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"Maneater" is a song by the American duo Hall & Oates, featured on their eleventh studio album, H₂O (1982). It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on December 18, 1982. It remained in the top spot for four weeks, more than any of the duo's five other number-one hits, including "Kiss on My List", which remained in the top spot for three weeks.

Background and writing

In an interview with American Songwriter in 2009, Daryl Hall recalled,

John had written a prototype of "Maneater"; he was banging it around with Edgar Winter. It was like a reggae song. I said, "Well, the chords are interesting, but I think we should change the groove." I changed it to that Motown kind of groove. So we did that, and I played it for Sara Allen and sang it for her… "Oh here she comes / Watch out boy she’ll chew you up / Oh here she comes / She’s a maneater… and a…" I forget what the last line was. She said, "drop that shit at the end and go, 'She’s a maneater,' and stop! And I said, 'No, you’re crazy, that’s messed up.'" Then I thought about it, and I realized she was right. And it made all the difference in the song.

Hall also opined, "We try and take chances. Our new single "Maneater" isn't something that sounds like anything else on the radio. The idea is to make things better."

John Oates has explained that while it is natural to assume the lyrics are about a woman, the song actually was originally written "about NYC in the ’80s. It’s about greed, avarice, and spoiled riches. But we have it in the setting of a girl because it’s more relatable. It’s something that people can understand. That’s what we do all of the time", after describing how they took a similar approach with the earlier song "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"

Music video

The Hall & Oates music video opens with a woman (Aleksandra Duncan) walking down a red staircase, and the band playing in a dimly lit studio with shafts of light projecting down on them. The band members step in and out of the light for their lip sync. A young woman in a short party dress is shown in fade-in and fade-out shots, along with a black jaguar, hence the song line "The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar." The song's chorus is "oh, oh here she comes; watch out boy, she'll chew you up; oh, oh here she comes, she's a maneater."

Legal action

In November 2008, Hall & Oates initiated legal action against their music publisher (Warner/Chappell Music). An unidentified singer-songwriter was alleged to have used "Maneater" in a 2006 recording, infringing copyright, and by failing to sue for copyright infringement, Warner Chappell Music were alleged to have breached their contract with Hall and Oates.

Cover versions

• In 1998, Las Vegas band The Kickwurmz released two versions of the song: Maneater, and Man Eata' Digital Media House Remix.
• In 2010, jazz and electronica group The Bird and the Bee's album Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates includes a studio recorded cover of "Maneater," featuring backing vocals from Garbage vocalist Shirley Manson, and was released March 23 of that year.
• In 2011, rock band Harvey Danger recorded a cover of this song for their final album Dead Sea Scrolls, which was available on the band's website.
• In 2011, indie rock band The Wooden Birds covered this song as a B-side on their "Two Matchsticks" single.
• In 2011, psychobilly and rockabilly group The Koffin Kats recorded a cover of this song for the album Rockabilly and Psychobilly Madness, an album dedicated to releasing covers of famous pop music songs in the rockabilly and psychobilly style.
• In 2013, Grace Mitchell performed this song for the Original Soundtrack of the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
• In 2014, Electric Six recorded a cover of the song as part of a pledge package for their Absolute Treasure Kickstarter campaign. The cover was subsequently released online.

Live cover performances

• The now defunct Chicago band Split Butt-Crack covered the song live, and also included it on their 2004 album "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is".
• The Bird and the Bee covered the song live with John Oates on March 5, 2010 at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, California. .
• On December 30, 2011, Umphrey's McGee covered the song live in concert during their New Year's Run in St. Louis.

Sampling

• The song "We're Live (Danger)" by rapper Royce Da 5'9" (which was featured in the highly acclaimed game Grand Theft Auto III) contains a sample from the Hall & Oates song "Maneater".
• The song "Drankin' Partna" by singer T-Pain uses a vocal sample of "Maneater".

References in media

In film

• The original version of the song is heard in the 1999 film Runaway Bride, and appears on the soundtrack. Early in the movie Richard Gere's character Ike Graham describes several mythological 'Maneaters' in a newspaper column, and then cites one human one, Julia Roberts' Maggie Carpenter, who's left multiple men standing at the altar.

In television

• In the film Boat Trip, Horatio Sanz and Cuba Gooding Jr. accidentally go to a gay cruise, a man playing a piano with other gay men, singing "Maneater", but with the lyrics "here he comes, watchout for he chew you up", instead of the original lyric "here she comes".
• In the season one Scrubs episode "My Bed Banter and Beyond," Dr. Cox tells a psychologist that his wife is "a man-eater. And I'm not talking about the 'whoa-whoa, here she comes' kind."
• In 1989, Muppet alien group The Extremes performed an underwater version of the song for the second episode of the MuppeTelevision segment of The Jim Henson Hour.
• In 2007 the song was used as the theme song of "He's Not the Messiah, He's a DJ", the premiere episode of Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil. The song has since been removed from subsequent airings and from the version posted on the Adult Swim website.
• In the Beavis and Butthead episode "Sign Here," the duo watches the music video.
• In the "A Brown Thanksgiving" episode of The Cleveland Show, Hall & Oates sing it after appearing as an angel and devil on Cleveland's shoulders.
• In the season five Bob's Burgers episode "Itty Bitty Ditty Committee," Darryl sings the song in the computer lab.

In video games

• In 2009, the song appeared on Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony as a part of the Vice City FM radio station. The song also featured in a cut scene from The Ballad of Gay Tony in which Evan (Tony's boyfriend) sings an extract from the chorus.
• The North American release of Ys I & II features a reference to "Maneater" at the start of Ys I.
• The Backyard Baseball 2003 edition of the Backyard Sports series includes a reference when the player Keisha Phillips appears; with her saying "Uh, oh, here she comes"; while the captions (if turned on) would have "Maneater" added at the end.
• Is confirm this song will appear in the videogame Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in a cassette tape during a 40 minutes trailer gameplay on IGN.

In Internet

• In 2012 the song was used by Google as part of their advertisement campaign for their products, specifically the collaborative feature in Google Docs. The 30 second video purports to show Hall & Oates writing the lyrics for the song, and constantly editing each other's work until they settle on the final version.

Chart performance

References

1. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications)
2. Sharp, Ken (January 23, 2009). "HALL AND OATES: Soul Survivors". American Songwriter. Retrieved April 22, 2012. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)2
3. Tobler, John (1992). NME Rock 'N' Roll Years (1st ed.). London: Reed International Books Ltd. p. 372. CN 5585.
4. Something Else! (24 March 2014). "Hall and Oates' 'I Can't Go For That' isn't about what you think it's about; neither is 'Maneater'". Something Else!. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
5. Kauffman, Leah (18 March 2014). "John Oates on his new album, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and what 'I Can't Go For That' is really about". Philly.com. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
6. "Hall and Oates take legal action". BBC News. November 7, 2008.
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6r9BiyBYP8. Retrieved 29 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
8. ' -We're%20Live%20(Danger)_Hall%20%26%20Oates-Maneater/ "Royce Da 5'9s We're live (danger) samples Hall & Oates' Maneater". WhoSampled.com. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
9. "Go Google: Hall and Oates". YouTube Video. Google. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
10. Danyel Smith, ed. (1982). Billboard 25 december 1982. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
11. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50.
12. "Maneater in Canadian Adult Contemporary Chart". Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
13. "Maneater in Canadian Chart". Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
14. "Maneater in Irish Chart". IRMA. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
15. "Nederlandse Top 40 – Daryl Hall & John Oates" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40.
16. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater" (in Dutch). Single Top 100.
17. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater". Top 40 Singles.
18. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater". VG-lista.
19. John Samson. "Maneater in South African Chart". Retrieved 20 June 2013.
20. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater" Canciones Top 50.
21. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater". Singles Top 100.
22. "Daryl Hall + John Oates – Maneater". Swiss Singles Chart.
23. "Daryl Hall & John Oates". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
24. ^ "Daryl Hall & John Oates Awards on Allmusic". Allmusic. Retrieved 26 May 2013.

External links

• VHI VSPOT "Maneater"

• Single chart usages for Germany2
• 1982 singles
• Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
• Hall & Oates songs
• Songs written by John Oates
• Songs written by Daryl Hall
• RCA Records singles
• New wave songs
• 1982 songs
• Songs written by Sara Allen