Songfacts®:

• This is the first single from Sonata Arctica's eighth album Pariah's Child. Commented the band's frontman Tony Kakko: "'The Wolves Die Young' was pretty much born to be a single. And it is. It also paved the road for the rest of the album. Set a mood in a way. It just felt real good to start with. 2014 is a year of a wolf."
• Pariah's Child marked the return of wolf-themed songs, which were absent in Sonata Arctica's previous album, Stones Grow Her Name. Kakko said: "Wolf is just once again a metaphor, for instance, for fear and processing it in your life. Fear make people do things. Or actually denying the fact that you fear something."
• Kakko explained regarding the album's title and artwork: "As always, it's pretty hard coming up with a name for the new baby. I tried to approach it from many angles; how this is our eighth album and how easy it would be to abuse that fact. All the symbolism of figure eight, eternity and so on. But that just did not feel right, as it's been done so many times. Then I started to think how we'd in ways abandoned our 'totem animal,' the wolf and all what comes with the territory."
  
  "As the music on the album is bowing more towards the 'old' Sonata, meaning more power metal-style elements and wolves in many of the songs in one form or another, it was clear we need a wolf on the cover," he added. "An abandoned wolf. A pariah. Or pariah's child, actually. The new generation to bring the old logo back."
• The song's music video was filmed in January 2014 at Sibelius House in Lahti, Finland and was produced by Patric Ullaeus of Revolver Film Company, who has previously worked with Lacuna Coil and In Flames amongst others.
• Pariah's Child topped the album chart in Finland and also reached the Top 40 in various other European countries including Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.