Born to Be Wild

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For the SpongeBob SquarePants episode, see Born to Be Wild (SpongeBob SquarePants episode).

"Born to Be Wild" was a song written by Mars Bonfire (also known as Dennis Edmonton) for the band, Steppenwolf. It was initially released in 1968, but was subsequently released on many different collections, the first of which being the film, Easy Rider. It is often used in popular culture to denote a biker appearance or mentality. It is also frequently regarded as the first heavy metal song ever written. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song's second verse (which refers to "heavy metal thunder") is said to have inspired the name of the emerging heavy metal music genre.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cover versions

The song has been covered by many icons of heavy metal, including AC/DC, Slayer, X Japan and Ozzy Osbourne, the latter featuring Miss Piggy on his recording. It was also a popular live favourite with Slade, and is the last track on their album Slade Alive. It was also covered by Blue Öyster Cult on 1975 album On Your Feet or on Your Knees and also by the British rock band The Cult on their 1987 album Electric. The Indulgers covered the song on their album Celtic Tiger [1].

There is an altered-lyric version on the soundtrack to the movie Herbie: Fully Loaded; the version by The Mooney Suzuki states 'fire all your engines at once' rather than "...Fire all of your guns at once, and explode in to space" as in the original.

The song is also featured in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.