Day After Day #24: I Wanna Be Your Dog

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

I Wanna Be Your Dog (1969)

There's a lot of debate about the origins of punk. Was it the Sex Pistols or the Ramones? The New York Dolls or the MC5? The Fugs or Death? A good argument can be made for the Stooges out of Detroit. They often get tagged with the descriptor "proto-punk," but for my money, they had all the elements: A truly out-there frontman in Iggy Pop, unpredictable live performances, unrelentingly loud and raw songs. 

The band formed in 1967 and released its self-titled debut in August 1969. The album was full of in-your-face rippers like "1969" and "Real Cool Time," but there was also a 10-minute drone dirge that was definitely influenced by producer John Cale's band the Velvet Underground and Nico, who Iggy was dating at the time. The band was not well received at the time: critics trashed the album and it didn't sell well. 

The first single was "I Wanna Be Your Dog," a furious 3-minute rocker that features a three-chord riff that Ron Asheton plays continuously throughout the song. John Cale plays piano while the rhythm section (bassist Dave Alexander and drummer Scott Asheton) drives the beat. Iggy sings about getting together with his lover and getting wild; some have interpreted as a bondage/subservience thing. Who the hell knows? 

"So messed up, I want you here/In my room, I want you here/Now we're gonna be face to face/And I'll lay right down in my favorite place/And now I wanna be your dog."

The riff just burrows into your brain and stays there, as it should. There have been so many performances of this song over the 54+ years since it first came out, by Iggy and many others, and it's the riff that's eternal. Ron Asheton came up with it, reportedly inspired by the opening riff of "Highway Chile" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. 

But of course, the real X factor is Iggy. The sheer energy he puts into every performance, on record and in concert, is amazing. Whether he's rolling around on stage, smearing himself with peanut butter, cutting himself with glass or jumping into an unsuspecting crowd at 65 years old, the guy IS punk rock. He's 76 now and still releasing albums and touring. I saw him in 1991 at the WFNX Best Music Poll concert at the Orpheum in Boston and again in 2016 on the Post Pop Depression tour, backed by a killer band including Josh Homme, Matt Sweeney and Matt Helders. Both performances were incredible. Iggy gives it all every goddamn time.

As I mentioned, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" has been covered numerous times, including by Sid Vicious on his album Sid Sings, Gary Oldman when he played Sid in the movie Sid & Nancy, Sonic Youth a few times, Swans and it even showed up in a scene in the movie Cruella. But for me, it always comes back to that original album performance, which must have blown some minds back in 1969.