Run Through the Jungle
by Creedence Clearwater Revival
- 136
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 65
- Danceability
- 5
- Acousticness
John Fogerty wrote "Run Through the Jungle" about guns. He had read that America held one gun for every man, woman and child, and found that staggering. Hence the line about 200 million guns being loaded. He said he had only the question, not the answer. Because of the title and the year, 1970, many assumed it was about Vietnam, especially after "Fortunate Son". Fogerty said so in a 2016 interview.
The jungle sounds at the beginning and end are lots of backwards guitar and piano, according to bassist Stu Cook. Fogerty played the harmonica. The song was released as a double A-side with "Up Around the Bend" and appeared on Cosmo's Factory. Tom Fogerty named it his favorite Creedence song and said it never changes key but gives the illusion that it does.
Years later the song was part of a legal fight. Saul Zaentz, whose Fantasy Records had owned the rights to Creedence's music, sued Fogerty and claimed that his 1984 song "The Old Man Down the Road" was too similar to it. The judge ruled that a songwriter cannot plagiarize himself. In 1993 the Supreme Court awarded Fogerty his attorneys' fees.
Run Through the Jungle runs at 136 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.76 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 441 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.