Born to Be Wild
Born to Be Wild is a hard rock song composed by Mars Bonfire by the American-Canadian band Steppenwolf from 1968, which appears in the movie Easy Rider .
History of origin
The composer of Born to Be Wild is Mars Bonfire , the stage name of Dennis Edmonton, whose brother was the drummer for Steppenwolf. Bonfire himself spent a short time with John Kay as a member of the band Sparrows, the Canadian predecessor group of Steppenwolf. Bonfire came up with the idea for the song when he saw an advertising poster on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles that said "Born to Ride". It showed a motorcycle that seemed to explode from a volcano. Basically, however, the title was inspired by driving his first own car, a Ford Falcon .
Born to Be Wild was one of the eleven tracks for the band's first LP, produced by Gabriel Mekler, under the title Steppenwolf . It was created in September 1967 with a recording time of four days in a restaurant converted into a recording studio on an eight-track tape recorder . The recording studio was American Recording Co. , was in Calabasas ( Los Angeles County ) and belonged to Richard Podolor . The mastering of the recording took place in the Bell Sound Recording Studios .
Characteristic for almost all tracks is the Fuzz guitar ( Fender Stratocaster ) by lead guitarist Michael Monarch, who takes turns leading the melody with the Hammond organ (B3) played by Goldy McJohn Goadsby . The lead guitar performed a repetitive fuzz riff that made the melody memorable. Drummer Jerry Edmonton McCrohan († 1993) enriched the piece with drum fills , already in the intro the drums come to the fore with violent cymbal beats at the downbeat . The text is about the adventure with the car on the highway and the love of the protagonists to the heavy metal thunder ( English heavy metal thunder ). This refers to driving in the car and not to the heavy metal music style . The term "Heavy Metal Boy" coined William S. Burroughs in the Nova trilogy The Soft Machine (1961).
Publication and Success
The album Steppenwolf was released in the US on January 29, 1968 and was able to penetrate to number 6 on the Billboard LP charts . The first releases from this were the singles The Ostrich (October 1967) and Sookie Sookie (February 1968), both of which did not make it into the charts. It was only when Born to Be Wild / Everybody's Next One ( Dunhill Records 4138) was released in May 1968 and became known to a larger audience on May 4, 1968 in American Bandstand , did the single hit the Billboard Hot 100 on July 13, 1968 . However, she could n't displace the number one hit People Got To Be Free by the Rascals and stayed in second place for 3 weeks. The song sold over a million copies and became the number one hit in Canada in 1968 . The cult song developed into the band's most successful single from the debut album Steppenwolf . In September 1968 the single received gold status in the United States . In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine put the title at number 129 in the list of the 500 best songs of all time . In 2009, VH1 took him to number 53 on the list of the best rock songs of all time.
Film music
After filming the cult film Easy Rider between February and May 1968, film producer Peter Fonda originally planned Crosby, Stills & Nash for the soundtrack . For the time being, however, he initially selected the two Steppenwolf songs The Pusher and Born to Be Wild as well as 13 other background music from other performers. However, since the Steppenwolf songs fit thematically very well with the road movie , they were retained in the film. Born to Be Wild runs to the background of the title sequence , when the two motorcyclists were on their way to New Orleans with their chopper motorcycles and drive on the American highways, including Route 66 . "The motorcycles seem to be propelled by Steppenwolf's repetitive and hard rhythms, strong bass lines and rich sound," recognized the film critics . The film first ran on May 12, 1969 at the Cannes Film Festival and made its debut on July 14, 1969 in New York City , one year after the single was released . Not least because of the road movie, Born to Be Wild became the greatest motorcycle song in music history. In everyday life he is often associated with motorcycle rockers . The cult film and the song, which has since become a biker anthem, have been inextricably linked and have often been quoted or satirized .
Cover versions
There are at least 66 cover versions . Among them is an instrumental from Ventures (January 1969), followed vocal in particular by Wilson Pickett (February 1969), Slade (March 1972), Blue Öyster Cult (LP On Your Feet or on Your Knees ; February 1975), The Cult (April 1987), Kim Wilde (October 2002), Status Quo (November 2003) or Kermit the Frog ( Ozzy Osbourne and Miss Piggy , LP Kermit Unpigged ; September 1994).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Origin Stories: Mars Bonfire on Steppenwolf's “Born To Be Wild” , juliettejagger.com
- ^ Steve Sullivan, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings , Volume 1, 2013, p. 862
- ↑ “Born to Be Wild” ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Text in LyricWiki
- ^ Ian Christe: Sound of the Beast. The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal . ItBooks, 2004, ISBN 978-0-380-81127-4 , pp. 10 .
- ^ Fred R. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations , 2006, p. 118
- ^ Norm N. Nite, Rock On , Volume 2: 1964-1978, 1984, p. 603
- ^ David F. Lonergan: Hit records, 1950-1975 . Scarecrow Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8108-5129-0 , pp. 23 .
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, pp. 271 f.
- ^ Music.spreadit.org , accessed January 29, 2010
- ^ Mervyn Cooke, A History of Film Music , 2008, p. 413
- ^ Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock and Soul , 1989, p. 357
Web links
- Born to Be Wild on Allmusic (English)