Remembering Chip Taylor: The Wild Heart Behind “Wild Thing” & “Angel of the Morning”
Songwriter Chip Taylor, the pen behind rock staple “Wild Thing” and the aching ballad “Angel of the Morning,” has died at 86, leaving a legacy that stretches from ‘60s garage bands to modern Americana, country outliers, and even Hollywood royalty through his niece, Angelina Jolie.
A Farewell to a Quiet Giant of Pop Songwriting
Taylor’s death, confirmed by his children Kris and Kelly, closes the chapter on one of those careers that quietly shaped the sound of popular music without always dominating the spotlight. If you’ve ever shouted along to “Wild Thing” at a bar, heard “Angel of the Morning” drifting through a supermarket, or recognized a melody in a film or TV needle drop, you’ve probably brushed up against his work.
Taylor may never have been a household name like some of the stars who recorded his songs, but his writing became part of rock and pop’s shared DNA—from The Troggs and Jimi Hendrix to Juice Newton, Shaggy, and countless film soundtracks.
From James Voight to Chip Taylor: A Life Between Nashville and New York
Born James Wesley Voight, Chip Taylor grew up in a family that would flip the Venn diagram of American culture: his brother Jon became an Oscar-winning actor, while his niece Angelina Jolie turned into one of the most recognizable movie stars of her generation. Taylor took the backdoor route to fame, slipping into history through 45s and jukeboxes rather than red carpets.
He started out in the Brill Building–era ecosystem of professional songwriters, hustling tunes for singers and bands in the ‘60s. Where some of his peers specialized in teen pop or Motown-inspired soul, Taylor’s songs walked an interesting line: simple enough to be immediate, but emotionally direct enough to outlast fashion.
Unlike some “song factory” writers, Taylor later stepped out as a performer in his own right, working in country and Americana, and gaining a cult following in Scandinavia and the U.S. roots scene. But even as his own albums accumulated, he never outran the gravitational pull of two songs written early in his career.
“Wild Thing”: The Garage-Rock Anthem That Refused to Age
If rock had a karaoke starter pack, “Wild Thing” would be in it. Written by Taylor and made famous by The Troggs in 1966, the song is a masterclass in less-is-more: three chords, a primal riff, and lyrics that sound half like a come-on and half like a shrug.
“I wrote it in just a few minutes, but I knew it had that simple, crazy energy. It was meant to be wild, not perfect.”
Culturally, “Wild Thing” became a kind of Swiss Army knife of rock:
- Garage rock staple: The Troggs’ version practically invented a certain brand of sludgy, swaggering rock that would inspire punk a decade later.
- Hendrix’s reinvention: Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic live take at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival turned the song into a feedback-drenched ritual, cementing its place in rock mythology.
- Film & TV ubiquity: From sports arenas to teen movies, it’s become shorthand for unruly desire and playful chaos.
What’s striking about “Wild Thing” now is how contemporary it still feels. In an era of maximalist pop and meticulous production, its rawness sounds almost refreshing—like a demo that somehow became the definitive version of itself.
“Angel of the Morning”: A Soft-Rock Standard with Emotional Teeth
If “Wild Thing” was the rowdy side of Taylor’s songwriting personality, “Angel of the Morning” was the vulnerable, quietly radical flip side. First a hit for Merrilee Rush in 1968 and later reintroduced to a new generation by Juice Newton in the early ‘80s, the song centers on a woman unapologetically owning a brief, intense love affair.
“There’ll be no strings to bind your hands / Not if my love can’t bind your heart.”
In the context of the late ‘60s, those lyrics threaded the needle between romance and autonomy. Long before the language of consent and agency became common in pop discourse, Taylor wrote a song where the woman at its center is neither villainized nor sentimentalized. It’s just...complicated, which is why it’s aged so well.
The song’s endurance—covered by everyone from Olivia Newton-John to Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, and sampled in later pop and hip-hop—speaks to Taylor’s knack for melodies that feel inevitable once you’ve heard them.
Beyond the Hits: Americana, Country, and Late-Career Reinvention
Reducing Taylor’s career to just two songs is a little like summing up Martin Scorsese with only “Goodfellas” and “Taxi Driver”—technically accurate, but wildly incomplete. From the ‘70s onward, he moved in and out of the music business, even taking time out as a professional gambler before returning with a run of albums that found him embraced by the Americana and alt-country scenes.
His later work, often recorded with Norwegian singer Paal Flaata or produced in small studios with a lived-in intimacy, leaned into stories about flawed people, small towns, and the strange corners of American life. Critics frequently described these albums as “conversational,” which is fitting—Taylor’s voice often sounded like a late-night barroom monologue set to a slow shuffle.
While those albums never crossed into mainstream chart territory, they deepened his reputation among musicians and serious listeners. In that sense, Taylor had two careers: the hit-making songwriter of the ‘60s and the late-blooming storyteller, both feeding into a single legacy.
Hollywood, Legacy, and Cultural Crossovers
Part of the fascination around Chip Taylor’s story is the family tree. As the brother of Jon Voight and uncle to Angelina Jolie, he occupied an unusual space where music culture and Hollywood culture blurred into one extended narrative.
His songs often turned up in films and TV—“Wild Thing” in sports comedies and teen movies, “Angel of the Morning” in dramas and later ironic or nostalgic contexts. That gave his work a second life with audiences who couldn’t have named the songwriter but felt his fingerprints on the soundtrack of pop culture.
Industry-wise, Taylor represents a vanishing archetype: the professional songwriter who can move across genres and decades without being tightly bound to a single era’s production style. In a streaming age where algorithmic playlists often flatten history, his catalog reminds you that a well-built song can survive endless reinterpretation.
Strengths, Blind Spots, and the Honest Craft of Chip Taylor
Evaluating Taylor’s career means accepting a tension: he was both timeless and very much of his time. Not every deep cut in his catalog holds up to modern scrutiny; some lyrics bear the gender assumptions and narrative shortcuts common in mid-century pop.
But at his best, he had three distinct strengths:
- Emotional clarity: His songs often went straight for the central feeling—desire, regret, defiance—without getting lost in metaphor.
- Melodic economy: He favored clean, singable lines that lent themselves to covers across styles, from rock to country to pop.
- Adaptability: The same writer who gave the world “Wild Thing” could also write gentle, introspective material for his later Americana records.
Where he was less interested, often by his own admission, was in chasing trends. That may have cost him some commercial momentum in later decades, but it also means those songs feel less locked into one production fad or radio format.
An Enduring Echo: What Chip Taylor Leaves Behind
Chip Taylor’s passing at 86 doesn’t silence his voice so much as underline how long it has been echoing in the background of other people’s stories. Every time a bar band counts off “Wild Thing,” every time “Angel of the Morning” sneaks onto a playlist or into a film, you’re hearing the residue of a songwriter who understood that simplicity and honesty often outlast flash.
In an era where music careers can be defined by viral moments and short attention spans, Taylor’s life suggests a different model: write carefully, evolve slowly, and accept that the world might take decades to catch up—or that it may never fully know your name, even as it hums your tunes.
As fans, musicians, and film lovers look back on his work in the wake of his death, the most fitting tribute might be the simplest: play the songs again—loud, on whatever format you have—and notice how they still manage to feel alive.
