欢迎来到丛林 (1987)

"Welcome to the Jungle" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured as the opening track on their debut album, Appetite for Destruction (1987). It was released as the album's second single initially in the UK in September 1987 then again in October 1988 this time including the US, where it reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 24 on the UK Singles Chart.

On the 1987 release, the 7" was backed with a live version of AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie", while the 12" also contained live versions of the band's debut single "It's So Easy" and Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". In 2009, "Welcome to the Jungle" was named the greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1. In 2015, Sleazegrinder of Louder included the song in his list of "The 20 Greatest Hair Metal Anthems of All Time", placing it second. In 2021, Rolling Stone listed "Welcome to the Jungle" at 491 on their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

Background and composition

Axl Rose wrote the lyrics while visiting a friend 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." Guitarist Izzy Stradlin summarizes the song as "about Hollywood streets; true to life".

Slash describes the development of the music in his self-titled autobiography. As the band was trying to write new material, Rose remembered a riff Slash had played while he was living in the basement of Slash's mother's house. He played it and the band quickly laid down the foundations for the song, as Slash continued coming up with new guitar parts. "It was really the first thing we all collaborated on…" the guitarist recalled. "In that whole 'discovering ourselves' period from '85 through '86 – when we were living together very haphazardly and getting together and jamming – there was something going on that not a lot of people had. And this song just had this natural feel that was very cool."

The breakdown was based on a song called "The Fake" that Duff McKagan wrote in 1978 for his punk band the Vains. The bassist said it was the first song he ever wrote, and that it was later released as a single by that band.

According to Slash, the song was written in approximately three hours.

Rose claimed the lyrics were inspired by an encounter he and a friend had with a homeless man while they were coming out of a bus into New York. 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!" "It was a very telling lyric – just the stark honesty of it," said Slash. "If you lived in Los Angeles – and lived in the trenches, so to speak – you could relate to it."