When Suede burst onto the scene with their self-titled debut album in 1993, they were already heralded as the next big thing. They had built a sizeable live following since their early beginnings in 1989 and won Melody Maker’s “Best New Band In Britain” category in 1992.
In many ways the release of their debut album marked the proper start of the Britpop wave of the 1990s. They did not like to be counted amongst those bands, but just like other bands associated with that movement they wrote anthems for the new generation. They validated the new generation of bands by shooting to the top of the UK albums chart, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in almost ten years. It won several awards, and the tour was a triumph.
In some ways, Suede’s honeymoon years were already past them when the album came out. When the time came to think of a follow-up, they were well and truly over. The recording sessions for their second album Dog Man Star, released just a year after the first album on 10 October 1994, were fraught with difficulty. There were tensions between vocalist Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler, and also between Butler and producer Ed Buller. Buller later revealed that Butler would be in the studio when the other guys weren’t and vice versa.
The spat became public when Butler appeared on the front cover of Vox magazine under the tag line “Brett drives me insane.” Anderson read the article the same morning he was recording the vocals for The Asphalt World and tried to use the hurt he was feeling when delivering the vocal. Being aware of the circumstances certainly adds a dimension to the results.
The parties didn’t see eye to eye on the production either, and it all probably ended just as it had to: with Butler leaving the band before the recordings were complete. As a result, some tracks on the album had to be finished with the assistance of session musicians.
The tension and general atmosphere crept into the music. In contrast to their debut album, Dog Man Star had darker themes overall and a melodramatic sound. The lyrics were influenced by Anderson’s drug use, often had an Orwellian tone, and several songs dealt with tragic figures and sad fates – such as the addicted teenager in Heroine and James Dean’s death in Daddy’s Speeding.
The album also has a recurring theme of self-loathing, reflected in the ballad The Wild Ones. What appears to be a song of intense yearning to be with someone tells the story of a dying relationship. One of them is leaving, the other one is pleading.
There’s a song playing on the radio
Sky high in the airwaves on the morning show
And there’s a lifeline slipping as the record plays
And as I open the blinds in my mind I’m believing that you could stay
And oh if you stay
I’ll chase the rainblown fields away
We’ll shine like the morning and sin in the sun
Oh if you stay
We’ll be the wild ones
Running with the dogs today
The sentiment is grandiose, and never anything less than utterly romantic. The words feel sincere and genuine, sung with heart-string tugging elegance. Unfortunately, the message is probably delivered too late to make a difference. The boiling point in the relationship has already been reached for one of the involved; the decision to leave already having been made. One of them has long since reached the point of acceptance that this is over, while the other one is still holding on to romantic expectations of what their relationship is (or can be) like. Very likely, there is a mutual awareness that these expectations are unrealistic, but that is unimportant. All that is left now is the plea. In the plea, and only in that plea, are things still possible. And this song is that plea.
The beauty of the song is that it is allowed to live within that romantic bubble. Reality is sternly kept outside, not allowed to come crashing in. In the universe of this song there is still hope, there is still a chance. Eventually the song has to end, but for its full duration, one is allowed to dream. In that universe, one can imagine that the happier times are in front of you, not behind you.
It is a strong sentiment, and its unrelenting optimism gives the song an inner power that never diminishes. At the same time, the invisible backdrop of reality hangs heavy on the song’s shoulders, giving it a melancholic flair that just strengthens its emotional impact that much more.
And oh if you stay
We’ll ride from disguised suburban graves
We’ll go from the bungalows
Where the debts still grow each day
And oh if you stay
I’ll chase the rainblown fears away
We’ll shine like the morning and sin in the sun
Oh if you stay
While stark realism is kept away, there is room for more mundane and everyday elements, happily living side by side with happier sentiments in this song. Phrases like “the bungalows where the debts still grow each day” refers to where they have been; the everyday where they are coming from that the singer is promising to take them both away from. There is an acknowledgment in where they may have ended up, but no clear plan out of that situation.
The album does not bring forth happy memories for the people involved in it. It is sometimes typical for artists to rate their own works according to how enjoyable they were to make. Dog Man Star represents conflict, years of drug use, upheaval and general turmoil for the people in the band, and consequently this isn’t much of a favourite album in the Suede camp. The Wild Ones is however a big exception for Anderson. He has named the song not just his favourite Anderson/Butler collaboration, but his favourite Suede song period. This view is shared by many fans and it is definitely one of their most notable songs of this period.
“I was listening to a lot of very ‘singerly’ singers like Scott Walker, Edith Piaf, Frank Sinatra, and Jaques Brel,” he told Suede.co.uk, “people with the emotional and musical range to transform a song into a drama. This is what I wanted for The Wild Ones, for it to be a timeless slice of melodic beauty that people got married to and shared their first kisses to. Something that embedded itself deep within the soundscape of their lives. It’s unashamedly mainstream but hopefully with a depth that belies this simple ambition. It’s still my favourite single moment in Suede’s history and when interviewers ask me of what I am most proud I always mention this song.”
In the case of Jaques Brel, Anderson was inspired by more than just his singing style – the main refrain was inspired by his song Ne Me Quitte Pas.
The song was named after the 1953 Marlon Brando outlaw biker film, The Wild One. It was far from the only title or lyric inspired by classic movies. Immersed in lyric writing, Anderson spent hours in London’s Highgate library, looking through biographies of old film stars. This likely added to the album’s cinematic approach both musically and lyrically, with songs like Heroine, The Wild Ones, Daddy’s Speeding and Hollywood Life all containing film references. “I think I did get quite obsessed with films,” Anderson told Record Collector later on. “I did want it to be a big sweeping album, a really massive, epic thing. Like I said before, a lot of the lyrics were a desire to try to break away from the mould I’d been put in. I wanted to do something with more of a universal sense.”
It is tempting to see the song as an extension of what was going in within the band, with those relationships also breaking up and people leaving, but a song about that would have been very different indeed. Instead, it was Anderson’s then 17-year-old girlfriend, Anick, who inspired this ode to a relationship slowly and sadly ebbing out. The Dog Man Star tracks The Asphalt World and Black or Blue were also written about his teenage beau. “Our relationship was fiery and fractured,” he recalled to Mojo, “the kind you have when you’re young.” Anick had also inspired songs like So Young and Stay Together on their debut album.
The song is credited by Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler, like all songs on the album. It is one of the songs that was (mostly) finished before Butler left the sessions (and the band). Some changes were still done after Butler had left (and was unable to protest): the remaining band reworked the ending, replacing the four-minute extended guitar-solo-infused outro with a shorter fade. The departing guitarist was not happy when he found out. Fans can now make up their own minds about which version they prefer, as the original version with the extended ending was included on the 2011 expanded edition of the album.
The Wild Ones was selected as the second single from the album, and released on 14 November 1994, making it to #18 on the UK singles chart.
With that, they had to make a video for the song. Anderson may love the song, but he hates the video with a passion. While promoting their album Night Thoughts in 2016, he said “That really annoys me, because it’s the greatest song Suede ever wrote, and it’s got this awful video. It makes me shiver. That fucking video gives me night thoughts.”
The music video was one of the band’s few big-budget videos. It cost £150,000, most of it used for computer special effects. It was filmed in Dartmoor and directed by Howard Greenhalgh. The band met Greenhalgh at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York on a promo trip, where he won best video for Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.
The filming was quite arduous. Drummer Simon Gilbert told NME, “Filming the video was the worst day of my life. We did it on fucking Dartmoor, blowing a gale, raining. In this Winnebago…”
“… four of us, and six models, sitting in a Volkswagen Camper Van for 15 hours, shivering to death” bassist Mat Osman interjects, not one bit happier with the experience. His reference to ‘four of us’ tells us that new guitar player Richard Oakes, who ended up replacing Bernard Butler, was on hand. Appearing in the music video for The Wild Ones was his first job with the band.
Osman is quick to add, “It’s still one of my favourite songs. If we released it now, it’d be huge, but it kind of died on the vine.”
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