The song "One in a Million" by Guns N' Roses describes singer Axl Rose's difficult experience moving from his small hometown to Los Angeles. The lyrics reference interactions with police, immigrants, and homosexuals that left Rose feeling scared and vulnerable. While some saw the lyrics as discriminatory, Rose and guitarist Slash claimed the song described Rose's personal experiences and feelings at the time. The song remained controversial but helped explain Rose's state of mind after relocating to a much larger city.

1. 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

2. 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.

3. • 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.

4. • 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.

5. 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.

6. Police and niggers, that's right
Get outta my way
Don't need to buy none of
your
Gold chains today
Now don't need no bracelets
Clamped in front of my back
Just 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:

7. 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 ****ing
disease
And they talk so many God
damn ways
It'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.

8. • 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.

9. • 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”

10. • 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”