The song began as a joke by Phil Everly to Zevon in 1975, over two years before the recording sessions for Excitable Boy. Everly had watched a television broadcast of the 1935 film Werewolf of London and "suggested to Zevon that he adapt the title for a song and dance craze." Zevon, Marinell and Wachtel played with the idea and wrote the song in about 15 minutes, all contributing lyrics that were transcribed by Zevon's then-wife Crystal. However, none of them took the song seriously. Soon after, Zevon's friend Jackson Browne saw the lyrics and thought "Werewolves of London" had potential and began performing the song during his own live concerts. Backed by Bob Neuwirth and Guam, T-Bone Burnett also performed the song on the first leg of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour in the autumn of 1975. "Excitable Boy" and "Werewolves of London" were considered for but not included on Zevon's self-titled second album in 1976. According to Wachtel, "Werewolves of London" was "the hardest song to get down in the studio I've ever worked on." However, Wachtel "laid down his solo in one take." They tried at least seven different configurations of musicians in the recording studio before being satisfied with McVie and Fleetwood's contributions. The protracted studio time and musicians' fees led to the song eating up most of the album's budget. Over Zevon's objections, Elektra Records chose "Werewolves of London" as the album's first single. The song was a quick hit, staying in the Billboard Top 40 chart for over a month. .
listeners rated it as having the best opening line in a song. Zevon later said of the song, "I don't know why that became such a hit. We didn't think it was suitable to be played on the radio. It didn't become an albatross. It's better that I bring something to mind than nothing. There are times when I prefer that it was "Bridge Over Troubled Water", but I don't think bad about the song. I still think it's funny." He also described "Werewolves of London" as a novelty song, " not a novelty the way, say, Steve Martin's "King Tut" is a novelty." The song had a resurgence in popularity in 1986 due to its use in a scene in The Color of Money, where Tom Cruise dances and lip-synchs to the song in a scene in which Cruise "displayed the depths of his talents at the billiards game of 9-ball." After Zevon's death in 2003, Browne stated that he interpreted the song as describing an upper-class English womanizer: "It's about a really well-dressed, ladies' man, a werewolf preying on little old ladies. In a way it's the Victorian nightmare, the gigolo thing."
Chart history
Weekly charts
Chart
Peak position
UK
87
Year-end charts
Samples and other versions
The Grateful Dead covered the song in a number of live concerts in 1978, one of which was released on '. The group resurrected the song for Halloween night concerts in 1985, 1990, and 1991.
