Freedom and the open road: How “Born to Be Wild” became a publishing phenomenon
by Martin Melhuish


"Born to Be Wild" songwriter Mars Bonfire pictured at SOCAN's "Life of a Song" panel during Canadian Music Week 2010. (Photo: Barry Roden)

“Born to Be Wild,” written by songwriter Mars Bonfire (the pseudonym for Dennis Edmonton) and the signature song for Steppenwolf, is one of those rare musical works that has taken on a cultural significance that has actually exceeded its initial — and huge — chart success.

“As we speak, some cab driver in Bangkok is listening to the song,” says John Kay, frontman for Steppenwolf for more than 40 years, in the 1999 CBC documentary Tower of Song: An Epic Story of Canada and Its Music (released as a DVD in 2001). “This is a song that has been up in the space shuttle twice. This tune has literally become a global anthem, not just for the bikers who have been with us since the early days because of Easy Rider but also because of every kid who gets behind [the wheel of] daddy’s car or some jalopy…. But the context is far broader than that.”

Heavy-metal rock is said to have adopted its name from a line in “Born to Be Wild.” Science-fiction writer William S. Burroughs first used the term “heavy metal” in his novels The Soft Machine (1961) and Nova Express (1964) in referring to one of his characters as Uranium Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid. Later in the decade, Mars Bonfire conjured the compellingly descriptive phrase “heavy metal thunder” at a time when the soft-pop sounds of the early to mid-’60s were giving way to the bombast and harder edge of rock.

According to Jodie Ferneyhough, managing director of Universal Music Publishing Group (Canada), “Born to Be Wild” has continued to be the top-earning song in the company’s domestic roster and has remained one of the top 25 highest-earning songs in UMPG’s worldwide catalogue, year after year. “It has been licensed over 900 times in everything from games, toys, dolls, T-shirts, bracelets, clothing, films, commercials, TV programs and countless other products,” Ferneyhough says. In addition, there are over 100 versions of the song, including covers by INXS, Slayer, The Cult, Blue Oyster Cult, Status Quo, Wilson Pickett, Riot, Kim Wilde, Doctor and the Medics, Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, Hinder and X Japan. There was even a 1994 song duet featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Miss Piggy for the album Kermit Unpigged.

“Born to Be Wild” hit No. 2 on the Billboard chart in August 1968, kept out of the top spot by a song that similarly celebrated freedom: The Rascals’ “People Got to Be Free.” But “Born to Be Wild” reached iconic status a year later after being included in what became an equally iconic film, Easy Rider. Over the years, the song has been used as part of the soundtrack of many other films including Neverending Story III, Coming Home, Opportunity Knocks, Speechless, Stuart Little 2, One Crazy Summer, Recess: School’s Out, Born to Be Wild and Wild America. It is also featured in the video games Rock n’ Roll Racing and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, among others.

Ferneyhough, who is also president of the Canadian Music Publishers Association, along with Alex Hindmarch of Toronto radio station Q107, was in conversation with Mars Bonfire as part
of a panel at Canadian Music Week 2010 titled “Life of a Song: Mars Bonfire’s ‘Born to Be Wild,’” sponsored and presented by SOCAN.


This column first appeared in Music Publisher Canada. It is reprinted/posted with permission.

Uploaded Summer 2010

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Send them to Rick MacMillan, Words & Music Corporate Editor, at wordsandmusic@socan.ca.

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