Wolf Parade
Few artists have had such a recurring discographical relationship with one song as Michael Hurley has with "Werewolf"/"The Werewolf"/"The Werewolf Song." As its varied titles attest, the song has been tackled on more than one occasion by Hurley, from his very beginnings (1965's functionally-titled First Songs), through to three decades hence (1994's Wolfways).
For my Hurley money the definitive version is the one that kicks off his second LP, Armchair Boogie. Which, conveniently enough, also doubles as Hurley's most vital, enduring, endearing album. Recorded in 1969 but only released in 1971, it's an album of stark, strange folksongs; a mélange of traditional reels, lonesome ballads, and goofy jams all effortlessly bespeaking of a singular aesthetic and a solitary identity.
That identity is Hurley's oddball personality. Authoring a fantastical, royally-stoned songworld full of frolicking animals (both anthropomorphized and not), tortured bluesmen, and winsome portraits of domestic life, Hurley makes the mundane magical and the magical mundane. Similarly, his songs can seem, at times, rudimentary, yet there's intense sonic complexities at play; his keening voice, raw-stringed strums, and mercurial fiddling hit the ear in unusual ways, the sound both coming together and being pushed apart.
Outsider Bark
One can only imagine how much Armchair Boogie must've confounded audiences upon its release. These days, with freak-folk having flourished, there's a familiarity to hearing someone authoring this personal, this radical a take on traditionals. But, coming from a much more 'straight' era of folk revivalism, Hurley was an alien figure; standing alone as the vanguard of the New Weird America, 30 years before it'd come into vogue.
Over the years, Hurley's influence has grown, the litany of artists who've fallen under his spell growing with each passing year. For those who've worked back to Hurley by those who've collaborated with him (Tara Jane Oneil, Ida), released his records (Devendra Banhart, Vetiver), taken him on tour (Son Volt, Jolie Holland), or covered him (Espers, the Violent Femmes(!)), a large proportion may've discovered Hurley via Cat Power. Chan Marshall has covered Armchair Boogie songs thrice: devastatingly transforming the jocular, breezy, dudey "Sweedeedee," summoning the near-biblical menace in "Troubled Waters," and, even taking on Hurley's career-defining song.
So what is it that makes "Werewolf" so permeable that Hurley himself is continually drawn back to it? Narrated from the perspective of its protagonist, it's a study in the symbolic duality of the man-wolf; a tortured, lonesome, howling paean from a man who knows full well the terrors he causes by a full moon. It's about the suppressed animal nature of man, sure, but, via Hurley's telling, this song of the "Werewolf" becomes the ultimate outsider's lament.
Record Label: Raccoon
Release Date: September, 1971
