Animal (Fuck like a Beast)

“…pain and hunger all across, then thunder…”

Sometimes you know exactly where you were when you heard a certain song or particular band. There I am waiting on the bus that takes me home from school. Most of the kids are on it already, but we’re still waiting for the stragglers who’re toking it up in the bathroom, and in the meantime our driver is yakking with her bus buddies on the sidewalk. Someone’s playing something on a boom box near the front of the bus; it’s this kid Elliot who’s a year older and plays on the Jr. Varsity football team. All I know about him is that over the year he’s worn a lot of The Police shirts. What he’s playing sounds cool. Real cool, and even heavy. The other kids are listening intently, smiling, getting a kick out of whatever it is. In a blurb of chatter silence I hear something sounding like “I fuck like a beast!” gnarled by a guy with the pipes of a condor. Whoa, who the hell is this? Seconds later, the driver gets on and makes him shut it off. Thankfully I get off before him, so before I escape school’s claws for the day, I drum up the gumption to ask him about the song, and there you have my introduction to W.A.S.P. and their most prolific song.

Now that you’re bored to death, I ask you if its depressing when the damn Jr. Varsity tight end, who wouldn’t know a heavy band if it drove through his living room, knows about a band like W.A.S.P. and you don’t? Blackie and the gang are now so established they’re barely noticed as ever being an underground band (and with their debut on Capitol/EMI, they technically weren’t, but hey), so if the incident occurred five years ago, yeah probably. In ’84, nah. My money’s on he tripped over the disk’s cover somewhere on his way to getting the latest Eddie Money record, saw the intellectual codpiece cover, song title and low price, and suckered his ‘ol lady into giving him money for ‘some other’ album he wanted.

Enough rambling. The chest-pounding “Animal” has many moments hallmark to an anthem – a central issue most can empathize with, a streaming sing-a-long chorus, some attitude, and deviant catchiness that sticks in your head like an ice pick – but isn’t really perceived as one unless you’re as lucky in love as people like Paul Stanley and David Lee Roth. Any enraged demeanor the song builds is a direct descendant of Blackie’s harsh, stentorian lungs that should’ve easily distanced the band from anything lurking in the glam realm, yet still some clueless writers back then (and even today) managed to lump the two together. With a major label leering, there’s no way this song would’ve made it onto the same year debut. Didn’t matter, ‘cos the song fairly quickly gained favor with the kids and eventually made its rounds. It also had 'one-hit wonder' written all over it, but of course their future stellar debut would wipe away that graffiti.

“Show No Mercy” is a great b-side – raucous, belligerent, lyrics of free-firing rebellion and posturing, and with an ending that’s just slightly epic in its fading grandeur. It’s a song that can’t usurp the timelessness of the main tune, but is stronger in its straightforward dozer appeal, and personally is the side I listen to more.

There are few songs that kickstarted a rock/metal band’s career better than “Animal”, one that fired up eagerness in those it reached even if they hadn’t known the band’s name, its members or seen the album cover. I’m not saying the song’s beloved by everyone, but it certainly caused a stir.

The moral of the story is never begin writing what should be a relatively short review right after a friend gives you some of her prescription amphetamines.

"I'm the outlaw that rides..."