‘One in a Million’: the Guns N’ Roses song that no one needs to hear
Let’s be real here, it’s not just that there’s only one good Guns N’ Roses album. It’s that there’s precisely one set of good Guns N’ Roses songs.
That might sound like a tautology, but stay with me here. Appetite for Destruction is one of the best debut albums ever made. An absolute masterpiece of welding the hooks and fun of glam metal to the genuine edge and sleaze that hard rock had left behind in its journey to the top of the charts.
Years before Nirvana put glam metal out of its misery in the early 1990s, Guns N’ Roses actually did the harder job of the two bands. They made all those glam metal clowns look old and past it by doing their job better than all of them. For a about a year or so, Guns N’ Roses had a real convincing argument to be the best band in the world. Then they started releasing new material and shot that argument right in the foot. Which begs the question, has there been a good Guns N’ Roses song since ‘Rocket Queen’ faded out?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Of course there are! ‘November Rain‘? ‘Don’t Cry’? ‘You Could Be Mine’? What are you talking about?!” Those would be convincing arguments if those songs were good. There are moments where they spark into life, the problem is that those three songs clock in together at about 20 minutes and are based around about three minutes of actual songwriting, of actual inspiration. Thus, wading in the putrescent waters of post-Appetite Guns N’ Roses for one song that no one needs to hear should be a tough question.
Except it’s not, is it? If you know anything about the band beyond ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’, you know exactly the song I’m talking about. A song that even an ego as titanic as Axl Rose’s can see is an embarrassment and a stain on his legacy.
You all saw this Guns N’ Roses song coming, right?
So, ‘One in a Million’ then, eh? Otherwise known as a song so virulently bigoted, the band printed an apology for it on the cover of the EP it was released on, G N’ R Lies. To this day, it’s infamous for being the song where Axl Rose’s homophobia and racism spilled over in the most explicit and vulgar way possible. This may not be the first time that some of the worst slurs in the English language have been used in a pop song, but rarely have they been used quite so bluntly.
It’s not even that he’s using them for some kind of satirical effect, ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ style. As Jello Biafra knows today, that didn’t make it OK to say those words at the time. However, it’s one thing to make a satirical comment on white, middle-class men who think they understand the struggle that minorities go through and what Axl Rose is doing. Which is, essentially, giving voice to the millions of people oppressing those minorities
‘One in a Million’ really is, quite simply, an entire song about how Axl really fucking hates the fact that he has to breathe the same air as gays, immigrants and Black people. If you think this is me being soft, then read the lyrics and see if you can find a different reading of this rancid hate anthem. One whose music also sounds like tired old bollocks, even if they had scrapped the lyric to it, but that’s beside the point.
A potent song to keep in mind whenever people talk about the lie that is ‘cancel culture’. Guns N’ Roses got away with this, and Morgan Wallen did the same over three decades later.
And no, I’m not putting a link to the video below. If you really must, find it yourself. Instead, here’s a song by a band unlucky enough to share a stage with Guns N’ Roses shortly after this abomination came out, who called Axl and co out on their bullshit at the time. More power to them.
