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in: Philyra songs, Protein Source of the Future...Now! songs, Video

The Monkey Song

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The Monkey Song
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Album

Philyra

Released

1994

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:00

Previous Track

"Third Snow Song"

Next Track

"Love Cuts the Strings"

The Monkey Song is the second song on the single Philyra. It was re-released on the compilation Protein Source of the Future...Now!.

Lyrics[]

Cool air falls through the venetian blinds and the
Planets in the heavens are perfectly aligned
I take in my surroundings
I memorize them all
The scuff marks on the stone floor
The powder burns on the eastern wall

There's a monkey in the basement
How did the monkey get there?
There's a monkey in the basement
Where did the monkey come from?
Where did the monkey come from?
Where did the monkey come from?

The animal noises you used to make
The Andalusian coral snake
All pale when standing beside this room
And the heavy hot rains and the sonic boom

There's a monkey in the basement
Where did the monkey come from?
There's a monkey in the basement
How did the monkey get there?
How did the monkey get there?
How did the monkey get there?

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "No, I wanna play something that relates to universal experience, you know. Uh, play something that when you hear it, you go, 'Hey, hey man, I've been there, you know, I've been right there with you.' So I would like to express my innermost feelings." -- 2003-09-27 - Mercury - Austin, TX
  • "I see you need to learn more about snakes, my man. The Andalusian coral snake totally is a snake. Very much a snake. Would I lie to you? [interviewer: 'I just -- whenever -- when I googled it, I only got Mountain Goats lyrics, I didn't get actual snakes.'] As I remember, 'The Monkey Song', pretty much every line is just about the syllables, right. That's the, um -- I'll give you the genesis of 'The Monkey Song'. I was, uh, hanging with a friend and I was, uh, mock-translating German, right, I think it was like a Schubert lieder, right. You know, [German word] or something? The line would -- I mean, I don't know the lyrics to any of the [German word] but you know -- sing a line of German, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau would go [sings] And I would go, ah, uh, he says, um, there is a monkey, uh, in, in the basement, and he would sing the next line, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, one of the most beautiful male voices ever, you know, sing something -- 'ah, and he says, um, where did the monkey come from?', right? And I was doing this shtick, and it was funny to me, right. And so, so I went, that was one of the ad-libbed shticks on, on this thing I was doing, I thought, oh, that's funny. And when I got home later that day, I played that little riff with the B string, I thought, oh, that's a cute riff, I had that line. So the whole, you know, what is it, 'cool air comes through the Venetian blinds and the planets and the heavens so perfectly' -- there's no meaning. And the other thing is I was writing a lot in meter in those days, and so, uh, like, I always write in meter but my meters were really good back then, I was studying poetry really hard. So my meters then were really hard. You know, they were very, very -- I was avoiding feminine endings, I was avoiding all the kinds of stuff that I considered lazy poetry writing, and, uh, when you're on your game with those kinds of rhythms, you can do some really fun stuff just with the sound. You know, uh, uh, I take in my surroundings, I memorize them all, the scuff marks on the stone floor, the powder burns on the eastern wall. There's nothing in play there, it's all just images." -- 2017-02-14 "The Gist" podcast interview

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]



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