About The Song

With the line “heavy metal thunder,” this became the first popular song to use the phrase “heavy metal,” which became a term for hard rock. William Burroughs is credited with coining the phrase, as he used it in his 1961 novel The Soft Machine, describing his character Uranian Willy as “the Heavy Metal Kid.” Burroughs told The Paris Review: “I felt that heavy metal was sort of the ultimate expression of addiction, that there’s something actually metallic in addiction, that the final stage reached is not so much vegetable as mineral.”

This was used in the 1969 movie Easy Rider, a counterculture classic starring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda as bikers who ride from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Another Steppenwolf song, “The Pusher,” was also used in the film.

When the movie was in production, this was simply a placeholder, since Fonda wanted Crosby, Stills and Nash to do the soundtrack. It became clear that the song belonged in the movie, and it stayed. Partly because of it’s use in Easy Rider, this has become the song most associated with motorcycles.

“Born To Be Wild” was a huge hit for Steppenwolf, going to #2 in America, where it spent three weeks behind “People Got to Be Free” by The Rascals. Released on their first album, it was their third single, following “A Girl I Knew” and “Sookie Sookie,” which both flopped. Most people knew the band through “Born To Be Wild,” but they developed a strident fanbase (known as the “Wolfpack”) thanks to the album, which got a lot of airplay on FM underground radio stations.

Video

Lyrics

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 lightnin’
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
Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
We’re 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
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

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