Werewolves of London

Some of you guys need to get out more--or maybe stay in and watch a few old werewolf movies. You know, the ones with the genteel British guy, perfectly dressed and groomed who, in spite of Claude Raines' warning, turns into a howling monster, mutilating and devouring by the light of the full moon.

As to the guy who thought this was ripped off from Sweet Home Alabama, can I use the word 'idiot' on this board? If you were serious, here's the sequence.

1. Lynard Skynard has hit with Sweet Home Alabama
2. Warren Zevon has a hit with this completely unrelated song
3. Kid Rock, possibly the biggest doofus in the history of music, records a song about listening to the Skynard song and inexplicably uses the music from the Warren Zevon song.

Got it? Good, because I don't want to have to come after you. ;)

It's advice to everyone. Please, people, spay your werewolves.

I've seen bits and pieces here and there that get it straight, but let me combine it all...

This is one of the few songs he wrote that Warren was very up front about where the meaning was concerned- the meaning being, it has none. It starts in 1974 long before he had even begun his first album. Phil Everly was working on a solo album after he and Don broke up their band. Warren, their former band leader and a close friend, was talking with him one evening after Don had been watching a old B-movie called Werewolf of London and mentioned the movie. They started joking about how it sounded like a good song title. Phil, probably in jest said, "Fine, make it a dance song 'The Werewolves of London,' and I'll put it on the album." In much the same fashion of Bruce Springsteen and "Jeanie Needs a Shooter," Warren took him at his word. Shortly after that Warren was song writing with his friend Roy Marinell and decided to take a crack at Werewolves. Marinell, a bassist, said he had just the riff for a dance song, and in turn played the famous bass line. It's not clear if this was a rip off Sweet Home Alabama which was released around the same time (Spring 1974) but if it is, that's Roy's look out. Waddy Wachetl happened to walk in and ask, "What are you to doing?" Warren said, "We doing the Werewolves of London," and Waddy replied, "Ah, you mean like- Awhooooooo?" And it went from there. They just started rattling off lyrics that they thought sounded funny and that fit together. Warren's wife, Crystal was there and started writing down the lyrics as they went. A few days later she and Warren went to visit Jackson Browne and he asked if Warren was working on anything new. Crystal said, "Do the new one," and Warren asked, "what new one?" She pulled out her notepad and read out the lyrics. Jackson loved it and asked if he use it in his set. Warren said he didn't care, and Jackson ended up getting bootlegged doing the song in concert. His producers asked when we was going to record it, and he said he didn't want to but he could put them in touch with the guy who wrote it. When they did the "Warren Zevon" album, Jackson urged that it be left off in favor of the deeper songs like "The French Inhaler" or "Hasten Down the Wind". He said those were too important to be left off in place of a normal pop song. Once the album established Warren with the critics though, he said it would be perfect for the second album, "Excitable Boy". In turn, it was chosen as the single from that LP, much to the chagrin of Warren and Waddy who felt jilted that a song they wrote in 15 minutes for kicks was being paid attention when deeper stuff like "Veracruz" or "Accidentally Like A Martyr" was overlooked. Of course, it was kind of insult to injury when the song became the only popular hit Warren ever had. Once he was established in his fanbase during the 90s he was asked in an interview if he ever thought about dropping it from his set list to add some of his more personal material. His response was, "Well, not really. I suppose it just wouldn't feel right without the obligatory 3 minutes of howling every night."

Even the most civilized veneer cannot fully cover up the beast inside. Isn't it obvious?

anm712, q28401... I think you two hit the nail most squarely on the head. This song is not some political statement or any of that crap. Most of you are just reading way too far into this song. According to Warren Zevon's biography, he, Waddy Wachtel, and Roy Marinell sat down at Roy's house, got stoned and the three of them composed this song with a guitar riff Roy had written years before but never really used. Each of them wrote part of it. It took them somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes to write and Crystal Zevon (Warren's wife) kept saying that it was great and they said, "You think it's so great, why don't you write it down?" They were just dicking around. Even the great Warren Zevon just had fun every once in awhile.

Warren Zevon's black humour at work again. Possibly drug-fuelled? This came about 5 years before the classic John Landis movie with a similar name. Art imitating art?

btw, shouldn't "Little old lady got mutilated last night" be "late last night" or have I been singing when I should have been listening again?

Ow-ooooh!

About mainstreaming people with hypertrichosis along with the traditional werewolf story.

I believe it's a song about the punk scene of 1970s London, where it was hard to separate the hooligans from the pre-hipster hipsters. Some are harmless posers and some pretty dangerous thugs. I think the werewolf reference is a metaphor. Awesome song.

Quoting Jackson Browne: It’s about a really well-dressed, ladies’ man, a werewolf preying on little old ladies. In a way it’s the Victorian nightmare, the gigolo thing. The idea behind all those references is the idea of the ne’er do-well who devotes his life to pleasure: the debauched Victorian gentleman in gambling clubs, consorting with prostitutes, the aristocrat who squanders the family fortune. All of that is secreted in that one line: “I’d like to meet his tailor.”