In 2006, Brooklyn art rockers TV on the Radio released their third album, Return to Cookie Mountain. Every song on the album was a winner—from the apocalyptic “Hours,” to the David Bowie-backed “Province,” to the rolling “A Method”—but the one that stuck with most people was the album’s first single and breakout song, “Wolf Like Me.” It not only defined the album in many ways, but also continues to be one of the band’s defining songs two full albums and six years later.
http://youtu.be/j1-xRk6llh4
At first, “Wolf Like Me” seems like a strange pick for a single because it doesn’t really fit into the standard single mold. The bulk of the song is composed of a pounding anthem.“My heart’s aflame/My body’s strained/But God I like it,” is shouted over fuzzy guitars, distant flares of saxophone and scratchy noise, which, while powerful and raw, isn’t necessarily easily accessible or immediately catchy.
The song throws listeners a good number of curve balls. Initially, “Wolf Like Me” sounds like it’s settling for the standard verse-chorus-verse structure that most “radio-friendly” songs end up trapped in, but as it nears the two-minute mark, the song instead does something very unexpected.
At the end of the second chorus, lead singer Tunde Adebimpe delivers the line: “We’ve got till noon/Here comes the moon/So let it show you/Show you now,” and as soon as that “now” is spoken, the song comes to a screeching halt.
The frantically picked guitars die out and are replaced by washy, ethereal synths. The backing vocals of both Kyp Malone and Katrina Ford add to the haunting, atmospheric vibe that grows out of the dramatic shift. Everything slows down. For about a minute, the song lingers in this uncomfortable, ghostly space until it ends as quickly as it all began. The restless guitars and the standard chorus and verse come rushing back in, and the song continues as usual, as if it’s trying to pretend that nothing happened. It’s a surreal experience, and one that works in the song’s favor, but still makes it an odd choice for a single.
Lyrically, “Wolf Like Me” is dense and multilayered. On the surface, the song could be interpreted as the story of a werewolf: there are frequent mentions of curses (“Got a curse I cannot lift”), full moons, (“When the moon is round and full/Gonna teach you tricks that’ll blow your mind”) and transformation (“My mind has changed/My body’s frame/But God I like it”).
But there’s a little more to it—the song takes this story and makes it about regular humans, dealing with loss of control, frustration, lust and violence. Although the lyrics are relatively simple, the way they work with the tone of the music transforms “Wolf Like Me” from an abstract fairy tale into something that average, nonlycanthropes like us can relate to.
“Wolf Like Me” fully captures what TV on the Radio was doing with Return to Cookie Mountain. It takes that album’s signature dark, fuzzy indie-rock style, adds lyrics that touch on both the fantastic and the mundane, and wraps it all up in a tidy, four-minute, 39-second package—and it’s one hell of ride.
