Monkey On My Back
(Tyler, Perry)
:::Lyrics:::
(Oh it's me and i've been down yeah got to get that monkey off my back)
The fortune teller looked into my eyballs
The wrinkles on her face about to crack
She said ' You best believe it,
You ain't goin' nowhere, unless you get that
Monkey Off your back'
I made believe the devil made me do it
I was the evil leader of the pack
You best believe I had it all and then I blew it
Feedin' that f*ckin' Monkey On My Back
If you put it a spoon man I would boot it
Some king whose mental house was just a shack
Where do you draw the line when all your friends are dyin'
You got to get that mokey off your back
(Uh, uh, uh....)
Your crystal ball is where you chase the dragon
She said, 'now' I bring me home his head inside a sack
But now you find your crystal balls are dragin'
Got to get that monkey off your back
:::BACKGROUND:::
The boys got into quite a bit of trouble when preforming this song on Saturday Night Live. Steven was asked before the show to censor the songs cuss word. Well, to everyone's surprise when the song was preformed Steven didn't change a thing. The Executives went nuts and threatoned to bann Aerosmith from future SNL preformances, but it didn't faze Steven. He felt the song needed the extra emphasis it had always had...maybe he even knew they were bluffing. Aerosmith HAS appeared on other SNL's since.
Monkey on My Back was one of the lucky live songs chosen to be put on Aerosmith's newest Live compilation, A Little South Of Sanity. This however came as a great surprise Joey, Tom, Joe, and Brad considering that the first verse of the lyrics was skipped and they felt Steven wouldn't want that to be published. But to everyones amazement he was quite excited over that cut's sound.
Did you know Monkey on My Back was the first track layed down for the album Pump? here's a bit from Walk This Way where Joe talks about that day:
"On November 1 [1988], Steven and I started writing. We just went to work. The first day produced 'Monkey on My Back', which started out as an Aerosmith folk song. We recorded straight ahead, the five of us playing live, and Steven redid the vocals later. It was about our adventures in body chemestry."
~~~~~~~~Joe Perry, Walk This Way p.452
you can find out a little more about this song by watching 'The Making of Pump'