It’s amazing that he was able to make such a controversial song so boring.

Absolutely! It wasn’t at all unusual, even for other slurs. But gay slurs were outright common. Ffs, even in 91, my high school had a gym class playing “smear the queer” and that was the gym teacher calling it that. It wasn’t a secret, it was right out in the open. And that really was about the mildest kind of bullshit gay people had to deal with.

My best friend in high school was/is gay (still my best friend, still gay lol). He was mean as a snake, so nobody was dumb enough to directly attack him, but it was a real fear that it could happen, or that it could end up a planned attack by enough people when he was alone that his willingness to fuck people up wasn’t a deterrent.

By about 93, I had been going to the closer gay bars with him, and ended up bouncing at a few when I moved to the city for a while. It could get ugly fast at those places. Here in the south, the acceptance of gay folks still isn’t where it should be, but back then, we would have assholes showing up specifically to beat gay people. I’ve got a few scars from trying to keep our patrons safe and alive. All of us at the big drag club ended up with scars.

The sheer ease with which some of those sociopaths would drive into the city specifically to try and hurt someone they didn’t even know was disgusting. The police response was utter bullshit. A couple of times, people damn near died while we tried to keep things under control because the cops didn’t care. At least the ambulance people were fast, those folks were incredible, and always got there before the cops, despite being located farther away.

It’s one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to hate Axl. I’m amazed I didn’t end up thinking that way too, if I’m being honest. My family were mostly cool with gaydom (that’s an actual thing my aunt said once), but they still looked at it with pity and condescension. “Those poor people”. I have to laugh at it a little or it would make me sad.

Ehhh, Axl has gone on record about when and why he wrote the song, and why he used the words he used. He outright said that he didn’t like gay people unless it was lesbians he could watch because that’s his fetish. He did say that he was only using the slurs to point at part of the groups, but the way he said it was still both racist and homophobic.

Slash has said on the record that he objected to the song, and wished it hadn’t been made, but that (at the time) the band didn’t interfere with each other creatively. He also didn’t play much on the track, btw. Afaik, Axl wrote all the acoustic guitar on it, because he’s stated on the record that he sucked at the guitar and was essentially just strumming two strings. I’ve never seen any breakdown of who played what on the recording though, so I can’t say who is playing on the track.

However, Slash has also said that while he didn’t like the song, he wasn’t pissed at Axl because of it. But you can’t use that as a guideline for the song being acceptable or not because a shit ton of other musicians were quite vocal in their objections at the time (including the band that toured with them during that era, Living Color).

It isn’t anyone ascribing anything to him (axl), it’s what he himself has said in interviews, and on stage.

In later interviews he’s outright said that he as a person was a rage junkie (abridged version lol, he did a lot of interviews), and absolutely had hatred for gay people as a whole. He’s given multiple reasons for that, and none of those are self-contradictory. However, none of them excuse his behavior towards gay people.

As far as other things he’s said about his racial beliefs, I don’t know if it’s fair to say he’s full on racist, as in hating black people or any given ethnic group. What is fair to say is that his excuses for use the n slur in the song amount to stereotyping and was certainly intended to attack at least the black people he was stereotyping.

Now, I’m pulling this from having been a fan of the band since they broke into national awareness, and all the stuff I read and heard along the way. But, the interviews are usually available online. I know the Rolling Stone magazine stuff is. There’s still concert ,footage of him from the era ranting about being accused of bigotry, though that was pretty much just him saying “fuck you” to anyone that didn’t like him.

Very specifically, Axl has said that he wrote it from his own perspective, talking about his experiences and his anger. The “one in a million” sections of the song are him repeating something said to him in real life because he was a raging asshole (again, he’s said that on record).

So, the worst motives being ascribed to him aren’t ONLY because he isn’t well liked. Hell, I’ve still got the vinyl of Lies, and have the rest of the pre-breakup albums on at least CD, if not multiple formats. I don’t hate Axl, much less the band.

Knopfler has also been open about how his song was written, and it’s intent. It was, just as you said, holding up the kind of speech and behavior in the song to ridicule. That’s been his public stance on the song from the beginning, and it has never changed afaik. The lyrics support that stance. He’s told the story of writing down many of the lines from the song after hearing them in person by another person. The lyrics are saying that the musicians on stage and screen are the yo-yos playing Hawaiian music, so the f slur in the song would be directed at Knopfler himself even if he was writing from his own perspective.

I know, that’s a lot of words for a decades old song lol. But anyone that was a fan of the band back then had to negotiate the matter. My best friend still hates Axl because of the song. The debate about exactly how bad the lyrics are was a nearly daily thing for a few weeks after the EP came out. I never hated Axl, I don’t waste my hate on strangers very often (and never on strangers that can’t really do anything with whatever bullshit they spew). But I get why people do.

Born down in a dead man’s town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground End up like a dog that’s been beat too much 'Til you spend half your life just to cover it up, now

Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A., now

Got in a little hometown jam So they put a rifle in my hands Send me off to a foreign land To go and kill the yellow man

Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery Hiring man said, “Son, if it was up to me” Went down to see my V.A. man He said, “Son, don’t you understand, now?”

I had a brother at Khe Sanh Fighting off all the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms, now

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I’m ten years burning down the road Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A., now Born in the U.S.A. I’m a long gone daddy in the U.S.A., now

Born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I’m a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A., now