#100

Welcome to the Jungle
Guns N Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)



Olivia and I were in the car coming back from Babik and Maimau's (Grandpa and Grandma in Armenian) house and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N Roses came on. And this is where the idea came from. I could list a hundred or so songs that I think she needs to hear. Both because they are great songs and second because she will get to know me a little it better.

Admittedly the seed for this is the new Rosanne Cash album "The List" which as the story goes, her father Johnny Cash gave her a list of 100 country songs that he felt she needed to know. She recorded several of them for her album. My list is not in any particular order, so song #100 Welcome to the Jungle is no more or less relevant to song #37 whatever that may be. I'll post a new song on Tuesdays, since that is when new albums drop.

So Welcome to the Jungle.

I first heard Welcome to the Jungle in 1988. I was a freshman in high school and the first "metal chick" I ever knew Veronica Varconi (or something like that) was in my music class and she brought in a cassette single of Welcome to the Jungle to play during one of our classes. Our Music teacher, who had played back ground keyboards for Bon Jovi at one point, let us bring in music to play for the class. I had never heard anything like it before. Later that week I went over to the TSS store next to school and bought the cassette single. Which we wore out, until eventually buying Appetite for Destruction on tape.

GNR was at its raw creative peak. It was harder and angrier than anything else that was on the radio. It is the song that basically killed Glam Rock and opened the door for metal and heavier hard rock to become a mainstream style of music.

Musically it is a car with no breaks speeding towards a brick wall, though the chaos is contained as the instruments and vocals blend perfectly together. So basically 23 years later this song really holds up, its not nostalgia it is just a great great song.