vignettes of the nite XLI: wild thing comes out of the closet

janeharr — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 04:56:40 +0000

This really great article by Kid Congo on coming out of the closet got me thinking about this idea of loving rock’n’roll before knowing it was about sex. He talks about this experience, mentioning “Who Wears Short Shorts” by The Royal Teens and “Blue Moon” by The Marcels. For me it was “Wild Thing” by The Troggs. I remember being in my friend Vicki’s basement when her older half-sister Pam, who lived down there, first played this 45 on her record player. I was immediately engaged. Somehow I knew there was something mysteriously adult about it, and that the sound was cool. What can I say, it “mooooved me”:) I must’ve been about 7.

Pam was a lot older than us and lived part-time with her mother, and the song was quite dated by then, but she loved it and played it a lot in the perpetual gloom of her bedroom. Of course, one could argue that the song – written by Chip Taylor – was best covered by Jimi Hendrix in whose hands it becomes operatic, and or even The Runaways (Amanda Lear’s version is so dull), but I will always remember the riff-less original by The Troggs most fondly, with this X cover, for equally nostalgic reasons (I used to dance to it), coming second.

(I did come across this really fun version by Humans, 1980, that I’d never heard before, and this live performance by The Runaways, is hotness!)

ENJOY!