Guns N' Roses' 1987 single "Welcome to the Jungle" has become one of rock's most instantly recognisable opening tracks, now regularly played at sporting events and used in films and adverts, and it currently opens the band's live setlist as they begin the North American leg of their tour in Raleigh, North Carolina. Despite its later ubiquity, the song was not an immediate success on release, and its rocky path to prominence is a reminder that even now-iconic hits often struggled to gain initial traction with gatekeepers such as MTV and radio.

The track, the first song the full band wrote together, was reportedly composed in around three hours, built from a riff guitarist Slash had already been playing, with drummer Steven Adler, bassist Duff McKagan and singer Axl Rose quickly adding parts; Slash created the song's tense intro using a cheap Boss guitar pedal. Released in the US in September 1987 as the lead single from debut album "Appetite for Destruction" (which followed the UK's first single, "It's So Easy"), the album initially sold poorly and barely charted, while MTV was reluctant to give the "Welcome to the Jungle" video mainstream exposure, instead slotting it into the new, niche Headbangers Ball programme before wider airplay eventually turned its fortunes around.