Title Origin
The film's title refers to the eponymous Eddie Rabbitt song from the soundtrack, in which the singer complains that his girlfriend turns him "every which way but loose", i.e. he cannot bring himself to leave her although he is more of a freewheeling character. The film title is also out of the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston where the main character Janie's husband Tea Cake tells her about a fight he had with a man who had a knife, where in the fight Tea Cake "turned him every way but loose", i.e. fought him but did not let the man stab him.
Read more about this topic: Every Which Way But Loose (film)
Famous quotes containing the words title and/or origin:
“And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their squalid lease of sin
With earlier title than his own.”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)