Wango Tango Stranglehold Ted Nugent

Wango Tango Album: Scream Dream (1980)
Stranglehold Album: Ted Nugent (1975)Show more

A bit o' culture with Doctor Professor T. Nugent

Can you name all the cities?

"Wango Tango" is one of Ted's most popular live songs. It's about "beautiful girls on the beach, and the rhythm that accompanies that." It's a close cousin to one of his earlier songs, "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang."

Growing up in the '50s and '60s, Nugent heard lots of songs about dances, many coming from Motown Records in his hometown of Detroit. The "wango tango" is his version of a dance, but not the kind you can do in public without getting arrested.

If it's loud, goes fast, and has an engine, Nugent probably likes it (he did some off-road racing for a short time), so it's no surprise to hear him singing the praises of a Maserati in this song. But this hot rod is all about innuendo, with Nugent finding yet another way to express the throes of passion.

"Wango Tango" is the first track and only single from Nugent's sixth album, Scream Dream. On many of his earlier songs, he didn't sing lead - his guitarist Derek St. Holmes often did. But Ted sang most of the tracks on the album, including "Wango Tango," which doesn't require virtuoso vocals.

This was used in the 2007 Simpsons episode "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and in the 2017 episode of Stranger Things, "Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak."

Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" is a song of defiance. He wrote it in response to the naysayers at record labels who turned him down.

In an interview with Nugent, he described it as "middle fingers on fire, telling the music industry that my music is way better than you can even imagine."

"It's about my overt confidence in my music," he added. "The audience gave me that confidence by celebrating it and going nuts for it just like I do, and finally Tom Werman at Epic Records realized it, and 40 million albums later, the rest of the industry can kiss my ass."

Nugent had some success in the '60s with his band The Amboy Dukes, which landed a hit with "Journey To The Center Of The Mind." The group continued into the '70s, rebranded as "Ted Nugent And The Amboy Dukes." They built up a passionate live following but didn't sell a lot of records - their albums in 1973 and 1974 didn't chart. So it was understandable when record labels showed little interest, but it was also myopic. "Stranglehold" was included on Nugent's self-titled 1975 album, his first as a solo artist. That live energy that gave record executives pause ended up making him one of the biggest acts of the late '70s, when his albums sold in the millions.

Nugent didn't sing lead on this song; Derek St. Holmes, who was the vocalist with his band, did. Nugent resented the attention Holmes received on stage and eventually sang all the hits himself. His explanation: "There's only one alpha wolf, and that's me."

"Stranglehold" is Ted Nugent's most popular song and a staple of his live shows. Like "Stairway To Heaven," it's a dynamic rocker the quickly became a fan favorite but was never released as a single. And also like "Stairway," it's very long, running 8:22.

Right up there as one of the most swaggering, guitar-driven rockers with manly appeal, the lyrics are rather violent, with the singer letting some poor girl know that he has the upper hand now and is willing to burn her house down if he has to. Nugent has made it clear that the vitriol in the song is metaphorical and directed at the music industry honchos that didn't believe in him.

According to Nugent, he's heard from many Americans in the military who have a connection to this song. "When they go to battle and they know there's going to be fire and danger, they play 'Stranglehold,'" he said. "Is there a more powerful connection to the most important people in the world who will go into a firefight for our freedom listening to my song." So if the drop ship pilot is playing Stranglehold... you may be fvcked ;-)

Nugent holds the military in high esteem, but he wanted no part of it when he got drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. He showed up to the physical determined to fail, and he did, earning an exemption.

Nugent's guitar on this song got some help in the studio from producer Tom Werman.

"When you hear his guitar work on 'Stranglehold,' you hear a couple of duets – figures he would harmonize with," Werman said in a Songfacts interview. "And then it would be like 'Row Row Row Your Boat.' Somebody would go around and start it again, and they'd go together. Well, it was called 'tape slap.' So, I'd record what he played and have it played back behind him, but in time with him. I created duets and echoes and answers that he did not play. I think they were very good. That and the backwards cymbal that goes from left to right and right to left. It was fun."

The song can be heard in a television commercial for the Volkswagen Jetta, which follows the history of a young guy's vehicle purchases from his first 10-speed bike to a questionably-legal speedster. Years later, now a doting dad, he chooses the Jetta after learning it is a 2012 IIHS Top Safety Pick.

This classic rocker features in a number of movies, including Bad News Bears, Dazed and Confused, Invincible, Rock Star and Superbad.
The band Cross Canadian Ragweed did a popular cover on their 2004 album Soul Gravy that appears after the last song as a secret song. They also used it to do band intros at their concerts.

Other covers of "Stranglehold" include Marq Torien of BulletBoys for the 2001 album Bulletproof Fever: A Tribute to Ted Nugent, and Ministry on their 2010 compilation Every Day Is Halloween.