Welcome to the Jungle

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“Welcome to the Jungle”
Single by Guns N' Roses from the album Appetite for Destruction
Released	1987
Format	Vinyl single (7", 12") Cassette CD
Recorded	1987
Genre	Hard rock
Length	04:33
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	Axl Rose Slash
Producer	Mike Clink
Guns N' Roses singles chronology
"It's So Easy" (1987) "Welcome to the Jungle" (1987) "Sweet Child o' Mine" (1987)
Appetite for Destruction track listing
"Welcome to the Jungle" (1) "It's So Easy" (2)

"Welcome to the Jungle" is the first track from Guns N' Roses' debut album, Appetite for Destruction, and also on their Greatest Hits album. The song peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their first significant hit single.

[edit] Origins

"Welcome to the Jungle" was written by singer Axl Rose and Slash. (Slash considers it the first song the band ever wrote together.) According to Rose, the inspiration for the lyrics came from an encounter he and a friend had with a homeless man while they were coming out of a bus into New York. [1] Trying to put a scare into the young runaways, the man yelled at them, "You know where you are? You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die!" This incident inspired the main lyrical declaration for the song. The eponymous line was also featured in the 1984 song "Underwater World" by the Finnish glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, whom Rose has acknowledged as inspiration.

While the New York incident inspired the lyrics, the song was written in Seattle, and described Los Angeles. In a 1988 interview with Hit Parader magazine, Rose stated, "I wrote the words in Seattle. It's a big city, but at the same time it's still a small city compared to L.A. and the things that you're gonna learn. It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want." [2]

Another line, "I wanna watch you bleed" was originally written as an allusion to AC/DC's "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)", and that song's lyric "I want you to bleed for me," but Axl changed the lyrics about a week before recording because the timing of the revised lyric was better.

And yet another line, "When you're high, you never, ever wanna come down, so down, so down, so down" refers to their drug usage. Their manager was afraid that one of them would burn out before they completed the music video.

Musically, Slash describes the development of the song in his autobiography, Slash. As the band was sitting around trying to come up with new material, Axl remembered a riff Slash had played while he was living in the basement of Slash's mother's house. Slash played it and the band quickly laid down the foundations for the song, as Slash kept on coming up with new guitar parts for it. He credits Duff McKagan as coming up with the breakdown. According to Slash, the song was written in about three hours, and was arranged virtually the same way as on the album right there. ^[1]

[edit] Video

In spite of the early morning airtime, the clip caught viewers' attention and quickly became MTV's most requested video. The video and single received another boost of publicity when "Welcome to the Jungle" was featured in The Dead Pool in the summer of 1988. It depicts scenes of Axl Rose getting off a bus, not wanting to do with any hedonistic activities. TV screens are seen depicting urban violence and we first see a set of TVs behind a store window, which Slash is sitting beneath, showing a screaming man. Axl is also seen in his glam rock attire while performing with his bandmates. By the end of the video, the once-meek Axl seen at the beginning has adopted his true rockstar fatigues.

[edit] Remixes

3 dance remixes of the song were released in 2007. 'Dirty Funker' released two of these, and titled them: 'Welcome to The Jungle (Uzi Suicide Remix)' and "Welcome to the Jungle (Dirty Dub Hole Remix)

The Uzi Suicide Remix, heavily samples the original song and adds a new drum beat and bass line with a slightly rearranged song structure. A sample of the song can be heard here: [3]

The Dirty Dub Hole Remix, uses infrequent samples of the original track over the new drum beat and bass line (from the Uzi Suicide Remix). A sample of the song can be heard here: [4]

The 3rd remix of the song was made by 'DLG' and titled "DLG VS G&R Welcome to the Jungle" This remix primarily samples the songs famous descending intro guitar line, and builds it around a new drum and bass line. The structure of the song is radically different than the original, and does not sample any of the vocals from the GN’R track. The song can be heard here: [5]

[edit] "Welcome to the Jungle" and Noriega

The song was famously used during the Operation Just Cause invasion of Panama in 1989. When Manuel Noriega fled to the Vatican Embassy in Panama, U.S. troops surrounded the embassy and played loud music. Noriega enjoyed opera and detested rock music in general.

The Washington Post News Service reported, "With U.S. troops at the Vatican embassy continuing to wage psychological warfare against Noriega by blaring rock music over loudspeakers and greeting him with a hearty 'Gooood Morning Panama'." And so, to irritate and intimidate him (and to enjoy themselves in the process), the troops set up their loudspeakers and blasted the Vatican embassy with some "good ol' kickass American rock 'n' roll" — Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" was the first song to come roaring through the speakers. These were eventually stopped upon request by the Vatican. A few days later, Noriega surrendered due to international pressure.

However, despite the popular conception that the music was a form of psychological torture aimed at Noriega, it has since been revealed that the entire operation was merely meant to prevent press organizations equipped with parabolic microphones from listening in on delicate negotiations occurring within the embassy Reference.

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[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Herbert A. Friedman. U.S. Psyop in Panama (Operation Just Cause).
• Danny Sugerman. Appetite for Destruction: The Days of Guns N' Roses. St. Martin's Press, 1991. ISBN 0-312-07634-7
• "20 questions with Steven Adler" [6]
• Music Video at VH1 Classic