Songfacts®:

• This song about a werewolf who gets frustrated with desire was the lead single from American alternative rock band Eel's seventh studio album, Hombre Lobo. In 2006 Eels' main man Mark Oliver Everett released a download only single titled "I Want to Protect You." He explained to AOL that this song was written as a sequel. Said Everett: "I wrote a song a few years ago called 'I Want to Protect You' that was about wanting to protect someone from the wolves. Now I am the wolf."
• The Sun June 5, 2009 asked Everett why he made the werewolf Spanish. He replied: "Originally, I was thinking about calling the album American Werewolf but then I realised I didn't want to be tied into those movies. I thought I'd just put him in another language. I live in Los Angeles, which is heavily populated with Spanish speakers, so it seemed like the coolest sounding one. So he became a Spanish werewolf."
• Hombre Lobo is a concept album about desire voiced by a werewolf. The character previously appeared on the Eel's 2001 song "Dog Faced Boy" only now the boy has grown into a troubled adult. (Hombre Lobo is Spanish for "werewolf"). Everett told Billboard that the wolf-man style character was inspired by his beard. He explained: "I had been working on some other music and was brushing my teeth one morning and looked in the mirror and saw this werewolf looking back at me. I said, 'Y'know, the music I'm working on doesn't suit this beard.' I was about to cut it off, and then I said, 'Why don't I work on some music that suits the beard, and I'll keep it. So I'm now at the point where facial hair inspires my music. You've got to start somewhere..."
  Everett added that the previous time that he had a sizeable beard was around the time of Eels' 2001 Souljacker album. He recalled: "The first song on that was called 'Dog Face Boy.' That's why I grew the beard back then. I really got into that character. So I thought, 'What's this guy like as an adult, an adult werewolf now?' (Hombre Lobo) is not a sequel to that album, but the whole album is a sequel to that song, in a way."