10 Amazing Rock Songs That Divided Bands
7. One In a Million - Guns N Roses
Dogging on a rock band for using offensive language in their songs is like criticizing Tim Curry for being too over the top. It comes with the territory a lot of the time, and encouraging bands not to swear in their lyrics only gives them incentive to push the envelope that much more just to spite you. When that language gets directed at other members of the band though, you can see why some problems might arise.
With Guns N Roses being on a high after Appetite for Destruction, they tried to keep the momentum going with GNR Lies, serving as a collection of acoustic material that they wrote in the meantime. Though this is the EP that brought us the ballad Patience, almost half of the band didn't really care for what Axl Rose had in store for One in a Million, which might be one of the more offensive tracks to ever be released by a mainstream rock band.
Playing a pretty seedy character in the song, Axl starts talking about the kind of people in the world that he hates, including using racial and gay slurs to get his point across. You can call it a sign of the times for him to use them openly, but making racial comments when Slash is already half black is enough to ruffle some feathers a little bit. There might be a lot of people claiming that the Use Your Illusion records started GNR's breakup, but the real divide probably started right here.