The passing of Chip Taylor brought the talents of the American songwriter into focus. People have remembered him for songs like “Angel of the Morning,” a hit for Merrilee Rush, and “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder), covered by Janis Joplin. But for me, and many other teenagers in garage bands in the 1960s, Taylor’s “Wild Thing,” as recorded by the Troggs and then Jimi Hendrix, among countless others, is the one that changed everything. A primitive, three-chord monster, it’s rivalled for brilliant, impossible-to-resist stupidity only by “Louie Louie,” written by Richard Berry and performed by the Kingsmen. My band thrashed its way through both of those songs, along with other nugget...
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