10 Songs About Monkeys

What’s more fun than a barrel full of monkeys? Not much, but these ten songs about Monkeys are anything but a bore.

10. Gaelic Storm – “Blind Monkey”
Monkeys and bagpipes go together like peanut butter and chocolate on this instrumental from the Celtic band’s newest album Cabbage.

09. Major Lance – “Monkey Time” 
Two songs about monkeys from 1963 are featured on today’s list. This one was a Top 10 hit on both the Pop and R&B charts and led to the Monkey dance craze. Now, I may not be a great dancer, but “[letting] your backbone slip” just sounds uncomfortable.

08. Sid Selvidge – “You’re Gonna Look Just Like a Monkey (When You Get Old)” 
This jazzy, bizarrely lovable tune will make your inner seven-year old shoot milk out his nose.

07. The Pietasters – “Crazy Monkey Woman”
Gravel-voiced frontman Stephen Jackson may not “give a damn about [his] life,” but lucky for us, he gives a damn about releasing excellent ska.

06. Butthole Surfers – “The Lord is a Monkey”
Electriclarryland is not the band’s best album. But this song, with its greasy guitar riffs and Gibby Haynes’ croaked lyrics about a gal with a “needle in her eye…and a dope up her ass” is one of the most memorable songs of the record.

05. Beastie Boys – “Brass Monkey” 
To hell with you and your dry martini. MCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D would rather have a Brass Monkey—a mix of malt liquor and orange juice—with an 808 chaser.

04. Johnny Paycheck – “Don’t Monkey with Another Monkey’s Monkey”
Well, that’s just sound advice. And as a bonus, it comes wrapped up in a freakishly catchy country song, complete with chimp noises.

03. The Miracles – “Mickey’s Monkey”
The other, catchier song about the Monkey dance on today’s list; this time the steps are performed by a cat named Mickey. Just what was going on in the summer of ’63 to inspire such an excellent pair of monkey songs?

02. Jesse Fuller – “Monkey and the Engineer”
You really can’t go wrong with a song about a monkey who hijacks a train—and, as it turns out, ends up being a pretty good engineer himself. The song has also been covered by the Grateful Dead, and, more recently, the Dave Rawlings Machine.

01. Chuck Berry – “Too Much Monkey Business”
Attention salesmen, pretty blondes, telephone operators, and filling station patrons: Chuck Berry doesn’t want your botheration or your monkey business. Just leave him be.