Duff speaks out regarding "misunderstood" GNR lyrics

[Bridge]

In addition to the transcript, the link below also contains a couple video clips with Duff, one of them nearly an hour long.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/guns-n-roses-duff-mc-kagan-defends-misunderstood-80-s-lyrics-none-of-our-friends-said-grab-her-by-the-180822900.html

Some people might be surprised that Duff McKagan, the Guns N’ Roses bassist who penned the infamous lyrics to the R-rated Appetite for Destruction track “It’s So Easy,” would release a song inspired by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. But on his Shooter Jennings-produced solo album of sociopolitical commentary, Tenderness — which also addresses homelessness, the opioid crisis, and gun control — the father of two girls does just that with “Last September,” a fictional but all-too-real tale about a workplace predator.

It’s obviously a very different time now from the heavy-metal ‘80s, when GNR first exploded onto the scene and “everything was unprotected — drugs, needles, sex, all of that stuff,” McKagan acknowledges. But the 55-year-old rock legend tells Yahoo Entertainment that even back then, he and his bandmates had a sense of right and wrong.

“I'm sure stuff was going on, Harvey Weinstein stuff and all that, but we hated that! If we saw that stuff going on around us, we didn't allow it to happen around us. We were still good dudes,” he says. “None of our friends said, ‘Grab her by the pussy.’ You know what I mean? Who would say something like that? And I don't mean to be political against the dude who said that; it's just an idiotic, stupid thing to say, for any man. And that's the way I've always thought. So '80s, or now — I could've written ‘Last September’ in the '80s.”
   

As for the songs Guns N’ Roses did write in the ‘80s, McKagan stresses that tracks like “It’s So Easy” and “Used to Love Her” were supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, and that the controversial “One in a Million,” which employed two shocking slurs, was told from the point of view of a racist and homophobic character (similar to the bigoted protagonist in Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” which was also censored at radio). It was disappointing to Duff at the time when GNR’s songs were misunderstood.

“I went on BBC's Hard Talk for my first book, right? I did Hard Talk, and it was the woman on there, and she was very nice to me in the green room: ‘Oh, excuse me, what a great book, and you've got a lovely family, and this is so nice,’” McKagan recalls. “And the light goes on the camera, and she goes, ‘So: Turn around, bitch, I've got a use for you. You wrote that lyric. How do you explain that to your daughters?’ So, I'm glad we're talking about this in a different way [today].”

McKagan especially ruefully recalls the “One in a Million” backlash: “We were supposed to play David Geffen's big AIDS benefit in New York a couple months [after that song’s release]; we got pulled off of that. I remember getting on a plane flying back to Seattle, and an African American flight attendant came up and sat down next to me and said, ‘Do you really hate black people?’ I'm like, ‘Oh, fuck.’ Part of my family is African American. [Guns N’ Roses guitarist] Slash is half . So, people didn't put that together. Hopefully now, later, people can examine that song. And I think it's brilliant and super-brave of [GNR frontman] Axl [Rose] to step out and do that.”

As for whether the political-correctness pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, in this era of “cancel culture” and constant social media outrage, McKagan muses, “I think ‘P.C.’ is an overused word itself. Just come correct at all times. I don't remember anybody I hung out with using the N-word, or using the C-word. Just come correct at all times, then you don't gotta worry about, ‘Oh, shit, was I politically correct here?’ …If you're a dude, be a fucking man. Just be a human being. Use common sense. Don't be a dick.

“I gotta be a man for my daughters and for my wife, and I don't mean a ‘macho’ man — a man of thought, and a man of understanding, and a man of action. And I hope to take some action with this record, and it's positive, healing action for what's transpired, especially in the last few years here in America.”

McKagan isn’t the only GNR member who’s been politically outspoken lately. Axl Rose has become very vocal on Twitter, prompting a new hashtag, #wokeAxl. “Is that right?” McKagan laughs. “He is woke. ... If you're gonna try to outsmart him, or out-intellectual him, it ain't gonna work. You're gonna be in trouble. When Axl says something, I know how much he thinks about it first and he does research. If he says anything publicly, or tweets it or whatever, he's thought long and hard about it. It's not some anger tweet. So, go ahead and unfollow him, I suppose, if that’s the worst
thing you can do.”

Watch Duff McKagan’s entire Yahoo Entertainment interview about Tenderness in the video above. McKagan’s solo tour kicks off this week in Philadelphia.

[Walapino]

Thanks, nice interview! 

[jarmo]

Thanks for posting.

Yahoo decided to make a separate news story from that long interview regarding the lyrics....




/jarmo

[damnthehaters]

GNR now.     “No, no, no, we didn’t mean that.  We never did that.  We were great guys!”  Haha.  So all those stories about drugs and sex....getting women every night, fucking other guys girlfriends, bla bla bla.  I’m sure GNR always treated them with the upmost respect...🙄

Maybe you’re right Duff, you guys never said “grab her by ....”, but you did have a lead singer fuck another guys girl on the studio floor.  Regardless if that girl was ok with it, I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly a respectable thing to do right?  I’m sure you wouldn’t like that to be your daughter. 

These guys are getting ridiculous. 

[sky dog]

The lyrics are the lyrics. They wrote them, they published them, and they sold them as a product to the public. You can't explain them away....not then, not now, not ever. 

For a band of Guns N Roses stature and talent level, songs like Get In The Ring and Shotgun Blues are simply embarrassing and taint their legacy. They should never have been released on an album. IMO, they almost ruin UYI II due to ridiculously bad lyrics. One In A Million is just a down right mean spirited song. I understand where it is coming from (a scared, naïve white boy from a small town in Indiana) but it is brutal in it's delivery. Don't get me wrong, it is one of my favorite Gnr songs, but I would have been ok having them not release it for public consumption. Cornshucker didn't make the cut either. 

Duff can't explain that shit away because he is Mr. Good Guy now. Axl couldn't either back in 1988. It is what it is. 

[allwaystired]

The lyrics are the lyrics. They wrote them, they published them, and they sold them as a product to the public. You can't explain them away....not then, not now, not ever. 

For a band of Guns N Roses stature and talent level, songs like Get In The Ring and Shotgun Blues are simply embarrassing and taint their legacy. They should never have been released on an album. IMO, they almost ruin UYI II due to ridiculously bad lyrics. One In A Million is just a down right mean spirited song. I understand where it is coming from (a scared, naïve white boy from a small town in Indiana) but it is brutal in it's delivery. Don't get me wrong, it is one of my favorite Gnr songs, but I would have been ok having them not release it for public consumption. Cornshucker didn't make the cut either. 

Duff can't explain that shit away because he is Mr. Good Guy now. Axl couldn't either back in 1988. It is what it is. 

Get In The Ring and Shotgun Blues are far from embarassing. They're two of my favoute GNR songs!

I don't really see band members trying to whitewash the past- just point out it was a different era.

[GNR2014]

I've never really been a big fan of revisionist history tales, but I thought Stephen King's 11/22/63 was pretty entertaining.