"Too Much Monkey Business"

Last week, I was thinking about Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and discovered a feature in it that's also included in the cover that the Beatles did on the BBC.

The line "Same thing ev'ry day, gettin' up, goin' to school" is sung to a melody something like this:

(I'm pretty sure the Beatles' version is in A major but Berry's original is in F major.)

The melody here just alternates between two pitches, so there's a musical representation of the repetition and predictability of the narrator's routine.

"Too Much Monkey Business"

Recently, I found a note I'd made about Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" that also applies to the Beatles' version (on Live at the BBC).  Lennon doesn't quite get the words right, but in Berry's original, the lines "Army bunk, army chow / Army clothes, army car" exhibit anaphora, and this repetition illustrates the uniformity or standardization of the military.

"Too Much Monkey Business"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

Two weeks ago, I listened to Live on the BBC, and I'm still thinking about the Beatles' cover of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business."  I keep thinking about it because John Lennon sings the line as "Too much monkey business for me to imbibe again."  Along with Berry's original, I have a couple other versions of "Too Much Monkey Business" (The Kinks covered it on The Kinks, and I have a live version by the Yardbirds).  In each of those versions, the line is "Too much monkey business for me to be involved in."  Misheard (and then mis-sung) lyrics in covers is something I find fascinating, and I think this is one of the more interesting examples.