AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (smashes lamp) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (drives car through front door of McDonalds) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (detonates cement mixer full of dynamite, rides shockwave to Heaven like Elijah's chariot of fire)
That's because nothing measures up to the frenetic energy of the original. From the very beginning it sounds like the Andrews Raid, which is to say it sounds like one steam locomotive chasing a second steam locomotive whose crew is trying to make it from Atlanta to Chattanooga while destroying the railroad along behind them as they go.
In addition to not being able to recapture the locomotive feel of the arrangement--without which "Wolf Like Me" is pretty much monotonous chanting--these cover versions often as not bungle the chord changes on the last two beats of the second line of the verse. They go from Bm to G like this is a normal song, while so much of the momentum of the original stems from hitting Bm again on three, then A on four, then G on beat one of the third line. It sounds mechanical, like shifting gear or cocking a shotgun, and without it you just lose the rhythm.
It's a mistake to try to do "Wolf Like Me" in a manner that's slow or pretty, because this song is purposely fast and emphasizes rhythm over melody. The whole soul of the song is wrapped up in straining to work your mouth around "When the moon is round and full / gonna teach you tricks that'll blow your mongrel mind," which is one of the greatest single lines in modern rock music. It cranks the locomotive chase aspect of the song to another level by running over the allotted space of the line, but pounding "blow. your. mon. grel. mind." into the downbeats like the spike in a transorbital lobotomy.
Consider this live performance. Look at what frontman Tunde Adebimpe's left arm is doing on that line. It's like he's being electrocuted. If you don't feel like you're being electrocuted during the second verse of "Wolf Like Me," you're probably dead, and if you're not swinging your arms around like you're having a fit, your Boyce Avenue-ass-sounding, Ben Harper-looking corny-as-hell "Wolf Like Me" cover has probably failed to capture any of the things that made the original so compelling.
It's possible, generally, to take the bones of a song and transplant another soul into it, but I'm not sure that it's possible for a song with so few bones and so much soul as "Wolf Like Me."
