Welcome To The Jungle

by Guns ’n’ Roses

~ It’s an all-timer ~

Welcome to the Jungle kicks in the listeners teeth with a devastating riff cribbed straight from the best of Aerosmith (just ‘turn around’ the riff from Back in the Saddle and see what you get) and lyrics that scared the hell out of any suburban white kid with delusions of running away to the big city. But the entire song ebbs and flows with a verse-chorus structure that’s immediately recognizable, and punctuated by multiple interludes of alternate song structures, like the anti-distortion of “when you’re high you never / never wanna come down”.

Grantland did a great column back in 2015 about all-time great side 1 / track 1 songs that set the perfect tone for the rest of the album. Then they went one further and decided to focus on side 1 / track 1 / debut album songs — in essence, this is the introduction of the band to the rest of the world, as it’s probably the first thing you ever heard from them. There are some excellent ones that, if nothing else, set the perfect tone for what you expect from the band for the rest of their career- More Than A Feeling, Once, Lucky Star, Bring Da Ruckus, Black Sabbath, Running with the Devil, and Hannah Jane all come immediately to mind. But none of them are as devastatingly effective, complex, ball-busting, accurate, or perfect as Welcome to the Jungle, the all-time best side 1 / track 1 / debut album song.

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