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Rolling Stones Songs: Monkey Man
Well, I hope we’re not too messianic, or a trifle too satanic/ We love to play the blues…
Original title: Positano Grande Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England, Apr. 17-22, June 5-July 3 1969 Guest musicians: Nicky Hopkins (piano), Jimmy Miller (tambourine) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Long before it ever hit a stage, Monkey Man began as a loose, mischievous instrumental in Positano, Italy. In March 1969, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, joined by Nicky Hopkins, created the skeleton of the track during a songwriting retreat. Hopkins’ barroom piano and Richards’ biting guitar riff gave it a sinister but cheeky charm, somewhere between blues romp and psychedelic chaos. The song gradually erupts into theatrical tension, and Jagger’s surreal entrance—“I’m a monkey!”—tilts it fully into rock satire. The Stones wouldn’t perform it live until the Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994, but its reputation had long been sealed: this was the band at their most unhinged and playful. And while the lyrics veer into apparent nonsense—“I’m a fleabit peanut monkey, all my friends are junkies”—they hint at drug references, self-parody, and maybe a mocking nod to the media’s obsession with their so-called satanic image.
Satire, Sleaze, and Sound Experiments
Rather than confession, Monkey Man reads like a cartoon: a sneering, self-aware jab at the band’s reputation between Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Sympathy for the Devil. Jagger’s character is battered by lovers, ridiculed by press, and lost in decadent fog—yet all with a smirk. Like Lou Reed before him, he weaponizes sleaze through irony.
Musically, it’s a noirish masterpiece: pounding percussion, hypnotic vibes, slippery slide guitar. Jimmy Miller’s production, full of sudden drops and dub-like shifts, adds a chaotic energy echoed in tracks like Gimme Shelter. There’s even a whiff of Latin groove, calling back Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. Yet for all its wildness, Monkey Man never feels random. It’s cinematic, crafted, and entirely unrepentant—a twisted short film in sound.
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