Tag: 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