You're not going to believe this, but October 17-23 is Wolf Awareness Week. So, of course, with big money bankrolling this special interest and us little people helplessly caught in the way, we submit to the endless, relentless hype that is sure to follow this damn week. What I want to know is: Who starts a week on a Wednesday?
I know little about wolves. They look like big dogs to me, but I'm told they're dangerous. That's enough for me. But the powers that be insist and demand "Lists About Wolves" because the PEOPLE CARE ABOUT WOLVES. How can I argue? I am but a cog in the machine, a conduit for the forces of the establishment that determine our fate as humans on this planet. I don't want to find my body in a dumpster at the back of a strip mall parking lot.
So with great enthusiasm, I offer you the FIVE FINEST SONGS ABOUT THE WOLF.
Duran Duran--"Hungry Like the Wolf": Probably the world's most famous "Wolf" song, it must've raised Wolf Awareness in ways that dedicating an entire week in the middle of October can only dream of. Let's face it, before this tune, did you ever even contemplate a wolf's hunger? I didn't and I contemplate all kinds of useless things all the time. Shouldn't they have followed this up with Crazy Like a Fox?
X--"The Hungry Wolf": X were this band from Los Angeles that half the music fans I know love and the other half hate. One side babbles on about "poetry," "roots rock punk style," "greasy hair" and the other side says stuff like "out of work actors," "L.A. sucks," "critic darlings." Neither side makes any sense. Personally, I like them fine. And I enjoyed this tune when it wasn't played on the radio back in the 1980s like all the other "punk" or "alternative" bands of the day. Instead, you had to tune in crappy 10-watt radio stations that didn't come in when it rained and try to make out what was the record and what was the static. Sometimes, the static could make it sound cool.
Nomads--"Where the Wolf Bane Blooms": Yeah, see, here we have another one where I don't know what's going on. Back in the 1980s when those Scandinavian countries were routinely ignored, unlike today when everything seems to be coming from Sweden (blame IKEA), the Nomads made garage rock--unlike today where everyone hopes to get on Little Steven's radio show with "garage rock"--and had this cool little song. I don't know what it's about. I don't care. It sounds good. It has "Wolf" in the title. It qualifies. We're raising Wolf Awareness one song at a time here.
Los Lobos--"Will the Wolf Survive": The album is called How Will The Wolf Survive, as opposed to the song "Will The Wolf Survive." Such linguistic complexity is completely lost on me. These are two separate questions that deserve two different answers, neither of which I feel qualified to comment on. I only learned about this stupid Wolf Awareness Week when I saw the stupid animal staring at me from my stupid calendar and realized I could milk it for a stupid column or two or three because apparently "PEOPLE LOVE WOLVES." Fine, love wolves. Leave me out of this.
Amon Duul II--"Wolf City": My friend Jerry bought this album on CD for like a hundred bucks or something because everyone told him it was "his kind of music." Always worry when people target your kind of music. What that really means is: they hate it, but it must be the kind of crap you like. Turns out, had they suggested Yeti, an earlier Amon Duul II album, they'd have been right. But for some reason, probably at least partially due to the cost, Jerry did not think Wolf City was "his kind of music" and he has since gone on to a career sticking little pins into people.