One in a Million (Guns N' Roses song)
| "One in a Million" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Guns N' Roses from the album G N' R Lies | ||||
| Released |
 November 30, 1988 December 17, 1988 |
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| Recorded | Rumbo Studios, Take One Studio & Image Studio | |||
| Genre | Folk rock, acoustic rock | |||
| Length | 6:09 | |||
| Label | Geffen Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Axl Rose | |||
| Producer(s) | Guns N' Roses Mike Clink |
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| G N' R Lies track listing | ||||
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"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 GN'R singer Axl Rose's experience of getting hustled in the Greyhound bus station upon first arriving in Los Angeles. The song is notable not only for its controversy, but also for being one of the first Guns N' Roses songs that Axl Rose wrote solo. According to interviews, Rose wrote "One In A Million" on guitar (with which he was not proficient at the time), using only the bottom two strings. This differs from other Rose-written Guns N' Roses songs, which Rose composed on piano or keyboards. This is the first Guns N' Roses song to feature piano, played by Rose on the outro.
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:
With "One in a Million" on "G 'n' R Lies," the band tailored its image to appeal to white, heterosexual, nativist prejudices, denouncing blacks, immigrants and gays while coyly apologizing "to those who may take offense" in the album notes.
In a '89 Rolling Stone interview, Rose explained the lyrics "I used words like police and niggers because you're not allowed to use the word nigger. Why can black people go up to each other and say, "Nigger," but when a white guy does it all of a sudden it's a big put-down. I don't like boundaries of any kind. I don't like being told what I can and what I can't say. I used the word nigger because it's a word to describe somebody that is basically a pain in your life, a problem. The word nigger doesn't necessarily mean black. Doesn't John Lennon have a song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World"? There's a rap group, N.W.A., Niggers with Attitude. I mean, they're proud of that word. More power to them. Guns N' Roses ain't bad. . . . N.W.A. is baad! Mr. Bob Goldthwait said the only reason we put these lyrics on the record was because it would cause controversy and we'd sell a million albums. Fuck him! Why'd he put us in his skit? We don't just do something to get the controversy, the press."
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