Kings of the Wild Frontier (song)

"Kings of the Wild Frontier" is a 1980 song by the British new wave group Adam and the Ants. Written by Adam Ant & Marco Pirroni, it was the title track of the band's second album and was also their first single for CBS Records after leaving the small independent label Do It Records.^[1]

Originally released on 25 July 1980, the single peaked at number 48 on the UK Singles Chart. Following the breakthrough success of "Dog Eat Dog" (UK #4) and 'Antmusic' (UK #2), the single was re-released in February 1981, peaking at number 2 in the UK singles chart.^[2]

"The extent of its success surprised us," Pirroni recalled. "We'd written the music as a soundtrack to the visuals – very Eighties. I took that cowboy guitar twang from Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack. I was trying to get everything I liked into that record. And it worked."^[3]

Although Adam Ant has proclaimed on several occasions to avoid politics in his lyrics,^[4] in "Kings of the Wild Frontier", he sings, "I feel beneath the white there is a red suffering from centuries of taming" about the American Indian.^[5] While it was not the first pop song to do so, this was the first time the band employed the use of the two-drummer^[6] Burundi beat which then became one of their stylistic hallmarks.^[7]

For "Kings of the Wild Frontier", Adam's ever-changing line-up of Ants included Pirroni on guitar, Kevin Mooney on bass guitar and, on drums, both Chris Hughes (under the pseudonym "Merrick") and Terry Lee Miall.

"Kings of the Wild Frontier" was backed by the non-album track "Press Darlings". When the album was released in the US, the track "Making History" was dropped in favour of "Press Darlings" and "Physical (You're So)."^[8]