who you are. Although the context is completely different, a lot of this 
conversation is reminding me of Robert Mapplethorpe and all the issues of self- 
censorship that came up with his work. People can like it, they can hate it, and, 
unfortunately, it can even fuel more awful prejudice, but the way we learn about 
human consciousness is when people show their truth like he did.

AXL: That's the issue that I dealt with on "One In a Million" all the time. it's 
very strange because l know -- I didn't realize it then -- but, I know there's 
people in, say, Louisiana, where giving them that song is like giving them a gun and 
telling them, "It's O.K., go shoot those you're prejudiced against." It's a rough 
one. I mean, Freddie Mercury and Elton John are, like, two of the biggest Influences 
in my whole life. And probably always will be. If someone asked me if I could have 
anything in the world, what would l want? If l could own anything, like owning a 
piece of art, l think it would be Elton John's publishing, on his first seven 
albums. I don't want the money. Being able to own those songs Is like owning a 
painting of someone you admire.

INTERVIEW: Axl, you live in L.A., right?

AXL: Yes. Wait, can l talk about another line In the song?

INTERVIEW: Sure.

AXL: The other line, the "immigrants" line. I've only performed the song "One In a 
Million" twice. l don't perform it, because l think it's too dangerous and l don't 
trust people with the song. I don't trust the audience with the song. I don't want 
to do "One in a Million" on stage and know that there's a lot of people out there in 
the crowd who are prejudiced and it's gonna help fuel their fire. It's enough to 
handle the fact that it's on a record and people use it for their own anthems for 
their own prejudiced-ness. I question myself every day. Should l pull it? Should I 
leave it? Do l leave it for the sake of artistic integrity? Do I pull it, do I 
censor myself? But wait, I'm against censorship. It's a really hard issue to 
constantly deal with. The only way to deal with it is to communicate about it. l 
don't like the damage that that song does, l don't like the prejudiced-ness, l don't 
like the way the song fuels people's prejudiced-ness, and that's a problem for me. l 
made an apology on the cover of the record. Looking at it now, it's not the best 
apology, but it was the best apology l could make back then. l knew people were 
going to be offended, and it says my apology is to those who take offense. Or to who 
may be offended, whatever it says. I was trying to explain the reasons why I was 
expressing myself in this way and apologizing if it did offend people. The apology 
is on the cover of every record. it's not a sticker; it's part of the cover. It's 
stuck in there with all kinds of other things on the cover -- it's done like a 
National Enquirer thing. l wrote it myself and put it on there, it was my Idea, and 
it's like it's been refused to be acknowledged. "One in a Million" has been used 
continually against Guns N' Roses and against myself, no matter what l had to say 
about it.

INTERVIEW: Why, do you think?

AXL: In order to deal with "One in a Million" properly, you had to accept the fact 
that certain things really exist. But for whatever reasons -- I don't know, whatever 
negative forces there are -- it was just decided to take one point of view and 
continually shove that dawn people's throats. It helped make money. It helped make a 
lot of people money. Because people could just get in there and needle and fuel up 
peopIe's anger and make money: "Wait, we've got nothing to write about. Let's write 
about 'One in a Million,' let's talk about that now. Go!" We've got some attention 
because we've got controversy and we've got an ugly scandal, rah-rah-rah. But l 
think that "One In a Million" has done some good, too. People have thought about 
what racism means In their own life by being pissed off at Axl Rose, and made 
decisions and even acted on those decisions, and many were positive. There's a lot 
of negative ones too, but some were positive. It forced people to speak when they 
heard it.

INTERVIEW: It also -- 

AXL: They had to take a side on how they felt about these issues. That's a strange 
amount of power for a song to have.

INTERVIEW: It also empowers people to say, "That's not good enough. We don't want to 
hear lyrics like that."

AXL: It gives them theIr choice.

INTERVIEW: Would you say that the reaction to the lyrics helped you change?

AXL: Yes, to be able to rise above it, and deal with it, and not be crushed by 
certain negativity.

INTERVIEW: And be open about it.

AXL: Yes, it definitely helped me to be able to change. I went out and got all kinds 
of video tapes and read books on racism. Books by Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. 
Reading them and studying, then after that l put on the tape and l realized, "Wow, 
I'm still proud of this song." That's strange. What does that mean? But l couldn't 
communicate as well as do now about it, so my frustration was just turned to anger. 
Then my anger would be used against me and my frustration would be used against me: 
"Look, he's throwing a tantrum."

INTERVIEW: You've got a big tour this summer, right?

AXL: Yes, a nIce, big, fun tour. What l didn't get back to was the line In "One in a 
Million" that wrote about immigrants. I wasn't really living anywhere and I'd been 
hassled a few times in convenience stores and gas stations, and told by the way l 
looked that I couldn't even go Into stores. At one store I'd been chased out with a 
butcher knife just because the guy went crazy. It was just my frustration with 
dealing with all that in L.A. I wasn't condemning people from other countries. 
People like to say that that's what my thoughts were. No. Just because the lines 
were real, simple, and angry, they're reading a lot more Into it than was really 
there. The last verse has always been Ignored.

INTERVIEW: What is it?

AXL: It has a line that says, "Radicals and racists, don't point your finger at me." 
Then it says, "I'm a small-town white boy." People have taken that like that's 
wavIng a flag that I'm pro-white or something. To say "small-town white boy" at the 
time that l put that In that song was something you didn't say. You didn't say that 
when you were trying to play the rock clubs, you'd just gotten to Hollywood, and 
people are going, "You look like you just got off the boat. Are you some fucking 
hick from Indiana, or what?" Or whatever. I was saying, "Look, yeah, I'm this naive, 
confused, small-town white boy, and l have a lot of problems, so racists, don't 
point your finger at me and go off and say I'm one of you, or whatever. And 
radicals, don't you be going off on me and saying I'm on your side or against your 
side or whatever."

-- Alex --


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