The jungle is one terrain I’m not very familiar with. Closest I have come to anything you could call jungle was in Puerto Rico, which has some stands of honest-to-gosh rain forest and some palm jungles, and those palm jungles I can tell you from unpleasant experience were mosquito factories.
Still, the jungle is a theme in many adventure stories, ranging from Tarzan to George of the Jungle. And, as it happens, it’s a theme in music, too. So this week, let’s start your weekend right with something a little different: Seven jungle songs.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight, The Tokens (1961): Funny story about this song; it was originally sung in Zulu in Swaziland, where the original title was Mbube, or lion. South African singer Solomon Linda was the first to record it in 1939. In the 1950s, someone named Miriam Makeba recorded it again, again with Zulu lyrics. This version came to the attention of American folk singer Pete Seeger, who wrote an English version. But Pete didn’t savvy Zulu, and the lyric that was originally “Uyimbube,” or “You’re a lion,” Pete wrote down as “Wimoweh,” which means, well, nothing. But then, in 1961, The Tokens, looking for a hit, recorded the most famous version of this jungle song.
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Run Through the Jungle, Creedence Clearwater Revival (1970): This song, despite what many people (including me) thought, wasn’t about Vietnam, but according to Creedence frontman John Fogerty, more about crime and unrest here at home. But the influence behind this instantly recognizable tune makes for a neat story, as Fogerty said:
There were so many more people I'd never heard of - like Charlie Patton (an early Delta bluesman). I'm ashamed to admit that, but he wasn't commercially accessible, I guess. I read about him, and about a month or two later, I realized there were recordings of his music. To me, that was like if Moses had left behind a DAT with the Dead Sea Scrolls or something! 'You mean you can hear him?! Oh my God!' And then when I did hear Patton, he sounded like Howlin' Wolf, who was a big influence on me. When I did 'Run Through the Jungle,' I was being Howlin' Wolf, and Howlin' Wolf knew Charlie Patton!
Who knew?
Jungle Boogie, Kool and the Gang (1973): In 1972, Kool & the Gang were looking to put out a jungle song. Their record label was pushing them to cover the old song “Soul Makossa,” but they didn’t want to do someone else’s song. So, they put their heads together and came up with Jungle Boogie, and it was a fun tune; no lyrics to speak of, just a great, thumping, slightly jazzy song to which one can, as we used to say, boogie on down.
Bungle in the Jungle, Jethro Tull (1974): This was, originally, meant to be part of the soundtrack for a movie that was never made. The movies was to be called War Child, which ended up being the name of the album on which this song first appears. Later, Ian Anderson said:
It was actually late '72 or early '73 when I was in Paris recording an album that never got released, although one or two of the tracks made it out in 1974, but that was at a time when I was writing an album that was exploring people, the human condition, through analogies with the animal kingdom. And that particular song was perhaps the more obvious and the more catchy of the tunes.
Steve Miller Band, Jungle Love (1977): Unlike many of the songs recorded and performed by the Steve Miller Band, this one wasn’t written by Steve Miller, but by his bass player, Lonnie Turner. Miller later wrote about this piece:
Lonnie came into the studio and said he'd written this little tune which he and Greg had recorded in a garage, and gave me a tape of it. That was the first time I'd ever heard Greg Douglass play guitar, and I asked Lonnie who he was and whether he was in town. They came to the studio the next day and we recorded the song in 45 minutes. I sang it, and that was it – all on the record, and then Greg joined the band for a couple of years. He's a really good guitar player.
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Guns & Roses, Welcome to the Jungle (1987): As you may have guessed, this great song isn’t really about the jungle. It’s about Los Angeles, as one might guess from the video. Supposedly, the song was written when the band was living on Sunset Boulevard, in a house filled with drugs, booze, and groupies. Frankly, I’d prefer a genuine jungle. Still, it’s a fun song, and not one to be taken too seriously.
Yello, Jungle Bill (1992): This one’s a little bizarre. The girl in the video is reportedly the daughter of one of the two members of Yello, and as for the meaning of the song, it’s anyone’s guess; but this is the Swiss duo who gave us the song Oh Yeah, which was immortalized in the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Any fun jungle songs I’ve forgotten? I’m pretty sure that there are a few. And, I’m pretty sure some of your readers will remember them, so let us know – as always, the comments are all yours!
