Hungry Like the Wolf

"Hungry Like the Wolf" was Duran Duran's second Top 5 hit in the UK and was their breakout hit in the US. It was their fifth single, released off their 1982 album, Rio, and has become one of the band's signature songs. Its popularity was boosted by MTV which played the accompanying music video in heavy rotation.

About the song
"Hungry Like the Wolf" was written and recorded quickly on a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1982 at the basement studios of EMI's London headquarters. "That track came from fiddling with the new technology that was starting to come in," guitarist Andy Taylor recollects in an interview with Blender. This refers to the rhythmic backing track they came up with by joining a Roland 808 drum machine with a sequencer and a Roland Jupiter 8 keyboard.

"As soon as we heard that, we knew we had something, and I started working out a Marc Bolan-ish guitar part, a very Marshall-sounding Les Paul guitar lick, to go on top of it," Taylor continues. "Then we added the bass and drums, and the whole track was finished that day, including Simon's vocal melody and lyric. He has a great ear for putting a melody to a bunch of chords. I didn't realize it at the time, but his inspiration for that lyric was Little Red Riding Hood!"

A final version was recorded in at London's AIR Studios with producer Colin Thurston (Kajagoogoo, Bow Wow Wow). "He was a great organizer and arranger," Taylor remembers. "We gave him far more ideas and music than the track actually needed, and he was important in the process of whittling them down to the essential elements." Thurston and the band decided to keep the demo's original electronic backing track and just rerecord the other instruments and vocals. "AIR was a big acoustic room with a very warm sound, which gave the track a distinctive sound," Taylor says.

The song was first released on May 4, 1982 in Britain, where they had attained some earlier success. The single (with the b-side "Careless Memories (Live)") peaked at #5 in the UK Singles Chart on May 15.

The song was not released in the United States until December 3, 1982, after the remix album Carnival (September), and the David Kershenbaum remaster of the Rio (November), began to gain popularity among deejays. At first the song seemed to be going nowhere as radio airplay was slim to none, but when the newly emerging MTV picked up on the video, requests began to pour into radio stations, and the song jumped into the Top Ten peaking at #3 on December 25, 1982.

Music video
Music video director Russell Mulcahy, who had directed the band's first video "Planet Earth", was brought back to make the music videos for "Hungry Like the Wolf" and several other songs for the band's ambitious 1983 video album. The band had a vision of jungles and exotic women, and Mulcahy suggested Sri Lanka, a country he had just visited, which had the advantage of being inexpensive. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes remained behind to finish the mixing of the Rio album while the rest of the band began filming in April; Rhodes flew straight to Sri Lanka after handing over the final masters to EMI.

The video was lush and cinematic, with shots of jungles, rivers, elephants, cafes and marketplaces evoking the atmosphere of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The storyline reflected the lyrics "I'm on the hunt, I'm after you," featuring singer Simon Le Bon pursuing a tiger-like woman from parties in the city through obstacles in the jungle, culminating in a final chase and struggle in a jungle clearing. In the meantime, other band members hunted for Le Bon.

Les Garland, senior executive vice president at MTV, said “I remember our director of talent and artist relations came running in and said, ‘You have got to see this video that’s come in.’ Duran Duran were getting zero radio airplay at the time, and MTV wanted to try to break new music. ‘Hungry Like A Wolf’ was the greatest video I’d ever seen.”

"Hungry Like the Wolf" was #11 on the century-end MTV "100 Greatest Videos Ever Made" and #31 on the "VH1: 100 Greatest Videos". MTV also named "Hungry" the fifteenth of their most-played videos of all time.

B-sides, bonus tracks and remixes
The "night version" remix of "Hungry" appeared on the 12" single. For some reason, it was released in various mixes with various BPM.

A live version of "Careless Memories", recorded in December 1981 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, was released in 1982 as the b-side to "Hungry Like the Wolf".

Complete list of mixes

 * 1) "Hungry Like the Wolf" - 3:40 (127 BPM)
 * 2) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Album Version]" - 3:35 (132 BPM)
 * 3) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Single Version]" - 3:27 (127.5 BPM)
 * 4) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Single Version]" - 3:25 (130 BPM)
 * 5) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Night Version]" - 5:14 (127 BPM)
 * 6) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Night Version]" - 5:12 (129 BPM)
 * 7) "Hungry Like the Wolf [US Album Remix]" - 4:02 (127.5 BPM)

Covers, samples, & media references
Over the years the song has been covered by many artists, including Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Hole, Incubus, Buck O’ Nine, and Jebediah. In live performances the band Reel Big Fish claimed that the song was originally a Charlton Heston poem.

On their June 18 2006 in San Francisco, Gnarls Barkley performed dressed as chefs and opened the show with a cover of "Hungry Like the Wolf".

The song has been used in the soundtracks of several movies, including Hot Dog...The Movie (1984), Small Sacrifices (1989 TV movie), Big Fat Liar (2002), and Old School (2003). The "Far Far Away Idol" contest at the end of the movie Shrek 2 featured a performance of the song by the Big Bad Wolf. It has also appeared in episodes of the television shows Keen Eddie, King of the Hill, Lizzie McGuire and The Shield.

The song is also used as the walk on music by BDO darts player Martin Adams.

According to the band, the Burger King company has repeatedly asked to use the song in its advertising since the year it came out, but Duran Duran has consistently refused.

While the song itself was not played, the classic "painted wild woman" from the video was briefly recreated in the opening scenes of the second season (summer 2006) premiere episode of the animated series The Venture Bros. The scene included the famous "faces screaming at each other" pose.

The Reel Big Fish cover of the song gets referenced in the webcomic, Impy and Aevy

In 2006, online voters rated "Hungry Like the Wolf" #2 on VH1's list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s" behind Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer.

7": EMI EMI5295 (UK)

 * 1) "Hungry Like the Wolf [single version]" (3:27)
 * 2) "Careless Memories [Live Version]" (4:11)

7": Harvest B-5195 (US)

 * 1) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Night version]" (5:14)
 * 2) "Hungry Like the Wolf [US album remix]" (4:02)


 * This "Night Version" runs at 127 bpm

12": EMI 12 EMI5295 (UK)

 * 1) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Night version]" (5:14)
 * 2) "Careless Memories [Live Version]" (4:11)


 * This "Night Version" runs at 127 bpm

CD: Part of "Singles Box Set 1981-1985" boxset

 * 1) "Hungry Like the Wolf [single version]" (3:27)
 * 2) "Careless Memories [Live Version]" (4:11)
 * 3) "Hungry Like the Wolf [Night version]" (5:12)


 * This "Night Version" runs at 129 bpm

Other appearances
Albums:
 * Rio (1982)
 * Arena (1984)
 * Decade: Greatest Hits (1989)
 * Greatest (1998)
 * Night Versions: The Essential Duran Duran (1998)
 * Strange Behaviour (1999)
 * Singles Box Set 1981-1985 (2003)
 * Singles Box Set 1986-1995 (2004)

Singles:
 * "Ordinary World" (1993)
 * "Too Much Information" (1993)

Videos:
 * Duran Duran [Long Video] (1983)
 * Duran Duran Video 45 (1983)
 * Sing Blue Silver [Video/DVD] (1984)
 * Arena (An Absurd Notion) [Video/DVD] (1984)
 * Live from London [DVD] (2005)

Personnel
Duran Duran are:
 * Simon Le Bon - vocals
 * Nick Rhodes - keyboards
 * John Taylor - bass guitar
 * Roger Taylor - drums
 * Andy Taylor - guitar

Also credited:
 * Colin Thurston - producer and engineer