Run Through the Jungle

Background

"Run Through the Jungle" b/w "Up Around the Bend" was the second 45 rpm Creedence Clearwater Revival released in 1970. Both cuts of this "double-sided" single record ended up to the Cosmo's Factory album in summer 1970. "Run Through the Jungle" peaked on the charts at #15 in Belgium and #23 in Finland.  

"Run Through the Jungle" is often misunderstood and comes to represent the war in the jungle of Vietnam. Fogerty is actually talking about the proliferation of guns in the United States that seemed to make it a "jungle".  Fogerty said he's not anti-gun; he only ponders whether the US Constitution guarantees the citizens the right to own machine guns etc. 

Creedence Clearwater was scheduled to travel to Europe in early April 1970. Time at the studio was already booked, but "Run Through the Jungle" and the flipside "Up Around the Bend" were not finished yet. With a gun (sic) pointed to his temple, Fogerty finished both numbers in one weekend. The band got them recorded next Monday on April 4.  

Recording session

The noises in the intro of the song were created by using lots of backwards recorded guitar and piano (Stu Cook on the Bayou Moon Internet Mailing List, 1996).  

Trivia

Phil Elwood, a San Francisco writer, had misquoted the words of "Down on the Corner": “Willie goes into a dance, the devil’s on the loose”.  Fogerty read that and thought, “That’s a cool line!” and added it into “Run Through the Jungle” (John Fogerty, Fortunate Son, 2015).

According to a radio interview with Tom Fogerty, "Run Through the Jungle" is his favourite of the songs Creedence Clearwater  recorded because it never changes the key. 

Cover photo

The photo of the back cover of the single (the most common version released in the USA, UK, Germany and other countries) was taken at Berkeley Amtrak Railway Station (700 University Avenue) on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay. 

Collector's notes

The "Up Around the Bend" b/w "Run Through the Jungle" single was released with a similar cover sleeve in France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA. It was different from the one launched in Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Netherlands and Turkey. There were two different Belgian cover sleeves (Peter Koers, Green River, 1999).

Live versions

Creedence Clearwater only played "Run Through the Jungle" live during the Mondo Bizarro Tour from July 1970 until October the same year. It opened the show. John Fogerty replaced the harmonica solos with a guitar. 

According to the newspaper story in the Los Angeles Times on August 30th, 1970, John Fogerty played the sax on "Run Through the Jungle"/"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" medley in the concert at Fillmore West on August 11th, 1970. It was the first time Fogerty played the sax on stage.

John Fogerty added the song to the set list on the Deja Vu All Over Again Tour in 2004-2005. He also played a harmonica on stage. The premiere during his solo era took place in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA, on November 6, 2004. After 2007, "Run Through the Jungle" made the set list more infrequently. For instance, during the Revival Tour in 2007-2009, he only played it five times. 

John Fogerty performed "Run Through the Jungle" in the first Cosmo's Factory album concert at Beacon Theatre in New York on November 17th, 2011. Fogerty also played the song on the subsequent Cosmo's Factory concerts in Australia in 2012, Canada in 2012 and North America in fall 2013. 

The Beacon Theatre concert in 2011 was broadcast live by Sirius XM satellite radio in the USA.  Sound files as per the fall 2013 concerts were officially made available. 

"Run Through the Jungle" appears on one of his three live DVDs: The Long Road Home (2006). 

In the movies and TV series

"Run Through the Jungle" appears in numerous films, including

• Air America (1990)

• Drift (2013)

• My Girl (1991)

• Radio Arrow (1998)

• Rudy (1993)

• Tropic Thunder (2008)

• The Big Lebowski (1998)

• The Sapphires (2012)

• To Heal a Nation (1988)

The song was also featured in an advertisement for the movie Argo (2012) but wasn't heard in the film itself (Dana Doak).

It is also featured  in a couple of TV series: 

• Entourage, episode The Scene (2004)

• Fresh Meat, episode #1.5 (2011)

• Hawaii 5-0, episode Kahu (2012)

• Stingray, episode Anytime, Anywhere (1987)

• Supernatural, episode Sin City (2007)

In literature

"Run Through the Jungle" gets a mention in the book The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It also recurrently appears in the manga series Black Lagoon.

Controversy

In 1985, Saul Zaentz, the boss of Fantasy Records, which owns the distribution and publishing rights to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, brought a series of lawsuits against John Fogerty, including a claim that the music from Fogerty's 1984 song "The Old Man Down the Road" was too similar to "Run Through the Jungle". Zaentz won some of his claims against Fogerty, but lost on the copyright issue. (Wikipedia)

Critical reception

"Excellent and athmospheric---" -Roy Carr, New Musical Express, July 25th 1970. 

"This is the “swampiest" song on the album. It is heavy and gloomy in a pretty unique way. Fogerty’s vocals are usually raspy, which accentuates the creepiness. Fogerty playing a rare harmonica is present on this track also." -Reaganista, Sputnik Music, January 16th, 2005.

"But if you're in for something spooky, then the scary as hell, menacing rhythms and the even more scarier grungy singing on 'Run Through The Jungle' sends shivers, real shivers, runnng down my back --- I remember that in my childhood, when I was all over Tolkien, I always used to associate the song with Sauron's forces conming out of the Black Gate of Mordor - a very authentic-looking association, too, if one assumes that the unsettling patches of 'white noise' that open and close the song symbolize the opening and closing of the gates." -George Starostin. 

Fans' views

"Gets me pumped up before sporting events."

"Defining period song - VietNam - student unrest etc."

Thanks to Petra and Robert. 

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