7 Meanings
Add Yours
Share
Q&A

Hooting & Howling Lyrics

Carry me hooting and howling
to the river to wash off my hands
of the hot blood, the sweat and the sand
Any rival who goes for our girls will be left thumb sucking in terror
and bereft of all coffin bearers

A crude art, a bovver boot ballet - equally elegant and ugly
I was as thrilled as I was appalled, courting him in fisticuffing waltz.
Now I'm not saying the lads always deserve a braying.
And I'm not saying the girls are worth the fines I'm paying.

We're just brutes bored in our bovver boots.
We're just brutes clowning 'round in cahoots.
We're just brutes looking for shops to loot.
We're just brutes hoping to have a hoot

Hooting, hooting and howling
Questions and Answers

Ask specific questions and get answers to unlock more indepth meanings & facts.

7 Meanings

Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.

Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

It reminds me SO much of A Clockwork Orange

Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

Surprised no comments. Anyways this song is simple and sounds awesome. Love the way he sings it. Seems to be about him protecting his 'girls' and if someone gets in the way he kills/fights/etc. Him and his cahoots seem to be bored and look to trouble for excitement. I bet this song will catch on before too log and be on the radio. It is a hidden gem.

what makes the album's two-part title-track suite so unsettling is not simply the first-person account of gang rape graphically described within, but the stone-faced nonchalance with which Fleming delivers it.

PitchForkMedia's 22nd best album of 2009..

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7744-the-top-50-albums-of-2009/3/

Not Valid
Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

Bovver boots are a sort of Doc Marten-style boot, used usually when referring to skinheads. And the song is definitely about being in a gang of skinheads. Very cool juxtapositions of lanugage and content and how it has elements of both sympathy and sarcasm.

Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

How does one go about writing such graphic yet elegant lyrics?! And to reference such things as bovver boots and turn it into a concept within a rhythmical/melodical framework is just brilliant! I think I heard that Tom(?) studied English lit at uni and that probably influences some aspects of their writing but still... the creativity in this band is astounding.

Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

such an amazing track. alot of recurring themes through the album i think this sums up the album as a whole best. wonder what bovver boots are

Lace up boots, think Doc Martens

Not Valid
Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

yeah, definitely thought "A crude art, a bovver boot ballet" was "a crew arc, eight ball boob ballet"

haha, I'm really glad no one was listening to me singing this song before i looked up the lyrics.

sick sick sick sick song. sick sick sick sick ALBUM.

Cover art for Hooting & Howling lyrics by Wild Beasts

Any rival who goes for our girls will be left thumb sucking in terror and bereft of all coffin bearers

i just love the way he sings this!

the way he sings is as if he's a man on the edge...behind the calm veneer he is just wishing/hoping almost that someone would push him so that he can have an excuse to display some act of madness.

The ritual of going to the river to wash away the evidence shows that he has done this many times before....sums up frivolous love and adolescent disregards perfectly. Also the fact that he is being carried hooting and howling is hilarious!

like after a bar fight and his friends usher him into the steets to calm him down, all the while he's cursing and shouting just aching to get back into the action.

love it

Song Meaning