Dark Deviations: TV On the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me”
The language and aesthetics of horror are all around us and seem to pop up when we least expect it. “Dark Deviations” is Haunted MTL‘s dive into those moments.
TV On the Radio
First of all, sit back, relax, and enjoy one hell of a song.
TV on the Radio is an indie rock band from Brooklyn that hit the scene around 2001. The current line-up consists of Tunde Adebimpe, David Andrew Sitek, Kyp Malone, and Jaleel Bunton. Gerard Smith, the bassist at the time of the release of “Wolf Like Me,” would later succumb to lung cancer in 2011.
TV on the Radio’s sound is eclectic. Some of the acts the band claims influence include Earth, Wind & Fire, Brian Eno, the Pixies, Prince, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“Wolf Like Me” was the first single from their album Return to Cookie Mountain.
Werewolves
Werewolves are a fairly common trope in music. Clearly Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” immediately come to mind. There are other great songs that touch on themes of lycanthropy. The Cramps’ “I Was A Teenage Werewolf,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark At The Moon,” and First Aid Kits’ “Wolf” are some great examples.
Lycanthropy can be defined in a few different ways. Most common is the folkloric concept of humans undergoing transformation into bestial forms. Often this is a wolf-like transformation. However, we see lycanthropy displayed in all sorts of forms across literature and folklore. Asia, in particular, has several instances of werecats.
But really, it is all about the werewolf in the context of western media.
“Wolf Like Me” and Lycanthropy
Both the song and video for “Wolf Like Me” use tropes of lycanthropy for metaphorical purposes. Particularly key to the song is the association of werewolves being a release. The chorus states this pretty clearly:
My mind has changed
My body’s frame, but, God, I like it
My heart’s aflame
My body’s strained, but, God, I like it
We see instances of inhibitions being released in the video. Examples include the car-ride, the dancing at the club, and finally the girl biting the lead male.
That of course also evokes one of the more… interesting associations of lycanthropy; that of lust. Werewolves are second only to vampires when it comes to being objects of desire. I mean, a search of Wattpad really showcases this.
Is lust all over that video?
How about in the song itself?
Dream me, oh dreamer
Down to the floor
Open my hands and let them
Weave onto yours
Feel me, completer
Down to my core
Open my heart and let it
Bleed onto yours
Feeding on fever
Down all fours
Show you what all that
Howl is for … a, yep. Check.
Wrap it up
TV on the Radio is not really a horror band. They’ve got a wide variety of amazing tracks and a song about werewolves isn’t entirely out of their stylings. Even still, “Wolf Like Me” is just one of those little offbeat tracks by an offbeat band that would be a great addition to any horror fan’s playlist. It evokes werewolves, and we think that is awesome.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
So we’re going out on a limb here in this segment of Nightmarish Nature and exploring one of the most terrifying, most dangerous, most impactful species to walk this planet. I’m talking about us of course. Sure, as humans, we may not seem all that horrific to ourselves, but to many other creatures we have been a force of nightmares.
Why are we terrifying?
Humans are among those species that engage in massive modifications to our environment to serve our needs, like beavers who dam rivers, elephants who eat all of the new growth scrub to keep the savannahs tree-free, and so on. Yeah, all creatures have some impact on their surroundings, but some take it up a notch, and we do so at an order of magnitude higher still. And we have gotten so good at it that we have managed to exist and thrive in places that would otherwise be inhospitable. We are outwardly adaptive and opportunistic to the point of being exploitative. We are the apex predators now.
We have forced many creatures into extinction, intentionally and not, and have sped up these effects enormously. The National Audobon Society chose the egret as its symbol after it made a comeback from being hunted to near extinction, and it was one of the lucky ones. Many weren’t so lucky, especially if they came in direct conflict with humans, such as wolves and the big cats who were in direct competition, or those who were really specialized in really specific niche circumstances that we pushed out of the way. And this is in only a very very limited scope of our earth’s history, and has since been even more ramped up with industrialization.
But humans aren’t all bad are we?
Depends on who you ask… We have created all sorts of incredible opportunities for some species too. Take mice for example. And coyotes. And kudzu. And a whole host of animals whom we’ve domesticated, some of whom wouldn’t have continued to exist otherwise or certainly wouldn’t exist in anything resembling their current forms. And the most massive extinctions occurred long before our arrival, when the earth was still forming and underwent rapid catastrophic changes and swings, decimating critters as they were trying to get a foothold. Nothing is constant except for change; that has always been true.
So it isn’t my goal to get all eco-con​scious and environmentalist here. Just that I feel if we are going to explore some of the more terrifying aspects of nature, we need to look in the mirror. Because if a consensus were taken right here, right now of all living beings globally as to what is among the most terrifying creatures among us, I’m sure we’d appear on that list.
If you enjoyed this closer-than-kissing-cousins segment of Nightmarish Nature on Horrifying Humans, please check out past segments:
