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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.
This was written by Mars Bonfire, which is the stage name of Dennis Edmonton. He wasn't a member of Steppenwolf, but his brother Jerry was the band's drummer. Bonfire wrote a few other songs for Steppenwolf as well, including "Ride With Me" and "Tenderness."
Explaining how he came up with the song, Bonfire said: "I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard one day and saw a poster in a window saying 'Born to Ride' with a picture of a motorcycle erupting out of the earth like a volcano with all this fire around it. Around this time I had just purchased my first car, a little secondhand Ford Falcon. So all this came together lyrically: the idea of the motorcycle coming out along with the freedom and joy I felt in having my first car and being able to drive myself around whenever I wanted. 'Born To Be Wild' didn't stand out initially. Even the publishers at Leeds Music didn't take it as the first or second song I gave them. They got it only because I signed as a staff writer. Luckily, it stood out for Steppenwolf. It's like a fluke rather than an achievement, though."
"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.
They repeated this pattern on their next album, Steppenwolf The Second, which had a huge hit with "Magic Carpet Ride" and plenty of deep cuts their fans sank their teeth into. These core fans kept the band going for the next 50 years, long after the hits dried up.
This song can get your motor running, but despite the famous lyric, it's not really heavy metal. "For me, heavy metal music had its beginnings in Led Zeppelin and beyond," Steppenwolf frontman John Kay said in a Songfacts interview. "We always considered Steppenwolf to be a hard rock, blues-based band, with some exceptions in terms of the material."
In an interview for CHMR FM, John Kay told Terry Parsons that when Mars Bonfire first introduced him to the song, it was intended as a folk ballad about life on the open road. Once Steppenwolf began working with the song, the tempo was increased, and an iconic rock and roll song resulted.
This has been licensed liberally for TV shows and movies, sometimes sincerely, but many times for comic effect. It appeared in two episodes each of Miami Vice, Kojak, Supernatural, Monk, Doogie Howser, M.D. and Growing Pains, and also in Quantum Leap, Home Improvement, The King of Queens, The Simpsons, Six Feet Under, My Name Is Earl, Full House, Punky Brewster, Married... with Children, The Wonder Years and Family Ties
Movies this has been used in include Coming Home, One Crazy Summer, Opportunity Knocks, Dr. Dolittle 2, Speechless and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
One request that was turned down came in 2004 when Paris Hilton wanted to use it as part of her show reality show The Simple Life 2. John Kay of Steppenwolf denied it, telling the Toronto Star, "There are certain things even a rock 'n' roller will not stoop to."
Frontman John Kay told Rolling Stone: "Every generation thinks they're born to be wild and they can identify with that song as their anthem." >>
In 1994, Ozzy Osbourne did a duet of this with Miss Piggy. It was released on an album called Kermit Unpigged, with featured rock stars singing with Muppets.
