One in a million by Guns N’ Roses

Written by Axl Rose Analisis of the lyrics

By Limardo - By Limardo - Pomponii – Pomponii – Iglesias 4º BIglesias 4º B

Introduction• One in a million is a song from the

album GN’R Lies by the American hard rock band Guns N’ Roses. The lyrics were written by William Axl Rose –band’s singer- and describes his experience when he arrived in L.A.

• Guns ‘n Roses has been one of the most polemic bands with their hard image and their attitude of “we say what we think regardless the consequences”. This gave the vision of Guns ’n Roses as a monster of violence and intolerance.

• One in a million has been very controversial, too. Even the album cover –it is a newspaper‘s front page- has an apology in an article titled One in a million because a lot of social groups like anti- racist associations, immigrants and homosexuals accused the band and especially Rose of homophobic and racist owing to the song talks very badly about immigrants, dark skin people and homosexuals.

• As result of that the band ‘s guitarist, Slash, said in an

interview that his partner and friend was a good guy from

Lafayette –a little town of Indiana ‘s State - and when he moved to

L.A he met a totally different society; so he wrote the song to

explain how much scared he was. Also Slash said that he totally

disagreed with One in a million and he would not play this song in a concert ever. However, he played the song two times in

1988.

THE LINES IN THE FIRST STANZA SAY:

Yes, I needed some time to get away

I needed some peace of mind

some peace of mind that'll stay 

so I thumbed it. Now it's six in L.A.

Maybe a greyhound could be my way

This verse is a clear allusion to his first travel from Lafayette to L.A. It meant an enormous change to move from a little town to a big city where finally he could not find his peace of mind.

Police and niggers, that's right Get outta my way

Don't need to buy none of your 

Gold chains todayNow don't need no bracelets Clamped in front of my backJust need my ticket 'till then

Won't you cut me some slack

First: the police. When he lived in Lafayette Axl was arrested twenty-two times for vandalism, mugging and for being drunk; that explained the phrase “Now don't need no bracelets”.

On the other hand there are dark skin people. He said that he did not refer to all dark skin people just only to the robbers who stole him when he arrived at the big city. He used the word “nigger” because of that.

In the second stanza Axl sings:

Immigrants and faggotsThey make no sense to meThey come to our country 

And think they'll do as they please

Like start some mini-IranOr spread some ****ing

diseaseAnd they talk so many

God damn waysIt's all Greek to me

He explained that was alright with the immigrants who came to his country just for trade. But he did not tolerate some attitudes of them. He said that sometimes they treated others like if the strange in the country were the Americans and they simulated not understand the language to try to rob you. For example, one day he entered in a self-service to buy with his friends and the cashier –an Iranian- took a knife and started to look at them very badly. When Axl paid what he had bought the immigrant did not want to give him the change saying that he did not understand the language. Axl had to threaten the cashier with death to get his money.

• But, on the other side, he did not tolerate the homosexuals. However he did not want to discriminate them when he wrote the song and he used the word “faggots” in allusion of the gays’ female attitude.

• After this interview the polemic slow down and the band continued with their carrier making great records and becoming in one of the best rock ‘n roll band ever.

• As far we are concerned we think that One in a million is a very personal song and can be misunderstood if you do not know Axl Rose‘s story; so you can think that he wants to discriminate all the social classes named in the song and not only the people who Axl referred to. In conclusion it is not a discriminatory song, but it is a very controversial one.

• In 1992 Axl Rose returned to speak about One in a million but the only thing he said was: “It was a way of expressing my anger and how vulnerable I felt in certain situations in my life. It's a song that I would not write today”