From: alexa@county.lmt.mn.org (Dave Alexander)
Subject: Re: GnR's One in a Million
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 21:21:59 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.192848.28166@cbnews.cb.att.com>, ddn@cbnews.cb.att.com (david.d.nason) writes:
> 
> Well I haven't looked the word up, but I know how it's used in this
> society, and I have to say that's about the poorest excuse for using
> the word that I've ever heard.  If he wants to use the word - fine,
> I'll support anybody's right to use any word they want to.  However,
> I find the word offensive and I find this justification for using it
> equally offensive.
> 

Why don't we read to what Axl has to say about it. The following from
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: -- walt, 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 buried-and 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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