The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

November 23, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives 

Every Sunday The Soundtrack of Our Lives looks back at some of the music that was popular and the performers who were influential forty years ago, around the time Richard Nixon was elected President.

STEPPENWOLF

Steppenwolf was a Toronto-based rock band that flourished briefly but brilliantly during the years 1968-1972. They sold more than 25 million records, had 8 gold albums, and 13 Hot 100 singles including three Top 10 hits.

They invented the term “heavy metal” (the words first appeared in their song “Born to Be Wild”). In the original context, the words referred to motorcycles —

I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder, racin’ with the wind…

— but the description was equally apt for the heavy metal sound they helped pioneer.

The lead singer, John Kay, was born in East Prussia in 1944. His father was killed fighting on the Eastern Front a month before his birth; his mother was able to reach Hannover, where he grew up listening to American rock music on the Armed Forces Radio network. When he was fourteen they emigrated to Canada.

He named the band after a talismanic novel for the ‘60s generation: Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf.

Kay and his compatriots Danny Johnson, Michael Wilk, and Ron Hurst, started out around 1964 as the Sparrows. In 1967 they were signed to the Dunhill label and changed their name at the suggestion of their producer, Gabriel Mekler (whose other artists included Three Dog Night and Janis Joplin.)

The band’s blues-based sound supported unusually topical lyrics. And Kay’s brooding presence and growling voice achieved immediate recognition. He later described the band’s MO: ‘Hit ‘em hard, make your point and move on.’”

After two singles, Steppenwolf achieved worldwide fame with “Born to be Wild”. The B-side, which also received play, was a cover of Hoyt Axton’s powerful song “The Pusher.” Both songs were on the band’s eponymous debut album —Steppenwolf— and both songs were used prominently in the iconic ’60s film Easy Rider: “Born to be Wild” under the opening credits, and “The Pusher” under a drug deal in which Peter Fonda stuffs bills into the fuel tank of his flag-decorated hog.

“Born to be Wild” was written by Dennis Edmonton, one of the earliest Sparrows under his pseudonym Mars Bonfire. It reached the Number Two slot in August 1968.

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin’ with the wind
And the feelin’ that I’m under
Yeah darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature’s child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

“The Pusher” was written by the songwriter-singer Hoyt Axton (who will be the subject of a later Soundtrack). Its strong sentiments reflect his long struggle with cocaine addiction. He also wrote “Snowblind Friend” on Steppenwolf 7. Here is “The Pusher” from Easy Rider:

You know I’ve smoked a lot of grass
O Lord, I’ve popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin’
That my spirit could kill
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ’round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don’t care
Ah, if you live or if you die

God damn, the pusher
God damn, I say the pusher
I said God damn, God damn the pusher man

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he’s not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he’ll leave your, he’ll leave your mind to scream

God damn, the pusher
God damn, God damn the pusher
I said God damn, God, God damn the pusher man

Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I’d declare total war on the pusher man
I’d cut him if he stands, and I’d shoot him if he’d run
Yes I’d kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun

God damn the pusher
Gad damn the pusher
I said God damn, God damn the pusher man.

The band wasted no time releasing another album —Steppenwolf The Second— which introduced another big hit: “Magic Carpet Ride.” Only the determinedly obtuse could miss the song’s psychedelic language and imagery, which not only reflected the band’s Hessian Steppenwolffery but perfectly reflected the popular culture of the time.

“Magic Carpet Ride” was written by Kay and the band’s new bassist (who got his job by answering an ad posted at a Hollywood music store) Rushton Moreve, who was responsible for the distinctive three-note bass line. Rushton Moreve was replaced in 1969 after he refused to fly home to California with the band because he was sure that an earthquake was about to send the state sliding into the Pacific. His replacement —Kay’s erstwhile friend (and also German-born) Nick St. Nicholas— was fired after he started showing up onstage wearing only a jockstrap and bunny ears, and playing his bass out of tune.

I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here

Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away

Last night I held Aladdin’s lamp
And so I wished that I could stay
Before the thing could answer me
Well, someone came and took the lamp away
I looked around, a lousy candle’s all I found

Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away

The 1969 album Monster is generally considered to be the beginning of the band’s gradual decline; it reached Number 17 on the Pop Albums chart, but it was their first album not to include a Top Ten hit. The band’s focus became increasingly diffuse as personal —and personnel— problems became inreasingly distracting.

Monster was the band’s most overtly political album. It was critical of the Nixon administration in general and the Vietnam war in particular; the second track was “Draft Resister.” The title song was another Kay/Edmonton composition.

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And ’til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has its share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But its protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it’s a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And its keepers seem generous and kind
Its leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won’t pay it no mind
‘Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it’s all just an echo of what they’ve been told
Yeah, there’s a monster on the loose
Its got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin’

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin’ the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can’t understand
We don’t know how to mind our own business
‘Cause the whole world’s got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who’s the winner
We can’t pay the cost
‘Cause there’s a monster on the loose
Its got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster

1970’s Steppenwolf 7 seems, in retrospect, one of the band’s Ur-albums. At the time it was considered underwhelming — reaching only 19 on the Album chart and failing to produce even a Top Forty single.

Of course in retrospect all vision is 20/20, and Wikipedia says of Monster and Steppenwolf 7 that “These albums are still fondly remembered by fans as two of the best rock & roll snapshots of the attitudes of the late 1960s and early 1970s.”

1971’s For Ladies Only sent a somewhat mixed message. A number of conventional rock songs were interspersed with songs inspired by the burgeoning feminist movement (although some feminists were offended by a piece of blatantly phallic art on the record sleeve which carried an extremely mixed message).

It only reached Number 54 on the Album chart and the two singles —“For Ladies Only” and “Ride With Me”— only charted at 64 and 52 respectively. It is generally seen as the precursor of John Kay’s solo career.

Steppenwolf broke up in 1972, on a day that Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, presumably unaware of what was afoot, had designated “Steppenwolf Day.” and the first Kay album —Forgotten Songs and Unsung Heroes— yielded a minor hit, “I’m Movin’ On” — which indeed he was.

(Above: Poster for August-September 1968 shows at San Francisco’s Fillmore West. Steppenwolf is the first band listed on the left side. The complex and striking lion was artist Lee Conklin’s drawing for Santana — a redrawn version appears on Santana’s first album.)

(Above: the instantly identifiable cover of the paperback found in 17 out of 20 college dorm rooms circa 1968-72. A serious book that was more referred to than read, the author’s very complicated allegorical message about self-discovery and rites of passage was reduced to a very uncomplicated formula: sex, drugs, and rock and roll.)

Comments