FTA: Monkey Man🙈 X3 - An early STUDS-like post featuring The Rolling Stones, Toots & The Maytals, and The Smithereens

And how this author took 18 years to shed his super-simian skin

Photo by Jamie Haughton on Unsplash

Hi Wormheads:

I’m digging into the archives again. This lightly edited piece was originally posted in Nov. 2022. Part 2 of the Friendship Trilogy needs more time in the oven and will be ready for consumption soon.

But this one is an old favorite, and I think you’ll enjoy it, even if you happened to have read it 3.5 years ago! It’s chock-full of tall tails!

1.

My friend and human database of all things musical from the late 60s to early 80s, Brad Kyle (author of the fabulous substack “Front Row and Backstage”), generously offered me the opportunity to be a guest on his regular “Inside Tracks” series.

“Inside Tracks” takes a song (usually one that most music fans will know) that has been covered by other artists and explores the history of the song’s evolution. Often, the version most widely known to the public is not the original artist's version.

For example, the song “Hanging on the Telephone,” written by The Nerves in 1976, gained a much wider audience when Blondie covered it two years later on their third album, Parallel Lines. Later, both Def Leppard and Jimmy Somerville (of Bronski Beat) would cover the song. Here’s the complete story, if you want to learn more:

Inside Tracks #8: Jack Lee "Hanging On the Telephone" with Covers by The Nerves, Blondie, Def Leppard, Jimmy Somerville

As I’m too impatient for such a research-intensive endeavor, I’ve decided to morph Brad’s “Inside Tracks” format and mix it with my special earworm blend of far too many spices.

(Note: Three years later, this blend would become the new STUDS series)

This week I’ve had the song “Monkey Man” by The Rolling Stones in my head.

Amidst my super surface-level research into this Stones’ classic from Let It Bleed (1969), I remembered that Toots and the Maytals also recorded a song titled “Monkey Man.”

Then, while writing this, I discovered that The Smithereens, one of my favorite 80s bands, also wrote a song called “Monkey Man.”

While there are plenty of covers of the Stones and Maytals versions of their song, I thought, why not compare and contrast these three very different sonic takes on our simian relatives.

I’ll get to that in part 3, but first I must tell the tale of my transition from monkey to man.

The author perfecting his infamous “I’m so stoned and I think I made a poopy” face while lying on a pillow atop a bed of newspaper.

2a. Pinnae Hypertrichosis

Many eons ago, a small, 5-pound-6-ounce baby boy was born to new parents, Howard and Judy Goldberg.

The happy couple would name him Steven, and he would be deemed healthy, with ten fingers and ten toes. But as deeply and unconditionally as The Goldbergs loved their new son, they were concerned about his hairy ears. The baby seemed to have more growth on his lobes than on his head.

Known as ear pinnae hypertrichosis, or more colloquially, “holy shit that’s a lot of ear hair,” this common condition is almost always temporary for newborns and occurs not just on the ears but all over the body. Baby hirsuteness, or “lanugo,” usually falls out within weeks or months.

That’s the extent of my medical research.

Is this what my parents were told back when I was born?

Let’s go to the source and find out.

“I’m supposed to remember that? All I recall is that you slid right out of me compared to your sister.” - Judy Goldberg, responding to her son’s request for details surrounding his birth.

Steven’s ear hair did indeed fall out soon enough, followed by the hair on his head 27 years later. Ironically, or perhaps rudely, Steve would begin to grow hair on his ears again once the head baldness process was complete. His attempts to treat this situation with a half-dozen highly painful electrolysis sessions served only to anger his pinnae follicles, speeding the hair growth.

To learn more about Steve’s early male-pattern baldness and how the hair-metal genre served to twist the proverbial knife of hairlessness, check out the archived story below:

You Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)

2b. A Tall Tail

When I was 17, I had a pilonidal cyst that had to be surgically treated. Pilonidal cysts most often appear between the cheeks of the buttocks at the top of the crack.

I had no idea what was happening to me, and for months, I would pack tissues in the back of my pants to soak up the blood and pus that would ooze from the area.

This was not the sort of thing a teenage boy wants to show his mother, but eventually it got so bad that I had to. Because I waited so long to deal with it, surgery was the only option. I’ll spare you the gory details — well, most of them.

After draining my ass and sewing shut my tail hole, I was given a thick, padded bandage that had to be changed out several times daily. I was not able to do this, so my mom handled the nursing duties. I stayed home from school for a week. I could not sit, and walking was uncomfortable, so I took pain meds, lay on my belly, and slept for seven days straight.

Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash

The following is the story I was told. Or the story I remember being told.

We homosapiens in our evolutionary process once had tails. As we evolved into taillessness, the area at the top of our buttocks, the tail spot, closed up as it was no longer needed. But for some of us, we never fully adapted to the human form. Our tails stubbornly yearned to emerge and offer their assistance in communicating with the other tail-born creatures of the world.

Maybe this explains why dogs and cats tended to sniff me more than other kids.

I come from a long line of flat-asses. Mom, Dad, sister, and aunt. Yet, I’ve always had a bubble butt. Was this simply a genetic mishap/miracle?

I’m convinced that I was blessed with a pear-shaped derriere because that much m’ass was necessary to manage the weight of the tail that I never grew. The tail that wanted to turn me from a monkey boy to a monkey man.

I think I would have been able to deal with it if I did have a tail. I never got any ‘tail’ until my sophomore year in college, so perhaps having an actual tail would have made me stand out and impressed the high school girls. Though I don’t think I would have come off like Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Teen Monkey doesn’t have the same cool vibe.

3a. The Rolling Stones

Is it a coincidence that the song “Monkey Man” is on a Rolling Stones album titled Let It Bleed? I know the lyrics may not directly relate to having a pilonidal cyst, but think about it. Are you going to tell me that this song wasn’t a signal to kids like me that it was okay to have a tail? That Mick Jagger wasn’t telling young adults and parents like mine to just let the cyst bleed, to stop trying to deny my/their kids’ true monkey manhood?

“Monkey Man” was track 8 of 9 on the album, directly before arguably one of their three most famous songs, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Perhaps one interpretation of this iconic closing track, especially for monkey people such as myself, might be:

You may have preferred to have not been born with a tail, to be like everyone else, to fit in with the masses — but if you can embrace your uniqueness, you will find that you get what you need.

Keith and Mick would never admit to this backstory. They preferred to let the listener come to their own explanation. But it’s an established fact that monkey men live long lives despite burning the candle at both ends and 60 years of touring. I’m just saying.

“Monkey Man,” the song, also exhibited sonic uniqueness. It was the first Stones’ track to feature Bill Wyman on vibraphone. It has a distinctive spy-like piano progression in the intro, unlike any the band had recorded previously. And the song was a tribute to Italian pop artist Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie Umano Non Umano! (Human, Not Human!)

Human, Not Human. Hmmm. Again, more proof that Let It Bleed is a concept album about Mick and Keith’s traumatic childhood tail removals.

I haven’t seen Umano Non Umano!, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is about a man with a tail who is ostracized by society, locked in a cage, and forced to subsist on banana gruel. Food for thought.

It’s all beginning to explain my love of bananas and why one of my favorite earworms is the theme song to The Banana Splits, which, of course, I’ve written about.

3b. Toots & The Maytals

If I were writing this piece in the style of Brad Kyle’s “Inside Tracks,” I would have included only this version of “Monkey Man,” as there are several wonderful cover versions of this Toots and the Maytals tune.

Most notably, The Specials recorded it on their 1979 self-titled debut album. Picking up the pace considerably, the band still honors the original, even slowing it down for a few measures halfway into the song. It’s a wonderful, spirited version. So is this live performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Another excellent tribute to the Maytals’ original comes from the late Amy Winehouse. This live performance at Glastonbury in 2007 features her backing band, The Dap-Kings, who are clearly taking their cue from the Specials version of “Monkey Man.” Amy owns the song here, further highlighting the tragic loss of a true musical talent gone too soon.

As great as these covers are, there is no denying the power of the original.

Written by Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, “Monkey Man” is considered one of the essential early rocksteady classics. It sounds just as vital today as it did back in 1967 when it was first released.

I’m not going to dive into a whole history of Toots and the Maytals and their importance to essentially all music that came afterward (that would take a book), but their imprint on the reggae, ska, R&B, and soul music universes is undeniable and unparalleled.

3c. The Smithereens

The Smithereens are most famous for their late 1980s singles “A Girl Like You,” “Only a Memory,” and “Blood and Roses.” If you don’t know these tracks, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of The Smithereens first two albums, Especially For You (1986) and Green Thoughts (1988). They are both flawless, pop-rock gems. Their later albums are good and worth listening to, but the first two records are truly rock classics.

In 1990, I had the chance to see The Smithereens perform at a small club in Santa Cruz, California. It remains one of my top-5 live shows of all time. Details are foggy at this point, but it felt like the closest thing to seeing The Who in their prime at a 50,000-seat arena. It might seem like an odd comparison for a quartet of nerdy New Jersey dudes, but they were huge Who fans and would often cover them at their shows.

In fact, The Smithereens' 10th record was a Tommy tribute, featuring a selection of their favorite tracks from the classic concept album.

As a big fan of The Smithereens, I was surprised that I had never heard their “Monkey Man” song before researching this newsletter. Well, apparently, there is a good reason for that. Wikipedia states:

The Lost Album is the twelfth studio album by American rock band the Smithereens, released on September 23, 2022, by Sunset Blvd Records. It comprises tracks recorded in 1993 for an abandoned album,[6][7] and is the first album of previously unreleased original material in eleven years, since the release of 2011 in 2011.

The song, as well as eleven other tracks recorded almost 30 years ago, had never been released to the public until two months ago (edit: 44 months ago). I may never have known about this album if I hadn’t been researching “Monkey Man” songs.

I’m super excited to check out the whole album, as this was a creatively rich period in the band’s musical history. (Edit: The album rocks hard. It’s a shame it was never released in the early 90s.)

• Well, that was a lot of monkeying around for one long post!

• I’m sure some of you thought “TMI” with the details surrounding my tail tale, butt as a dairy heir, I was worried about permanent damage to my assets.

• There are a lot of great monkey songs out there, in all genres. What are some of your favorites? Post in the comments the simian songs that have left a lasting impression on you. And feel free to share your monkey stories too! I promise no one will throw feces at you!