Music Blog

ROAD HOGS

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

This is Week 44 of Glyn’s Mixed Music Bag and we are
being asked to choose a song by a group or solo artist whose
name begins with the letters S or T. This is my choice.

VROOM! VROOM! Get your motors running, people!

The Canadian-American rock group Steppenwolf was formed in 1967 by lead singer John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn, and drummer Jerry Edmonton. The need for speed, fast cars and motorcycles was strong and played a dominant role in the lives and deaths of Steppenwolf’s members; both bassist Moreve and drummer Edmonton were killed in vehicular accidents.
Steppenwolf’s eponymous debut album produced their most famous song, “Born to Be Wild”, which reached #2 on Billboard Hot 100; the hit song became an anthem for the motorcycle crowd after its inclusion in the movie Easy Rider. There are many fans and critics alike who believe Steppenwolf created the heavy metal genre of music, referencing three words from the song .… “heavy metal thunder“. That belief is up for debate. The Steppenwolf album also featured the excellent Hoyt Axton drug piece, “The Pusher”.
In 1968, the group’s next album …. appropriately titled The Second .… created another Top 10 single with “Magic Carpet Ride“. Featuring a style that incorporates psychedelic music and hard rock, the release received critical acclaim both when it came out as well as in later years.
Band changes and conflicts resulted in the breakup of the group in 1972, with a reunion in 1974 to record two more albums; Steppenwolf disbanded in 1975. After some legal wrangling, John Kay began performing again in 1980 as “John Kay and Steppenwolf” with an entirely new lineup; the group continues to tour today with Kay being the only original founding member.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine placed “Born to Be Wild” at #129 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Also in 2004, the song finished at #29 on AFI’s 100 Years … 100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. In 2009, it was named the 53rd best hard rock song of all time by VH1. In 2018, “Born to Be Wild” was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

From the album Steppenwolf, this is “Born to Be Wild”

Composers John Kay and Rushton Moreve said “Magic Carpet Ride” was about listening to a new music system they had just bought and how the music “sorta took us away”. The drug reference/influence came later and has stuck around due to the appeal it has for some people. “Magic Carpet Ride” peaked at #3 in the US, and stayed in the charts for 16 weeks, longer than any other Steppenwolf song.

From The Second album, this is “Magic Carpet Ride”

“The Pusher“, from Steppenwolf’s first album was written by singer/guitarist Hoyt Axton and made popular by the 1969 movie Easy Rider. Steppenwolf’s version was used in the movie and accompanies the opening scenes showing drug trafficking. The lyrics of the song distinguish between a dealer in drugs, such as marijuana, who “will sell you lots of sweet dreams” and a pusher of hard drugs, such as heroin, who is a “monster” and doesn’t care “if you live or if you die“.

This is “The Pusher” by Steppenwolf

Mixed Music Bag 2024 – week 44 – A day late!

Big thanks to Glyn Wilton for hosting Mixed Music Bag every week. Please be sure to follow the link and check out Glyn’s site.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NARŠ2024

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NARŠ2017-present.

28 thoughts on “ROAD HOGS”

  1. I so appreciate you highlighting one of my favourite bands of all time, along with some of their greatest hits! 💖💖 I own a DVD of Easy Rider and watch it at least every couple of years. 🙂

    There’s much more to Steppenwolf’s catalogue than most people know. Songs of substance, like “Monster-Suicide-America”, “The Ostrich”, “It’s Never Too Late”, etc.

    John Kay revived the band in 1980 and took it on the road, to save Steppenwolf’s reputation. There had been some ex band members misrepresenting themselves as Steppenwolf, offering inferior performances. John kept the band going until October 2018 (last performance was Oct. 14 in Baxter Springs, Kansas), with most profits going to his and his wife’s<a href=”https://mauekay.org/“>Maue Kay Foundation</a>, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of wildlife, the environment and human rights.

    Sorry, didn’t mean to get carried away, but this band is so special to me. 😄 I’ll leave you with this, from the excellent “Live in Louisville” concert DVD:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvJnHf0M9U

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      1. I couldn’t resist, Nancy, having been an Ăźberfan of this band since first hearing “Born To Be Wild” in 1968. 😀 Sorry, I forgot you don’t need to use html in comments with WordPressdotcom.

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  3. While I’ve never explored Steppenwolf in great detail, “Born to be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride” remain classics to me. I also like “The Pusher” and the handful of other Steppenwolf songs I’ve heard. I think John Kaye retired his version of Steppenwolf in 2018. That said, I didn’t realize he had kept it going for such a long time!

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  4. They were a great rock band. I liked the song, and when I went to see Easy Rider on opening night in Dallas,1969, the music blew me away. My wife and me watched the movie a month ago, still a great view.

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      1. You are welcome. I suscribed to your site. I like your writing style, and also someone who likes the sixties music. I played in a popular Dallas rock band back in those days, toured with the Iron Butterfly, opened for The Beach Boys and so on…it was as great life for a teenager. Decades later, we got together again and played for another years until our lead guitar passed away. I also write about my childhood growing up in 1950s Fort Worth, Texas. Odd, that I can remember most of my childhood, but can’t remember what I had for supper yesterday.

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  6. I was in a small club in Brazil when this band played Born to Be Wild and it sounded great. All of these Brazilian girls wearing tight leather pants were dancing in front of the stage and that added to the atmosphere.

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  11. Some classics right there. Love them all (I have a Greatest Hits type album of theirs.)

    I know Born to Be Wild is what they’re best known for, but I’ve always loved Magic Carpet Ride and that dancing Hammond organ.

    😀

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