8/27/2016 , , , ,
Aerosmith - Monkey on My Back
Aerosmith - Monkey on My Back


Aerosmith - Monkey on My Back Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Pump
Released: 1989

Monkey on My Back Lyrics


The fortune teller looked into my eyeballs
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 fuckin' 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 monkey 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 draggin'
Got to get that monkey off your back

Writer/s: Perry, Joe / Tyler, Steven
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Monkey on My Back
  • Written by guitarist Joe Perry and lead singer Steven Tyler, this song is about the band's struggles with addition (or, as Perry puts it, their "adventures in body chemistry"). A "monkey on one's back" is a term that means a burden, which is how they came to view their drug use. When the band finally sobered up for their 1987 album Permanent Vacation, they enjoyed a career resurgence, got in great physical shape, and became video stars thanks to MTV.
  • This was the first song Tyler and Perry wrote for the Pump album - they composed it in November, 1988 about two months after their tour ended (a sign that they were rehabbed for good: Guns N' Roses were their opening act, but they still stayed clean). They recorded the song live in the studio with Tyler adding his vocals later.
  • Aerosmith's record company sherpa John Kalodner asked Steven Tyler to remove the profanity from the line "feedin' that f--kin' monkey on my back," but Tyler refused. Kalodner did get a concession on another track on the album when he convinced Tyler to change the line "He raped a little, bitty baby" in "Janie's Got A Gun" to "He jacked a little, bitty baby."