Tag Archives: monkey

#853: Foo Fighters – Monkey Wrench

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All right, so I was about 10 when I heard Foo Fighters’ ‘Monkey Wrench’ for the first time. Saw its video on MTV2. And for a while, I thought it was the greatest song ever. Very energetic, fast, the aforementioned video was a bit funny and had an edge to it. All those characteristics had an impression on younger self. Though that self didn’t grow up to be the greatest Foo Fighters fan, I’ve realised that they usually knock it out of the park when it comes to their singles. And it’s understandable why this was chosen to be the first one when promoting their album The Colour and the Shape back in 1997.

The song is about the crumbling and total end of a relationship from the point of Dave Grohl, who had at the time gone through a divorce. He’s quite mad and maybe, just maybe, seems to be quite fed up with the whole experience. The track is essentially telling his ex-wife that now he’s ‘free’ he won’t be able to be that person that she could just use and throw away like some kind of tool. Or ‘monkey wrench’ in this case. Until I started listening to this track with headphones, I never realized just how heavy this song is. I guess One by One is usually seen as the heavy Foo Fighters album, but some sections in ‘Wrench’, particularly those ‘one in ten’ parts and especially the bridge where Dave Grohl screams a syllable at a time without taking a breath, probably match up to anything that’s on that record. I think it’s up there as one of Foo Fighters’ best songs, honestly.

I think I appreciate it more than perhaps I did in the past. If Dave Grohl went back to making faster, heavier, punk-influenced stuff like this, I would probably look forward to a new Foo Fighters album. I think the possibilities of a change in style happening are slim though. The band are really going for that classic American rock style nowadays. But the old music still goes on and on.

My iPod #337: The Beatles – Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

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Hey what’s up how’s it going?

Today’s first song is from disc two (or side four for all you vinyl people) of The Beatles self-titled album from 1968. Or “The White Album” as almost everyone refers to it. That year was when John, Paul, George and Ringo started to dislike each other a bit. Why? Well there’s one word that the latter three, and a lot of fans would answer that question with. Yoko. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were hardly ever apart, even during recording sessions, and this aggravated George, Paul, and Ringo quite a bit. How did John answer this? Possibly by many ways which would have gone on behind closed doors, but for us he wrote “Me and My Monkey”.

“Monkey” should be played very loudly out of speakers. It gets me in the mood to party. It sounds like the band had a very fun time recording it, what with the random howls and screams which appear after almost every “Come on” that John yells, that incessant bell that never seems to end and when John also appears to start becoming a sheep right when the song begins to fade out.

It may be about heroin use and there may be some sexual connotations thrown in too, but those are just interpretations.

Dunno about you, but has anyone else noticed during the breakdown near when only the guitars and bass are playing that the bass plays a sharper note than the guitar chords? Just irks me a bit. But still, it’s cool. Very good hard rock song.