Guns N’ Roses have removed a controversial song from an upcoming album release, having contained lyrics such as “Immigrants and faggots, they make no sense to me.”

The track ‘One in a Million’ has been taken out of a forthcoming digitally remastered Appetite for Destruction reissue. Some editions include a remastered GN’R Lies EP, which originally contained the offending track. Often cited as the best selling debut album of all time, the original Appetite for Destruction has sold over 30 million copies globally since its release.

Axl Rose has previously defended the lyrics “Police and n**gers, that’s right / Get outta my way / Don’t need to buy none of your / Gold chains today,” speaking in 1992 “I was pissed off about some black people that were trying to rob me. I wanted to insult those particular black people.”

One in a Million’s second verse also contains these lyrics, utilizing rhetoric commonly associated with far-right political groups:

“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 fucking disease

And they talk so many God damn ways

It’s all Greek to me”

Guns N’ Roses are yet to comment on the song’s removal from the upcoming album release, though it is widely reported that it is linked to the songs lyrical content. The song was widely condemned at the time of its release in 1988.

The re-mastered album is available in editions ranging from £5.99 to £849.99 in price.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Axl stated that whilst he has never beaten someone up because of their sexual preference, he would “yell out the car window, ‘Why don’t you guys like pussy?‘ ‘Cause I’m confused. I don’t understand it”

He further attempted to defend his use of the word ‘faggots’ speaking of “some very bad experiences with homosexuals,” including an attempted rape at the age of 18 or 19.

When questioned on his lyrics deemed to be derogatory towards immigrants, Axl also spoke of poor experiences being served by immigrants in convenience stores. He continued: “Maybe I should have been more specific and said, “Joe Schmoladoo at the 7-11 and faggots make no sense to me.“

Then-bandmate Slash told the Rolling Stone magazine that “When Axl first came up with the song and really wanted to do it, I said I didn’t think it was very cool.”

Slash left the band in 1996, telling media that “Axl and I have not been capable of seeing eye to eye on Guns N’ Roses for some time. We tried to collaborate, but at this point, I’m no longer in the band.”

Then in 2016, Slash rejoined Axl in Guns N’ Roses after a near-twenty year absence. After playing a headline set at Coachella in 2016, the reformed band are set to headline the UK’s Download Festival next month.

Saturday tickets for the festival cost a £13 premium over Friday or Sunday, with Guns N’ Roses expected to perform an extended headline set.

The remastered album is set to be released on 29th June, and is the first ever re-master of Appetite for Destruction to use the original analogue master tapes.

Prices range from £5.99 for the standard one CD version, to a whopping £850 for a limited wooden boxed edition. The most popular edition is expected to be the 2-CD deluxe edition, with the second CD containing “18 highlights from Super Deluxe CDs with 7 unreleased recordings” alongside unreleased photos from Axl’s personal archive.

The ‘Locked N’ Loaded’ box is dubbed the “one true GN’R Holy Grail” by promoters, and includes four CDs, one Blu-Ray, fourteen vinyls of varying sizes, and a 32GB metal cross USB stick with every track in high-resolution 192kHz 24-bit quality.

Want to know more about the removed track, One in a Million? There’s an excellent blog post written by Harry Paterson for Louder Sound.

Main image credit: Raph_PH – Flickr