Producer Bob Rock recalled to Musicradar.com in a 2011 interview that he originally had misgivings about vocalist James Hetfield's lupine lyrics for this song. He explained: "I'll be honest: at first I thought it was silly to write about a wolf. I was like, 'Oh, great, a song about a wolf. What are you fu--ing getting at? May as well write about pyramids or something.' When metal goes in these kinds of areas, I lose the plot. Then, as we got more into James's lyrics, I realized that the song wasn't silly, that there was an earthiness to it. We talked about making the song go through a transformation, kind of reflecting the lyrics. It took a while. I'm not sure if we got there fully, but we got there most of the way."
In a 2009 study published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists played music for tamarin monkeys. The apes' behavior didn't noticeably change when they were listening to Samuel Barber, Nine Inch Nails or Tool. But when they heard "Of Wolf and Man," they grew noticeably calmer.
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