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Too Much Monkey Business: 4 Songs Talking Rhythm In Rhyme

A tongue twister, battle cry blood blister. Rhythmic rhyme, why don’t people do it all the time!? Now, There are a few reasons that make Chuck Berry a nasty rotten jailbird. There is also an awesome amount of evidence that explains why he is the master and the poet laureate of Rock N Roll. Chuck went on to influence countless pockets, patches and blankets of culture; he will as long as human beings exist. It’s just in the chemistry. The chain reaction since the dawn of time and he was a big link in the chain.

The dude started a trend of songwriting that would later lead to music that remains infinite in our human existence. He has songs himself such as Johnny B. Goode and Maybelline that will forever be heard as the roots of Rock N Roll. These songs put Chuck in the stars, but his poetic, rhythmic genius is completely exposed with one track in particular. Written and released as his 5th single from Chess Records, A track titled, Too Much Monkey Business, was released in September of 1956. A song that runs a string of complaints in a whimsical, humorous, ironic fashion.

“Run and to and fro,

Hard-working at the mail,

Never fail at the mail,

Here comes a rotten bale.”

Or how about,

“Pay phone

Something wrong

Dime gone

Well I oughta’ sue the operatah’

For tellin’ me a tale...ahhh”

Too Much Monkey Business with Lyrics

The rebellion of routine recognized. The “botheration” expressed in rhythm and rhyme. A comedic, Shakespearean perspective on everyday life is thrown into a two minute and fifty-three-second track. Listen to Chuck’s attack on,

“Same thing, every day,

gettin’ up, goin’ to school,

no need me to be complaining,

my objection overruled...ahhh”

Badass attitude. Tone makes everything. From the tone in a sunset, to how you talk to your mother. This rabble-rouser tone is nearly mimicked later in 1965 when the world would get flipped and swing the “Gates of Eden” open to a cultural renaissance.

The boot that kicked clean through the barn door, where culture was lying dormant, opens up with Bob Dylan’s evolution of “Another Side.” The opening track on the debut of Dylan’s electric brilliance, puffs up, slicks back and bohemianizes Chuck’s “Monkey Business.” Subterranean Homesick Blues reflects the rhythm and rhyme of Too Much Monkey Business and is righteously reinvented.

“Maggie comes fleet foot,

Face full of black soot,

Talking that heat put plants in the bed but

Phone’s tapped anyway,

Maggie say ‘the men they say must bust in early may,’

Orders from the DA.”

Dylan attacks the ironic unfairness of expectation that society holds, much as Chuck does, but Dylan nearly interrogates it under a spotlight. It’s like Dylan has this special lens that allows us to observe a million little ants who don’t know how the hell to work together and they’re all bumping into each other, trying to figure it out. Chuck is more day to day, profile to profile, person to person. Dylan reaches a bit further going chapter to chapter. Verse by verse he compares the hustle of the city to the hustle of the farm; hinting at civil rights, cultural phenomenons, stuff like that. Dylan is literally warning you “Look out kid, this is what this hard life has to offer, here are some obstacles I’ve observed along the way; let me explain in my alien-like, Shakespearean, Chuck Berrian original dialect.

“Get Born (Get Woke eh? Dylan was woke AF, am I right?) keep warm,

Short pants romance,

Learn to dance,

Get dressed, get blessed,

Try to be a success*,

Please her, please him, buy gifts,

Don’t steal, Don’t lift,

20 years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift.”

*In the famous music video Dylan shoots in 1965 for Subterranean Homesick Blues, he flips through poster cards that follow the lyrics of the song. When the line “Try to be a success,” comes up, Dylan holds a card that reads, “SUCKCESS.” His warning is rhetoric and my personal interpretation is that this world kind of tells you to try to be a kiss ass, suck a lil pee pee maybe? On another note, he also holds a card up that reads “It’s hard” during the line “hard to tell if anything if gonna sell try hard, get Bard” The warning plays back simple and clear, “it’s hard.” Also telling everyone to “get bard,” get hip to willy the shake….Billy Shakespeare.

Subterranean Homesick Blues Music Video

Two rhythmically similar approaches to songs, that paved the way to a new way of thinking. An honest, hysterical, fresh way of thinking. The Earth is perfect, but the world is unfair and the human species is competitive. The real heroes are the honest ones who can practice patience, recognize and relay that reflection of chaos and stupidity that we, as a whole culture and species, are functioning under.

So the 70s happen and most of the 80s happen where time has allowed generations to digest the cultural phenomenon and renaissance that occurred at the latter half of the 20th century. This band in November 1987 puts out a single that supposedly was inspired by being hyper-aware, anxiety, and a dream in which a party was full of people who all had the initials,  L.B. The 80s-indie rock band R.E.M. releases It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). To be honest, I thought this song was a 90s song, and it certainly sounds like it could have come out in 1993. R.E.M.: great band; ahead of their time.

“Six o'clock, T.V. hour, don't get caught in foreign tower

Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn

Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting

Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate

Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down

Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh

This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear

A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies

Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline”

More stream of consciousness and way more chaotic, surreal and nonsensical. However, the songwriter, Michael Stipe still created a piece that belongs in this group of rhythmic rhyme. It’s a whimsical perspective on the human tragedy. Its’ surreal, revolving, apocalyptic take, still hints at rebellion and liberty from societal routine. ‘Everyday at 6pm, the news comes on and oh boy look at all this chaos...yipee! Maybe I should do something about it, light a candle for someone, try to get some action going on the streets….ah there’s so much to do and nobody’s listening and they’re telling me not to do it anyway, but ah fuck it.’ Songwriter, Michael Stipe effectively carries on the similar cynical helplessness in this fun, whimsical rhythmic rhyming pattern we see from Berry and Dylan. It’s possible I’ve missed other examples in between 1965 and 1987, and if did, please let me know! I’d love to hear from you and talk music history!

It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) Music Video

2 years later, Billy Joel writes and releases a single in July of 1989 that captures accurate historical moments and tense emotion spanning from the end of the Second World War to the present day of 1989. We Didn’t Start The Fire continues the legacy of Too Much Monkey Business with the rhythmic rhyming pattern that Chuck started back in 1956. Joel uses historical points as well as cultural and political icons to reflect the human collection of events that are placed on the scales of judgment. A moral test of ourselves. Chuck’s rolling eyes from “botheration,” Dylan’s weighted tongue sticking out at America’s societal routine, Stipe’s dizzying anxiety of becoming overwhelmed and now Joel’s judgment.

Joel steps back and looks, not only at America but the world to examine, essentially, the ripple that has been rolling since the bombing at Hiroshima using the same rhythmic-rhyming method as Chuck and Bob nearly 3-4 decades prior. I like to think of where these artists were when they were picking up influence for a piece like this. Was Joel listening to R.E.M. a couple of years prior on the radio and heard something click in his head? He had to be a fan of Chuck and Bob. Maybe he wasn’t even conscious of the similarities.

We Didn’t Start The Fire Montage

We Didn’t Start The Fire Official Music Video

We Didn’t Start The Fire- The chorus implies that the generations before us kind of made a mess so big that the next generation could never avoid stepping in it. Now I get that my tone may sound negative, but with a grander perspective, it doesn’t have to be so cynical. In fact, I think that Chuck and Bob use a more of an ironic, cynical tone as opposed to Billy who uses more of a mature, mediating tone. ‘Okay so, I wasn’t in existence when y’all were throwing shit on the fire, but now I guess I’m here and it’s all kind of getting out hand...maybe we should do something about it? No? Maybe? Yea, we should probably take care of this, right?’

“We didn’t start the fire, we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it.”

The 80s gave us a heroic tone and hopeful songs about changing for the better and the how the world had to take a good look at itself in order to do so. Joel still uses a great amount of condemning and controversial examples of how the world isn’t in its best state.

“Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon Back Again (Whoops)

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock.

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline.

Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

“Wheel of Fortune”, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide

Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law

Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore.”

In the end, it seems that it all has become too much. There is still hope in this song. The other three don’t hold the tone of hope as much as they do cynicism and tragic hilarity. Subterranean Homesick Blues and Too Much Monkey Business complain and warn us, as It’s the End of the World  As We Know It is more like a kid punching one fist in the air offering incomprehensible stream of consciousness with a radical attitude.

How the four differ: Bob doesn’t use a chorus, he uses a hook, “Look out Kid, It’s something you did, don’t matter what you did, you’re gonna get hit, they keep it all hid.” The other three have a distinct repetitive chorus separate from the verses. Bob throws the hook in the latter half of each verse to bring his thought around to a satisfying conclusion only to continue kickin’ that rock n roll. Like I said, a boot through a barn door.

We can conclude that these four tunes share multiple patterns and techniques that make them stand out from other songs. We witness an evolution of the observation of societal decline. They all use quick, rhythmic rhyming patterns that make these songs catchy, memorable and well...hit singles. Make a playlist with these four songs in order from Too Much Monkey Business to We Didn’t Start The Fire. Find out for yourself. Let me know if you discover anything. Let’s talk about it!

There aren’t many songs like these four, and well this article/blog/piece-whatever you want to call it- is just recognizing that and nothing more. Maybe we can learn something from it...but I’m just going to try writing a quick, witty, whimsical, ironic, rhythmic, rhyming observation on the societal decline and see what comes out. Maybe it’ll be a “hit single” yea right..and maybe roosters won’t peck me every time I try to give ‘em a kiss!

Aloha and always cheers,

Fisher the Lloyd