What city is Guns N’ Roses song ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ about?
It’s one of the most iconic album openers in rock history. The second that you put on Guns N’ Roses‘ 1987 debut LP Appetite for Destruction, the descending riff to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ immediately pulls you in. Before you know it, Axl Rose’s high-pitched squeals and Slash’s razor-sharp riffs drag you headfirst into the world of Guns N’ Roses.
‘Welcome to the Jungle’ has a fairly well-known origin story. When Rose was making his way as a young teenager, he stepped off a Greyhound bus and came face-to-face with a street dweller. Sensing the naivety of the young kid, the homeless man barked some variation of the song’s title phrase at Rose. It left a lasting impression, as Rose used the experience to detail the glamour, horror, and hard knocks that come with living in a big city.
Thanks to Guns N’ Roses’ origins as a Los Angeles band, it is often assumed that ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ is about L.A. However, Rose has actually given different accounts about what specific city inspired the song’s lyrics. According to a 2007 feature in Rolling Stone, Rose recalled that it was a homeless man in New York City that inspired the song. “This black guy said, ‘You’re in the jungle! You gonna die,’” Rose recalled.
However, according to a 1988 interview with Hit Parader, Rose was inspired to write the song while visiting 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,” Rose claimed. “
Adding: “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.”
In the eyes of his bandmates, there was no doubt that Rose was talking about Los Angeles. “It’s about Hollywood streets; true to life,” guitarist Izzy Stradlin claimed in the same Hit Parader interview. When Slash was interviewed about the song’s meaning in 2015, he also believed it to be about the band’s hometown.
”It was a very telling lyric – just the stark honesty of it,” Slash told Classic Rock magazine. “If you lived in Los Angeles – and lived in the trenches, so to speak – you could relate to it.”
Check out ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ down below.