Rolling Stones – Monkey Man

Yeah, I’m a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don’t you?

This song is a great album cut. The way I would describe the song?  It is the actual sound of sleaze, and that is a compliment. It was used well in Goodfellas, the 1990 movie, in a scene where the gangsters are trafficking cocaine. One of my favorite Stone songs. I always liked the Stones album cuts more than their hits. This is when they had the perfect producer (Jimmy Miller), the perfect guitar player (Keith Richards), and the perfect sound. This is the Stones I love, their golden period. 

What makes this song is Keith Richards’ riff, and it is menacing and on the prowl, practically alive in this song, stalking you outside your bedroom window. Only Keith could make a riff sound dangerous, and it builds up through the song. Richards laid down the main riff on a late-night jam, a hypnotic riff, with just enough space for Nicky Hopkins to work in his piano. Hopkins’ playing on this is greatness: melodic and sinister all at once. He reportedly improvised much of it, adding those runs that make the song snarl.

This song was on Let It Bleed, and it was recorded after Brian Jones was fired and before Mick Taylor replaced him. On Monkey Man, Keith Richards played electric and slide electric guitar, Bill Wyman played bass, and producer Jimmy Miller assisted drummer Charlie Watts on tambourine. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote “Monkey Man” as a tribute to Italian pop artist Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie Umano Non Umano! (Human, Not Human!).

This song is the Let It Bleed track I always come back to when I want to feel the Stones at their most human and feral. 

Monkey Man

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey
And all my friends are junkies
That’s not really true

I’m a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
What you do?

But I’ve been bit and I’ve been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you babe?

But I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey woman too

I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored
But I pulled on through

Yeah, I’m a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don’t you?

Well I hope we’re not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
But we love to play the blues

But well I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey woman too
Monkey woman too babe

I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
Monkey, monkey
Monkey

Monkey
I’m a monkey

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

41 thoughts on “Rolling Stones – Monkey Man”

  1. The slow build leading to the cool guitar riff was cool and then it goes on a bit of wild rock bender – great stuff. Weird, how I didn’t recall it from Goodfellas. It reminds me a bit of ‘Gimme Shelter’ from same album which was used in another Scorsese film – The Departed.
    ‘Monkey Man’s a keeper – 4 sure.

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  3. Pingback: Rolling Stones – Monkey Man – MobsterTiger

  4. I guess I never bothered to decipher the lyrics before. Whew. The music always got to me, though. You could pick any song off Let It Bleed and be OK. Good one.

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      1. That is a great photo of the Stones. Poor Brian. On a totally different note, there’s a good-sized article on the Raspberries in Goldmine magazine. I still get a paper copy in the mail, but I hadn’t really had time to look through it until today. I guess there’s a tribute album to them coming out. Just thought you might be interested.

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  8. “Monkey Man” is a neat track, Max, and what I would call a deeper cut. While I’ve definitely listened to “Let It Bleed” in its entirety before, I didn’t recall it. I agree Keith’s guitar riff is really cool. I also like Bill Wyman’s bassline. Great pick!

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  11. Yes Max, you can almost feel the decadence oozing off the grooves in this one. Nicky Hopkins was the best session player they had for their style, and that is not to dismiss Ian Stewart’s efforts, it just means Nicky had the right feel and nuance for so many Golden Era songs. His contribution on ‘Salt Of The Earth’ was the one that really showed me what a perfect support to a great band can add.

    This song makes you want to go have a shower doesn’t it? (And off this album ‘Love In Vain’ tears your heart out.)

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  13. One of those songs you recognize from the first notes. My favorite Stones album, and I’ll confess that there were a lot of spring days when my speakers were facing out the windows and this album played for the whole neighborhood while we threw a Frisbee in the street. I think the statute of limitations has passed for that offense.

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      1. Many of us, the “casual fans”, rely on the stuff that plays on the classic rock radios. My wife worked at a warehouse in Atlanta, back in the early 2000 and her manager was a fanatic Stones fan. He allowed us to borrow his CD collection, to make copies, that was how we came to know this song.

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      2. Right…no it was not a single…just called an album cut. Bands used to just fill up albums with any song at all…just to surround the hits…but that was before The Beatles and Stones who made everyone up their game and make the album cuts sound good.

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  18. Monkey Man and You Got the Silver are my favourite tracks on this album. I’ve loved it since it first came out (and heard it a LOT at gigs in those days, particularly at The Roundhouse in London) I play it many, many times a year every year. Good things cds don’t wear out like vinyl does! (I don’t know if you have the same thing there, but in the UK, the track list is wrong on the CD version).

    Btw, it goes straight into Sympathy for the Devil after your embedded version of Monkey Man! Not complaining at all…!

    Hope you’re okay, Max. Working hard, I’ll bet.

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    1. I was shocked that people here didn’t know this song. With Goodfellas alone I thought it was more popular…
      LOL…that is right! It did that to me the other day and I just ignored it…but yea…that is good!
      Yes I am…plus I’ve been watching the World Series every night…the Dodgers are about to lose it but we will see….
      I’ll tell you in email about Bailey going….

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