Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” is the result of experimentation. The song released in 1982 ushered in a new wave of music that blended rock with electronic pop beats, creating a sound all their own. “Wolf,” the lead single off the band’s 1982 sophomore album, Rio, was a certifiable hit, its popularity due in large part to the video getting heavy rotation on MTV.
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Behind the Song
“Wolf,” co-written by bandmates Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Andy Taylor, and Nick Rhodes in the studio of EMI London in 1982, saw the band experimenting with everything from 808 drum machines, a sequencer machine that has the capability of playing a repeating pattern, and a synthesizer keyboard, all of which are responsible for the futuristic melody. “That track came from fiddling with the new technology that was starting to come in,” guitarist Andy Taylor described to Blender in 2002. “As soon as we heard that, we knew we had something,” he adds of the clicking sound that’s the thread throughout the backing melody.
The song’s origins can be traced back to the night before it was written when Rhodes and Le Bon went out drinking. In an effort to cure their “terrible hangover” the next day, they decided to throw themselves into music. “We got in quite early and we’d been listening to something in the car and we got a sort of idea,” Rhodes explained.
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That prompted the keyboardist to start playing around with the Jupiter 8 synthesizer that was responsible for most of the sound on Rio. “Simon had an idea for a lyric and by lunchtime when everyone else turned up, we pretty much had the song,” Rhodes adds.
Inspiration
Guitarist Andy Taylor is the one who came up with the famous guitar riff layered on top of the intricate pop melody. “Then we added the bass and drums, and the whole track was finished that day, including Simon’s vocal melody and lyric,” Taylor explains of how they built the track. “He has a great ear for putting a melody to a bunch of chords. I didn’t realize it at the time, but his inspiration for that lyric was Little Red Riding Hood!” “There was a sense of adventure and a search for something that was very appealing,” Le Bon allegedly said in an interview with Rolling Stone about the lyrics.
Though the song quickly became a hit in their native England, it hadn’t taken off in America until MTV got ahold of the video. “MTV got so many requests that people started requesting it on the radio, so it sort of quickly turned around,” Rhodes explained to Blender. The heavy rotation on MTV propelled the song to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Rio cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard 200. In 2009, “Wolf” was the 15th-most-played video in MTV history. “Wolf” also won a Grammy Award for Best Video, Short Form in 1984.
Photo by John Swannell / High Rise PR
I am pleased in learning the tracks music and backing but lyrics weren’t mentioned at all. The sexual nature of the lyrics might be the reasoning. I feel it’s collaboration of the gained popularity of the time concerning the movie,”Werewolf of London” which was remade. The 1981 film was remade and a different take from the original from 1935.
In my opinion it’s a combination of both ideas lyrically.