Songfacts®:

• This is the title song of the 1978 Clint Eastwood comedy. Although best known for uncompromising tough guy roles such as the cynical police inspector Dirty Harry, Eastwood could also play it for laughs. In this film he was truck driver and bare knuckle fighter Philo Beddoe; his co-star was a real live orangutan named Clyde.
• The song was written over the phone in double quick time by Milton Brown, Steve Dorff and producer Snuff Garrett, even though they knew virtually nothing about the film. This appears to have been no obstacle at all because the team capture the spirit of the film's side plot, a romantic entanglement with a free spirited young woman who gets under Beddoe's skin.
  
  After Rabbitt made a few changes to the song, it was released on the Elektra Label prior to the film's nationwide premiere. Running to 2 minutes 48 seconds, "Every Which Way But Loose" topped the Country chart for three weeks in February 1979. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
• In the week of December 23, 1978, this song went straight into the Country chart at #18, the equal highest debut on the Hot Country Songs list. The record was beaten on September 2, 2006 when Keith Urban's "Once in a Lifetime" debuted at #17 on the Country chart.