“Wild Child” by The Black Keys

"Wild Child" kicked off the Dropout Boogie era in March 2022 as the Black Keys' first single from the album, and it finds Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney cutting loose on a greasy funk strut. They wrote it with Greg Cartwright and Angelo Petraglia, and Andy Gabbard's Wurlitzer and backing vocals plus Sam Bacco's percussion thicken the groove. The narrator is chasing a girl who's only half sketched in and entirely out of reach, and the fun is all in the chase.

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine heard the spirit of "Lonely Boy" in it, and it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance, losing to Brandi Carlile's "Broken Horses". Bryan Schlam's video puts the duo in a school staffroom getting roasted by the teachers, then has them quit and walk out, flipping off the kids on the way.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.