We are about to plunge into the wild with some classic tunes, beloved and forgotten, all of them wild. Running wild, lost control, says a song from the first Roaring Twenties that is all cued up.
Look at the wildness in culture. Wild as the wind. Wild hair. Wild stories. Girls Gone Wild.
Listen to the wildness in our music.
Look On the bookshelf. The Call of the Wild. The Wild West. Where the Wild Things Are.
Candace Bushnell, writing as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, says:
“Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.”
That’s the heart of it all. Wild in love, wild in music. Adding wild to anything just spices up the gumbo. Wild sex, wild drugs, wild rock and roll. When all else fails there is wild. A release of energy that can be positive. Unless property and reputations suffer.
No less a talent than Marilyn Monroe starts it off, sing a 100 year old song in her film classic Some Like It Hot. Mess up your hair, kick some furniture over, get your motor running.
This is Old School #61. Running Wild. Let’s get lost.
As we get to the home stretch of this Running Wild episode, it’s obvious there is a couple of big wild songs we need to throw on the Old School turntables.
It’s all built around the wildest wild song ever.
Chip Taylor was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007. He is the older brother of actor Jon Voight, which makes him the uncle of Angelina Jolie. Years later she would make a French perfume commercial that used his most famous song, that was a flop when it was first recorded by Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones. That song was heard by the British group The Troggs and lead singer Reg Presley. They thought they could improve on the original, never guessing the song would be used in a number of situations over the next half century.
As great as Sam Kinison’s version of Wild Thing is, the video is a forgotten treat. I’ll put a link to it in my newsletter which you can read or subscribe to for free at professormikey.substack.com. The model in the video is Playboy playmate Jessica Hahn who at the time was making scandal headlines with PTL and Heritage USA head Jim Bakker. Theres a story there.
Tone Loc’s Wild Thing was a huge hit. Tonya Harding used it as skating music, and when members of Van Halen noticed a sample from their song Jamie’s Cryin while listening to rock radio, they got their lawyers together with Tone Loc’s legal crew and arranged for an unexpected bonus.
Wild stories. Wild songs. This has been episode 61 of Professor Mikey’s Old School.
There are so many great wild songs, this has only been a sampling, like what Tone Loc did with Van Halen. Old School is produced for educational purposes, and can be found on most podcast providers. Some can be heard on the Professor Mikey’s Old School channel on YouTube, but I find out if that’s going to happen at the same time you do. It’s a long wild story. Any music you might have heard resides within the public domain, was offered for promotional use by the labels or the artists, or is used within the guidelines of fair use provided for in Section 107 of the copyright act of 1976.
RUNNING WILD Marilyn Monroe 1958 WILD CHILD The Doors 1969 RUNNING WILD Judas Priest 1978 WILD SIDE OF LIFE Hank Thompson 1952 IT WASN’T GOD WHO MADE HONKY TONK ANGELS Kitty Wells 1952 A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE Hugo Montenegro 1962 A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE Brook Benton 1962 WALK ON THE WILD SIDE Lou Reed 1972 WILD ONE Bobby Rydell 1960 REAL WILD CHILD (WILD ONE) Iggy Pop 1986 LET HIM RUN WILD The Beach Boys 1965 RIDE THE WILD SURF Jan and Dean 1964 WILD BOYS Duran Duran 1984 REAP THE WILD WIND Ultravox 1983 WILD THING The Troggs 1966 WILD THING Sam Kinison 1988 WILD THING Tone Loc BORN TO BE WILD Steppenwolf 1968
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