“Wild Thing” – Single by the Troggs from the album From Nowhere… The Troggs
B-side “From Home” (UK) / “With a Girl Like You” (US)
Released 22 April 1966
Label Fontana (UK) / Atco & Fontana (US)
Songwriter Chip Taylor
Producer Larry Page
Charted No.1 in US; No.2 in UK; No.1 in Australia; No.2 in Canada; No.7 in West Germany; No.5 in Ireland; No.6 in Spain. No.1 New Zealand.
It was originally recorded and released by the American rock band the Wild Ones in 1965, but it did not chart. The Troggs’ single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Singles Chart in 1966. Their version of “Wild Thing” was ranked at number 257 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has also been performed by many other musicians.
This was written by a songwriter named Chip Taylor, who has made tons of money from it because it has been recorded by many artists and is constantly being used in movies and TV shows. Taylor used a lot of this money to gamble – for years he bet about $10,000 a day and was kicked out of every casino in Las Vegas for card counting. He also wrote “Angel Of The Morning,” which was a hit for Merrilee Rush in 1968. Taylor is the brother of actor Jon Voight and the uncle of Angelina Jolie.
The style of music exemplified in this song became known as “Caveman Rock.” The Troggs is short for “troglodyte” (meaning “cave dweller”), which helped bolster this image. Over the next few years, The Troggs moved away from this Neanderthal sound and had a big hit in 1968 the much more evolved “Love Is All Around.”
Owing to a distribution dispute, the Troggs’ single was available on two competing labels: Atco Records and Fontana Records. Because both pressings were taken from the same master recording, Billboard combined the sales for both releases, making it the only single to simultaneously reach number one for two companies.
On 25 June 1966, the single entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart and on 30 July 1966, it reached number one, where it remained for two weeks. In Canada, the single (Fontana 1548) reached number two on the RPM magazine charts on 8 August 1966.
In 2019, The Troggs version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
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