Welcome To The Jungle
Axl
"I consider this song to be the most representative of what we're like. /../ 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."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]

Slash
"It's the perfect introduction to Guns N' Roses. /../ It came across, I think it was, on the third take. We did the whole album that way. Second or third take. That's where spontaneity comes from. If you don't get it by then, you've lost the feel of it."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]

"I was at my house and I had that riff happening and Axl came over and he got those lyrics together, and then the band sort of arrenged it. We got an arrangement for the whole band, 'cause that's how we work. Someone comes in with an idea and someone else has input and in that way everyone's happy. That came together really quickly too, that was arranged in one day."
[Guns N' Roses: The Hits - 1992]

""Welcome to the Jungle is the best example of a hands-down, definitive Guns N' Roses song. It was the first song I ever wrote with Axl. There was just that little guitar intro line, then the riff, then the next change, and that was it. We were rehearsing one afternoon and Axl got turned on to it. Then the whole band got involved, and the next thing you know, it became a song. It was written in about 15 minutes. Axl completed the lyrics while in Seattle, in part illustrating how L.A. looked through his own eyes in comparison to the smaller northwest city."
[Turner (2001) 10 Rockin' Riffs From Appetite, Lies, Use Your Illusion I-II, Guitar One - June 2001]

Izzy
"It's about Hollywood streets; true to life."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]