“Howlin’ at the Moon” was written by Jim Ratts and John McEuen; it is not the Hank Williams song of the same name. The Wild Jimbos — Jim Salestrom, Jimmy Ibbotson and Ratts — recorded it as the opening track of their 1991 MCA album Wild Jimbos, which Sam Bush produced and played on, adding fiddle, mandolin, guitars, bass and background vocals.
The lyric is an invitation to slow down: take a little time for sunshine, for love and for giving thanks, take life as it comes because it will be gone soon, make music and raise your voice with joy, and make some time for howling at the moon. In the last verse the singer says he tried to keep his eyes open and live day to day, until he saw a friend go down hard, which made him sing a different tune.
Bush recorded it as the second track of his 1998 Sugar Hill album Howlin’ at the Moon, released on 21 April 1998, at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville. He sang lead and played mandolin, with Jon Randall Stewart on guitar, J. D. Crowe on banjo, John Cowan on bass and Larry Atamanuik on drums, and Cowan and Stewart singing harmony. Ratts later gave the title to an album by his own group, Runaway Express, on Raven Records.
