Nature Boy

Album: Present Tense (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This was inspired by watching WWE wrestling. Wild Beasts' Tom Fleming told NME: "There's a lot of direct quotes from WWE wrestlers in it: wrestling is about hyper masculinity; like drag, a construct."
  • Nature Boy is the nickname of celebrated American wrestler Ric Flair. He gave himself the moniker in order to incite a 1978 feud with the original "Nature Boy," Buddy Rogers.
  • The lyric, "a little fun for me, and none for you" is lifted from an interview with wrestler Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, a grappler who used to bring a python to the ring.
  • Here are three more songs on our database inspired by wrestlers:

    "Captain Lou" by NRBQ pays tribute to professional wrestler "Captain Lou" Albano. The grappler also played Cyndi Lauper's father in the music video for the singer's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun."

    "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen was the theme song for the Mickey Rourke movie The Wrestler and earned The Boss a Golden Globe.

    "Wrestlers" by Hot Chip came about after the band's Alexis Taylor got a text message from LCD Soundsystem leader James Murphy concerning bandmate Al Doyle, who had been working with him. It read: "Sorry you can't have Al back, I'll wrestle you for him. And I'll beat you because I'm bigger and stronger than you."
  • This finds Hayden Thorpe singing about masculinity. He explained to DIY magazine: "All of a sudden when you're growing up, your adult mind realises all the mythologies you've been led to aspire to be - this is how I'm a man, this is how I'm powerful, this is how I'm strong - are false, almost grotesque. And that's quite a realisation in many ways."

    "'Nature Boy' is an illustration of that myth of the audacious male who's all-conquering," Thorpe continued. "When you're in a band you build a world for yourself to live in, and sometimes you believe you can live in that skin and become the myth you make. It's a skin that made me pretty itchy, to be honest."

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