Monkey Shock
“Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel from the album Security.
Third week of September, 1982
Peter Gabriel. What a rotten son of a bitch. I always wondered why a man would prod the masses to shock a monkey. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is it some metaphorical plea that we as a society need to get off our fat arses and rally around a cause? That we need to question the norms and make changes to our lives and take greater care of our fellow man? With “shocking” being our questioning and “the monkey” serving as our societal norms? If that’s the case, then that’s just a bollocks analogy. If he means something more along the lines of, “Hey everybody, let’s shock the monkey and see what happens. Dance, monkey, dance!” Then he’s just a rotten son of a bitch. On the other hand, if he’s referring to masturbation. Well, then, heh. That’s pretty clever. SHOCK DA MONKEY. “Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.” That’s my other association for this song; it’s a song Dieter could really bug out to. In all fairness though, it’s hard to begrudge a song that manages to say the word “monkey” at least 24 times, including three choruses where monkey is repeated three times in a row. Say it out loud, it’s fun. Monkey, monkey, monkey. You can’t monkey the monkey. Word, Peter Gabriel. Word.
—N.J.
