Track #23 - “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran (1982)

From the album Rio

Music and lyrics by Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor

Performed by:

Simon LeBon – lead vocals

Nick Rhodes – keyboards

John Taylor – bass, backing vocals  

Andy Taylor – guitar, backing vocals

Roger Taylor – drums, percussion

US Billboard Hot 100 - #3; US Billboard Top Rock Tracks - #1

US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play - #36

US Billboard Year-End Hot 100 - #17

In touch with the ground

I’m on the hunt, I’m after you

Smell like I sound, I’m lost in a crowd

And I’m hungry like the wolf

Straddle the line in discord and rhyme

I’m on the hunt, I’m after you

Mouth is alive, juices like wine

And I’m hungry like the wolf

One of the advantages to attending Catholic school was the uniform. From the first day of first grade until my family moved from Brooklyn to Long Island and I started attending 4th grade public school I wore the same thing to school every day with the rest of the other boys: white collared button-down shirt, black polyester pants, and black lace-up oxford shoes with black socks. In the cooler months we wore long-sleeve shirts with clip-on ties, and short-sleeve shirts without a tie when it was warm. On the rare occasions we were allowed to wear jeans we still had to wear those black lace-ups; yes, it looked ridiculous, but I did it and usually never put up a fight with my mother. I would have lost anyway. It was the same for the girls, except they wore plaid skirts with tights, but they still had to wear those very unfashionable black lace-up shoes. What’s the advantage, you might be asking? Well for one thing, I never had to worry about what to wear, and how to match my clothes in the morning. I just grabbed the next clean uniform items in my closet, put them on and I was out the door. Another advantage was that everyone looked relatively the same; there was no “Wow, cool new T-shirt” or “Mom, I saw a kid with new sneakers, I want a pair.” In other words, no distractions, just a strict focus on education and on making sure we were attending Sunday mass each week, thus becoming upstanding Catholics. How could they do that if we were all comparing our sneakers and T-shirts every day? There was no judging each other on whether our clothes were trendy enough. We all looked equal and could just focus on schoolwork and prayer, plus it taught us about routine and responsibility; I’m certain that was the intention of the uniform. But of course, the uniform also had its drawbacks. Not knowing how to dress cool was something that would affect me in a big way when we moved, and I was forced to learn the hard way what kids wore to public school; we’ll talk more about that in a few minutes. Wearing a uniform also suppressed your individuality, and the ability to express yourself to some degree. Now, I’m not saying that me and all the other grade schoolers knew who we were and who we wanted to be, but I’m quite sure we all liked different books, TV shows, movies and had favorite colors besides black and white that we wanted to show to the world back then. I can remember owning a fantastic Star Wars T-shirt, with an image of the iconic movie poster on the front. I wore that T-shirt most weekends and I wished I could have proudly displayed it to my classmates. Like most of the other boys in the late 1970s, I was obsessed with Star Wars; it would have been nice to show everyone that T-shirt and let everyone know it was my favorite movie. I was also a big fan of the show Happy Days, and of the Fonzie character. I remember having a blue T-shirt with actor Henry Winkler on the front, slicked back hair and leather jacket, two-thumbs up, and his tagline “Ayyyyyy!” scrawled across the top. I couldn’t wear that to school; I probably would have been expelled and my parents might have also gotten yelled at by the nuns for letting me wear it! But I proudly wore it on the weekends and let everyone know I wanted to be The Fonz. This is who I was, but the uniform prevented me and everyone else at St Sylvester’s in Brooklyn from attempting to express who we were. That would change for me though, when we moved to Long Island and there were no more uniforms, and I could finally wear what I wanted to. However, I quickly learned I really had no idea how to dress cool, and when my mom sent me to school wearing sneakers from the bargain bin at Modell’s (because she didn’t know any better either) and I was the new kid with cheap sneakers, I became a target, and then I realized the uniform also helped prevent something much more serious…being bullied. Wearing a uniform and looking the same as everyone else offered hardly, if any, opportunities for ridicule. Unless you made the mistake of wearing white socks with your black oxfords there really wasn’t much to make fun of. But after we moved, I learned quickly that I would have to figure out how to fit in. The shield of wearing that uniform was gone, and the individuality that the uniform took away was now on full display. Did the kids in Long Island think Star Wars and The Fonz were cool? What kind of sneakers did I need to fit in, and did I need to get a new haircut? Eventually, I got the right sneakers (thanks Mom), the right clothes and backpack, and things seemed to be going in the right direction in elementary school. When it came to movies, TV, and other important things, I felt I had that figured out, too. Don’t forget, I was smooth enough to swindle the Queen tape from my mom in 5th grade and prove to my classmates I was cool when it came to music. I shed the “new kid” label and made friends, and I wasn’t a target anymore. As junior high approached, I was nervous, but I got through the first half of 7th grade with no real problems. I got used to having a hall locker and changing classes each period, and I made a couple of new friends. And because of MTV, there was SO much new music back then! Every day it seemed there was a new video, a new song, a new band. I had already discovered Def Leppard, AC/DC, and a band led by a guitar god and an acrobatic singer from California called Van Halen. But there were also these great new bands from the UK, what I would later learn was called the “Second British Invasion.” Artists like Culture Club, The Human League, A Flock of Seagulls, and Billy Idol were receiving tremendous airplay on MTV, and they each all had a distinctive look about them, which only added to their popularity. They used a lot of synthesizers and electronic drums and wore flamboyant clothing and eyeliner. And they all took advantage of the new popularity of MTV; between the exposure of their videos and radio stations like KROQ in Los Angeles and WLIR in New York putting their music in heavy rotation, they all scored Billboard Hot 100 singles and bestselling albums. But there was one band that seemed to rise above the other bands in the Second British Invasion, using their videos and their songwriting to become one of the best 80s bands of all time. When I first started to see their videos on MTV, I was struck by the visuals and the hooks of the songs. The lyrics were descriptive and poetic, and they used guitars and keyboards in a harmonic way I had never heard before. They used acoustic and electronic drums, and their songs had these amazing bass grooves. And even though I was only twelve years old, I could sense there was something sexual about the music. The thing was though, as this band Duran Duran became international superstars and I started to hear and like their music more and more, I admitted being a fan in front of the wrong kids and it put me in a very precarious, and looking back, scary situation. Forget about the wrong sneakers and the wrong haircut; what happened that day in 7th grade was something completely different.

The story of Duran Duran begins in Birmingham, England, in 1978, when lifelong friends Nick Rhodes (synthesizer) and John Taylor (guitar/vocals) formed the band with their art school companion Stephen Duffy on bass and vocals. They named themselves after the villainous Dr. Durand Durand from the 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda. In 1979, Duffy would exit, drummer Roger Taylor would join, and John Taylor would switch to bass guitar, heavily influenced by the grooves used at the time by Nile Rodgers and his band Chic. They became the house band at the Rum Runner nightclub in Birmingham in 1980, and after more lineup changes, they recruited guitarist Andy Taylor. Taylor brought the influences of UK based guitar rock of bands like T-Rex and would end up writing some of the 80s best known new wave guitar riffs. (In case you’re wondering none of these guys who share the surname Taylor are related in any way). However, the band was still lacking a quality singer and front man. At the urging of one of the Rum Runner staff, they invited London drama student Simon LeBon to audition. During the audition, LeBon pulled out a notebook full of lyrics he had written, and added some to a song the band had already developed. This would become their first recorded track, “Sound of Thunder”. LeBon was hired immediately, and the new lineup began to play the club circuit in London and Birmingham. They would eventually sign with EMI Records in December of 1980, and their first album, Duran Duran, was released in June of 1981. Influenced by David Bowie, Roxy Music and Chic, the album received mixed reviews, but performed well in the UK, peaking at #3. The first single, “Planet Earth”, made the Top 20 in the UK, but the second single, “Careless Memories”, did not do as well, reaching only #37. When they released the next single, “Girls on Film”, it reached #3 in the UK, and the band began to see the audiences at their shows growing, sometimes to the point of frenzy. Duran Duran hired renowned video directors Godley and Creme to direct the video for “Girls on Film”, and the result was an eclectic blend of soft-core porn images: topless women mud wrestling, women in nurse’s uniforms giving massages and engaging in other decidedly erotic but playful acts, all while the band performed the song near a model runway and wrestling ring. The thought was to make something so controversial that the video would only be played in clubs and on late night pay-per-view. The BBC promptly banned the video, but MTV aired an edited “day version” to capitalize on the controversy, thus helping Duran Duran’s breakthrough in the US, and promoting itself in the process. Duran Duran would eventually peak at #10 in the US and sell 1 million copies. In late 1981, the band began to write the songs that would become their second album, Rio. It was during these sessions that Andy Taylor came up with the riff to “Hungry Like the Wolf” to complement the synthesizer melody composed by Nick Rhodes. Of course, they both had no idea they were writing a new wave masterpiece, but Rhodes later commented they “knew they had the album right” after completing that song. Rio was released in May of 1982, to mixed reviews. Despite success in the UK, Japan and Australia, the album was barely noticed in the US. In an effort to make the songs more radio-friendly in the US, side one of Rio was re-mixed and the album was re-released in late 1982. This changed the fortunes of the album, but it would have meant nothing had it not been for the iconic videos Duran Duran made and the tremendous airplay they received on MTV in late 1982. Duran Duran’s first video, for “Planet Earth”, looks fairly low budget. The band is performing on a stage that looks like it’s made of ice or glass, and there’s this Superman, fortress-of-solitude vibe. And they look like an 80s band; a lot of ruffles, pastel jackets, dyed hair and eyeliner. The song is not bad; it’s very new wave sounding, and synthesizer driven. I liked it enough, but it looked and sounded very much like the stuff that was on MTV at the time; “Hungry Like the Wolf”, and the other videos from Rio changed all that. The music itself was much better and more developed on Rio, but the record company gave the band a huge video budget and Duran Duran used it to their advantage, creating groundbreaking mini movies in exotic locations. MTV took those videos and played them over and over again, capitalizing on the band’s look and image, and propelling them to superstardom. I am sure you’ve seen the video for “Hungry Like the Wolf”; it’s very Raiders of the Lost Ark-like, with Simon Lebon running through lush jungles and bustling marketplaces, all while the rest of the band are trying to find him. There’s also a very exotic looking woman chasing all of them. The band never performs in the video; in fact, if not for LeBon lip-syncing the lyrics, you might think it was another band’s song. The video was groundbreaking for its time, and it’s still one of the best videos ever. The video for the song “Rio” is just as amazing, with the band frolicking on the beach and on a yacht with bikini-clad women, and again, not performing the song at all. As I mentioned before, even at twelve-years old, I could see there was something very sexual about all these images. And look…I also understood at the time that these were five uniformly good-looking guys; it was an objective opinion and not up for debate. Yes, the music was good, but it was the look and image of the band that would ultimately sell the records. The videos were cool, but if the music sucked, I wouldn’t have cared less. But the music didn’t suck, it was awesome, so I ordered the Rio cassette from Columbia House Record Club and listened to it frequently.

The first half of seventh grade went by quietly, but I recall it being a weird time in my life though; not quite a kid anymore but not yet a teenager and trying to figure things out and trying to fit in. My recollection now is that I was still holding on to my childhood a bit and in no rush to grow up. However, I did want to establish an identity. I knew I would be judged by the clothes I wore, the music I liked, and other tangibles, but I may have underestimated just how much adolescents judge each other. That day in 1983, during the second half of seventh grade when I was literally confronted about a band I liked still feels surreal. Now I can chalk it up to adolescent antics, but in the moment it felt like bullying. Every day began with homeroom so that attendance could be taken before actual classes started for the day. They grouped us by the letters of our last name, and I remember there being about 35-40 kids in my homeroom. I’ve mentioned this before, how Sachem was one of the biggest school districts in New York State at the time, and certainly the biggest in Long Island. I didn’t realize this until I got to Seneca Junior High School in September 1982 and had to deal with the crowds in between classes. The actual taking of attendance took about 60 seconds. The rest of the 10 minutes was controlled anarchy; as long as there was no fighting, I don’t think the teacher really cared what was going on after she took attendance. The room we were in was a Home Economics room. The desks were not in rows, rather they were pushed together in groups of six or eight, so that projects could be worked on in teams. This desk arrangement encouraged forced conversation; you were facing each other after all, but the conversation was usually confined to your desk grouping. You were also usually unaware of what was going on at other groups of desks. But today what I said would attract the attention of two boys in the group of desks next to mine. I’m not sure exactly how it came up, but we were talking about music and one of the girls mentioned Duran Duran, and I probably said that I liked the video for “Hungry Like the Wolf” and that I thought they were cool. My actual memory of what I said is fuzzy, but it came off clearly that I was a fan of Duran Duran. However, I do remember very vividly what I heard next.

One of the boys in the group of desks next to me said, “Wait a minute, you like Duran Duran?”

And the one next to him said, “You know only girls and fags like Duran Duran, right? You’re not a fag, are you?”

OK, if this were a movie here’s the moment where all the kids in the classroom would freeze, and middle-aged me would walk in front of the frozen action and offer some commentary, so picture that now if you can. First of all, I knew that “fag” or “faggot” was a very derogatory term used to refer to a gay man. I also knew what it meant to be gay, and I was also pretty sure that I was not. And I also knew, at that time in 1983, the world around me was still in the mindset that boys/girls was “normal”, but boys/boys and girls/girls was “abnormal.” However, I didn’t quite look at it that way. My aunt, the one whose books I used to sneak, was a professional dancer, and ended up becoming a world champion and later a judge. She used to bring her dance partners to our house in Long Island to hang out sometimes, and 99% of them were gay. It never bothered my parents, or my brother and I, and it felt totally normal; we never thought twice about it. So, they were gay, big deal. The problem was that back then, the word “fag” was thrown around a lot, and an adolescent boy being hung with that label, for whatever reason, wasn’t great. It could make you a target. And you could be called that word for a variety of reasons, unrelated to being gay: wearing the wrong-colored shirt, talking a certain way, not being able to throw a ball or play sports well, and apparently, enjoying the music of a certain UK new wave band. I want to stress again that these were not my views, but that this was just how it was back then. You might be thinking, correctly, “What the f***?”, because thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then (we still have a way to go, though). But in 1983, in that classroom with those two boys glaring at me, everything sort of froze and I went into self-preservation mode. Everyone in proximity was waiting to see how I would respond. So, in my desperate desire to fit in, and in my even more desperate desire to not get beat up in the boy’s locker room, I did something inexplicable: I walked it all back. OK, let’s unfreeze the action: back to the classroom in 1983, and middle-aged me is walking away.

I stared back at these two boys, two boys I had never spoken to or even knew that well. I could feel the color drain from my face, and honestly, I thought I might piss myself because I had never been confronted like this before, much less in front of an audience. All this, over a band and some music? My pre-adolescent brain could not make sense of it, but self-preservation kicked in, and instead of defending my opinion, I kicked Duran Duran to the curb, and said something like: “Oh, well, yeah I mean they’re OK, like I would never buy the album…I like Van Halen and Judas Priest, you know, bands like that…” They continued to stare at me, until one of them, as if I needed to hear it again, said, “Yeah, well remember only girls and fags like Duran Duran.”

The whole scene probably lasted less than two minutes, but the day could have ended right there, and I would have been OK with it. The rest of my school day was a bit of a blur, but of course I thought about the incident as I went from class to class, worrying if I would run into those two boys again, the fear rising in me when I turned corners in the hallways. I did not see them though; in fact, the whole thing never even came up again. It never became one of those long-running bullying campaigns that kids often conduct, when one kid is targeted, and the bully makes their life miserable for a few months. It just sort of went away, and I was relieved. But the incident stayed with me awhile, long enough to question whether or not I should be listening to Duran Duran, or other bands that were perceived as not masculine enough. Is this what it was going to be like to grow up? Were you supposed to worry about your choices and if people were going to like you or not based on those choices? Did Catholic school have it figured out by making us all wear uniforms, sacrificing some of our identity and individuality? It made a confusing time in life even more confusing. I wanted to fit in, but it seemed there might be a cost. So, in the end, I landed somewhere in the middle. I continued to listen to Duran Duran. I bought the albums and enjoyed the music and the videos…I just didn’t talk about it. These days that might be called “having a guilty pleasure.” In high school, I cared less and less about what people thought; but I still cared (ha ha). Should I have stood up for myself that day in 7th grade? Yes, and I wish I had. I’ve taught my own sons to stand up for themselves and defend who they are and the choices they make. Neither of them has ever told me they were bullied in any way, and I’m grateful. And times have definitely changed! When I was in high school, you’d get a hard time if you listened to your parent’s music. I can recall this conversation I had with my older son Dan when he was in 10th grade:

Dan: Hey Dad, have you ever heard of Rio?

Me: Rio? The movie with the parrots?

Dan: Haha, no! Duran Duran…the album Rio.

Me: Yes, of course! It was one of my favorite albums growing up…I still listen to Duran Duran all the time. Why?

Dan: I just downloaded it; they’re great! John Taylor is an amazing bass player!

So, it came full circle. My son now proudly listening to his old man’s music, and Duran Duran no less! And not getting a hard time in school about it. Not a bad thing.

Finally, here it is…STILL one of the best videos of all time! Enjoy!

Thank you again for reading! Sign up for email updates to get weekly posts delivered to your inbox and if you’re enjoying the posts, please feel free to share the link with your friends!

Next time…so for the first time, I’m not sure about the next post. I’m working on a special guest, and if that happens, we’ll talk about Track #24. If not, we’ll go to Plan B. It’ll be good either way.

P.S.

 Nick Rhodes has compared the period of 1983-1984 to Beatlemania. Rolling Stone even put Duran Duran on their cover in February 1984, hailing them as “The Fab Five”, a call back to the Beatles (“The Fab Four”) and the First British Invasion. They were mobbed, mostly by teenage girls, everywhere they went; Rhodes called it “mayhem.” In 1983, they released Seven and the Ragged Tiger, which would end up selling 2 million copies in the US. The album also produced their first US #1 single, “The Reflex”, in summer 1984. There were times when it seemed like the video for “The Reflex” was the only video MTV had, they played it so much that summer. In 1985, John Taylor and Andy Taylor formed the supergroup The Power Station with singer Robert Palmer, and drummer Tony Thompson, while Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon and Roger Taylor recorded an album as Arcadia. If you’ve never heard either band I would choose the Power Station album over Arcadia, but that’s just my opinion. The side projects caused tensions as they recorded and contributed the song “A View to a Kill” to the James Bond film of the same name. It became the first Bond theme to go to #1 in the US. Duran Duran would perform at Live Aid in the summer of 1985; it would be the last time the original five would perform together until 2003. Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor would both depart in 1986; the remaining three members released two studio albums, and the compilation album, Decade before the end of the 1980s. In 1993, LeBon, Rhodes and John Taylor, along with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, recorded what I think is one of the best albums of the 90s, Duran Duran (The Wedding Album). When I first heard “Ordinary World” on the radio, the first single from the album, I really had to stop and try to figure out why that voice was so familiar. I had not heard anything new from Duran Duran in years, so when the DJ said it was a new song from them, I almost didn’t believe him. In the middle of the height of alternative and grunge, Duran Duran received some of the best reviews of their career, and that album is still one of my favorites. It’s amazing from beginning to end, so it’s worth a listen if you’ve never heard it. In 2000, the original lineup would reunite for a tour, and an album of new material was released in 2004; in 2006, Andy Taylor would leave for good. Duran Duran has released four albums of new songs since 2007, with Future Past being the most recent in 2021. And last year, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the induction ceremony, Simon LeBon read a letter from Andy Taylor stating that he was suffering from stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer, and was too ill to attend. As a prostate cancer survivor myself, to hear that about someone just sucks; there’s no other way to put it. I hope Mr. Taylor is doing OK.

While I was researching and writing this post, I had an opportunity to listen to a lot of music from 1982 and 1983, when MTV was really taking off and it seemed like it was dominated by bands from the UK. Here’s a Spotify playlist you can check out with a few Duran Duran tracks and other memorable songs from that era. MTV sort of had a “feel” back then. I guess you had to be there to understand. As I mentioned when we discussed AC/DC, hard rock and metal were also on the upswing, so it felt like there were two sides to this “cool” coin, so to speak. I supposed I just liked both sides, but there were a lot of kids that definitely chose one side, and you could tell who those kids were: hard rock and metal on one side, and pop and new wave on the other. Like I said, back then you were judged by your choices and it put you in one group or another, sometimes whether you liked it or not. I liked Duran Duran because I liked the music, not because I wanted to wear headbands, or brightly colored suits or ruffled shirts. But if I did, so what? That would have been my choice, and my expression of individuality…and certainly a far cry from the Catholic school uniform I wore until 4th grade. Just owning who you are is probably the coolest thing you can do; at twelve years old, I just wasn’t mature enough to realize it and tell those two boys to mind their own business. I recently spoke to my boys, now 22 and 18, about their experiences with bullying, and how kids acted towards each other in general when they were in middle school and high school, and I appreciate how honest they were. They were both very cognizant of the fact that they grew up in a good neighborhood and went to a good school, and they acknowledged that they may have had a harder time had that not been the case. Most of the bullying they saw was actually in the form of gossip, hardly any direct confrontation; so, the kids mostly talked behind each other’s backs. They didn’t remember any incidents like the one I described. However, the one thing they were adamant about was that the word “fag” is now pretty much off limits; my younger son said it’s almost as bad as the N-word. You simply do not use that word anymore, even in jest, and especially not about a gay person. I’m very relieved and encouraged to hear that. Are there 12-year-old boys and girls out there right now taking shit for their choices and about who they are? Most definitely. But here’s my advice, if you’re one of those boys or girls: stand up for yourself, no matter what. I wish I would have. Because I learned that the thing with bullies is they usually get bored and they move on, and they’re the ones that have to keep living with all that hate, not you.

Today marks one year since I launched this project, and it seems I will be writing about these songs for another year…but that’s OK. If you’re a regular reader, I appreciate your support. I know people don’t have a lot of patience for reading these days, so I am appreciative of your time. Please tell your friends and feel free to share the blog links, and follow me on Spotify! Maybe one day I’ll turn this into a podcast and you’ll get to hear me and my Long Island accent talk about my favorite music. Until then, you’ll just have to keep reading!   

See you next time…

JS

3/7/2023