“Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth

Although the main subject of “Hair of the Dog” is a particular female, i.e. the addressee, the “son of a bi**h” mentioned in the hook is actually a reference to the vocalist. 

You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Nazareth's Hair of the Dog at Lyrics.org.

The reason he is referring to himself as such is sorta as a warning to said subject, who is depicted as a “Midnight Shoulder”, “Red Hot Mama” and “Velvet Charmer” amongst other colorful monikers. In fact when the vocalist calls her a “Mantaker” and “Born Faker” in the second verse, that is, all things considered, a lot more revealing of her personally. And that is because one of the intended points of this tirade is to serve as sort of a diss track. And what we’re dealing with here, as implied, is a lady who uses her sexuality to exploit men.

But going back to the chorus, the reason the vocalist is touting himself as such an unfavorable individual is to let this lady know that he will not be one of her victims. Or put differently, he’s just as much of a bad a-s as she is. That is why for instance he is able to perceive the subject’s true nature. 

And apparently, Dan has also made it his goal to teach this lady a lesson, or something like that, in exclaiming that the ‘time has come to pay her dues’. Put simply, he is trying to say that now is the time for her to pay for the way she has mistreated men in the past.

Meaning of “Hair of the Dog”

Of course on the surface, none of this actually has anything directly to do with the phrase “hair of the dog”, which is not even present in the lyrics. What we do have rather is the term “son of a bi*ch”, which is what Nazareth originally intended to name this piece. 

But understandably such was not deemed acceptable by the powers that be, so they instead went with “Heir of the Dog” which, in a roundabout way, is another way of saying “son of a bi*ch”. But in the long run that too didn’t fly, thus giving us the wordplay “Hair of the Dog”. 

So in actuality, this song is named after the vocalist. And again, he is touting himself as being a hard person to deal with specifically within the context of interacting, presumably romantically, with a woman who herself has proven formidable in that regard.

Lyrics to Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog"

Facts about “Hair of the Dog”

Nazareth is a band that originated in 1968 is still listed as active as of the writing of this post, having dropped their most recent studio album, Tattooed on My Brain, in 2018.

The members of Nazareth at the time “Hair of the Dog” was dropped on 14 March 1975 were vocalist Dan McCafferty alongside the below:

  • Manny Charlton (guitar player)
  • Pete Agnew (bass player)
  • Darrell Sweet (drummer)

FYI, Sweet passed away in 1999.

And out of that group, Agnew has remained down with the band throughout the years and up until this day.

An alternate title of this song has been recognized as “Son of a Bi**h”, a phrase which is found in the chorus. In fact “Son of a Bi**h” was actually the working title of this track/album, but Nazareth were forced to change it by their label, which in this case would have most likely been Virgin Records, the company responsible for the issuance of the song in Europe (with A&M Records handing said responsibility stateside). And to note, this is in fact the title track of the 1975 Nazareth album it is featured on.

Guns N’ Roses covered “Hair of the Dog” in 1993. Furthermore, the track has also had a consistent pop media presence during the 21st century, such as being featured in a couple of TV commercials and popular video games (including Grand Theft Auto IV), on top of the 2014 Jim Carrey film Dumb and Dumber To.

Nazareth’s rendition of “Hair of the Dog” only managed to chart in Germany, where the band was quite popular during that era of its existence.

The aforementioned quartet of Nazareth members are individually credited as the authors of this song, with Manny Charlton also producing the track.

Hair of the Dog

3 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    I have never fogured out what the vover of that album is a picture of. What is it?

  2. Anonymous says:

    I had the same question. I’m thinking it a mystical dog-like creature for example Cerberus, The Guardian Hound Of The Underworld. I looked at another album and you could see that those rocks are skulls. Cerberus had three heads. I see three heads. The purple is a worn umbrella. Maybe another reference to purple rain aka royal reign

    • Anonymous says:

      The purple is a bat wing and you can see the outline of the bat and the silhouette of its ears sticking up. It’s a puzzling picture because it not entirely clear what we’re looking at.

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