Maneater

The story behind

Maneater sounds like a stroke of luck no one saw coming: a song that starts softly, with a bassline that slinks and a keyboard weaving circles around the melody, until it suddenly explodes into a chorus that never lets up. The song doesn’t ask permission to stay in your head; it plants itself there with Daryl Hall’s voice that seems to whisper and roar at the same time, while the rhythm sways between 80s soul and a groove that recalls Motown’s greatest hits. What’s most curious is that, beneath its catchy surface, the lyrics play with the idea of a woman who devours men—but in reality, as the songwriters themselves admitted, it’s about something else: the voracity of a city like New York in the 80s, where money and power corrupted even the most basic things.