Some time ago, I realized this song paralleled my life. Of course, it's not written about me; it's more like The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Just for fun, I'll flesh out the parallels next to the lyrics.
Yeah, when I was only seventeen/I could hear the angels whispering./So I drove into the woods and wandered aimlessly about/Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog/Or a wolf to be exact/The sound sent shivers down my back/But I was drawn into the pack and before long/They allowed me to join in and sing their song
This life change came later, around 20 or 21 for me. I grew into my own and recognized that I needed to come to terms with the world on my own convictions. Most influential for me was my realization that I wasn't a Christian. Until then, I believed I had been saved at 9.
I like the line, drove into the woods. I literally did that. I went to the Appalachian Trail and found God there, but that's skipping ahead in my story. During my sophomore year of college, I began to hear what I thought was comfortable and real truth, as much as a mother's calling, but these were "howling[s] of...wol[ves]" in that what I began to dig into was so opposite of what I had always known. Yet, I was drawn to it and explored it, although a close friend and I were the only ones I knew well enough to be a part of that pack believing the howls.
So from the cliffs and highest hill/Yeah, we would gladly get our fill/Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong/For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah/And my thoughts, they surely were/Turned to instinct and obedience to God
I prided myself in the critical and deep thinking I was doing that was so opposite of what I saw in everyone else around me. I found excitement in getting deeper in my own head and enjoyed the music and cultural scene this brought me into. My ultimate goal in my critical thinking was to find the basic truths of life. I thought (mistakenly, I now recognize) that there are realities that exist even if God didn't. I idolized Christopher McCandless, the noble savage, and feral children (which I wrongly defined as brothers of the noble savage). This is why Furr, Buck from The Call of the Wild, and Thoreau's Walden became so meaningful. The flesh-to-fur metaphor played itself out as I began to get looser with my choices, wilder, and was drawn more into nature. My thoughts were focused on the absolute basic truths of life, what is instinctive in all of us as right or wrong. The irony is that these truths were developed and explained through my own rationalizations, rather than seeking outside sources. Of course, the God described in the song isn't the god I was obedient to; the god I was obeying was my own morals.
You can wear your fur/Like the river on fire/But you better be sure/If you're makin' God a liar
I'm a rattlesnake, babe/I'm like fuel on a fire/So if you're gonna' get made/Don't be afraid of what you've learned
I take the first half of this "to be wearing fur like a river on fire" as pretending what you're not. Not quite a wolf in sheep's skin, but just a costume because you like how it makes you feel and fits you in with the crowd you want to be with. But be careful with where it's leading you, as it may contradict the Creator. Also, be careful what you wish for. Reality is going to hit in the face of your theorizing. What you learn, or what you teach yourself, as was my case, can work for you, but it may not last and may take you to places you didn't intend.
On the day that I turned 23/I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree/When suddenly a girl, her skin the color of a pearl/She wandered aimlessly but she couldn't seem to see/She was listenin' for the angels just like me
This is the most literal parallel to my life. I met my now-wife, a fair-skinned woman, when I was 22 and a half (round that up to 23). In Ohio, my heart was set in Virginia, my home state, whose state flower is the dogwood. My now-wife wasn't looking for a boyfriend, and that loosely ties to these lyrics. The angels she was listening to at the time, and still is, are those that worship God.
So I stood and looked about/I brushed the leaves off of my snout/And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees/You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees
So I took her by the arm/We settled down upon a farm/And raised our children up as gently as you please
I was already being changed by God, having been saved 1.5 years before meeting my wife. My wife and I had a lot in common in how we were raised, but I still had my "wolf" side very present and had a lot to learn about the Christian life.
And now my fur has turned to skin/And I've been quickly ushered in/To a world that I confess I do not know
But I still dream of running careless through the snow/And through the howlin' winds that blow/Across the ancient distant flow/And fill our bodies up like water till we know
During my phasing into adulthood in the last couple of years of college, I would have to shave and put on dress clothes to get a job. I felt I was being forced into an unknown world while still wanting to live wild and not wanting to give up the truths I had taught myself.
But you can wear your fur/Like the river on fire/But you better be sure/If you're makin' God a liar/I'm a rattlesnake, babe/I'm like fuel on a fire/So if you're gonna get made/Don't be afraid of what you've learned
The last two lines are hitting me anew as I write this. You learn new things, and they become truths that you can accept or apply for yourself. When I learned about God and the true meaning of life, it was freeing. It would have been something to grapple with if I could have told my past self (around 2012-2013) not to be afraid of what I was so deliberately rejecting, but there it is, the reality of truth.