Lyr explanation: monkey/nuts

Subject: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 10:08 PM

The great, gravel voiced English singer Bernard Wrigley has a marvelous song called "Plastic Pies." The chorus has an indelicated phrase I've never fully understood:

...and you can shove 'em where the monkey shoves his nuts!

I get the general anatomical idea -- akin to "where the sun never shines." But does anyone know if this is a reference to actual monkey behavior. And (please forgive my earnest ignorance), does the saying refer to what monkeys do with their food or their testicles?

(By the way, I noticed almost the same phrase in the Fairport Convention song "Big William" posted on DigiTrad when I was looking for something else just now.)

Thanks, as always, for any information. Yours, from the great borough of Brooklyn, New York.

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: paddymac
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 10:15 PM

Chris - I haven't the slightest idea of the answer to your question, but the question itself might be one of the better openings provided to this unholy crew in quite some time. I can't wait to see what some of our more erudite and forthright members might do. 'Spaw - are you there?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Callie
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 11:02 PM

Is that the same as "freezing the balls off a brass monkey"? (which is a nautical term) Callie

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 11:31 PM

And of course paddy...Spaw showed up! And believe me, I NEEDED a laugh!

I have no idea what that phrase means, but its a sure thing that that monkey's bag is a helluva' lot more elastic than mine!!! Hurts like hell even to think about it..........

I have a feeling I'll be back here again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:41 AM

Well like I said........

I was in need of another laugh so I went to a website that another nameless 'Catter sent me. Its a really funny place that has a picture caption contest, but its NOT for the more puritanical of our membership! In any case, I was going to look through their archives and the second one I opened..............Well let's say that these guys may be able to shed a little light on the subject. PLEASE DON'T GO HERE IF YOU ARE PURE OF MIND!!!!

But if you're not.......

If you clicked, don't complain to me....got it?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:53 AM

Ain't Complainin'!!!!!!!!!!!G'sLuiz! 'spaw, how late do you stay up finding this stuff? thanx, I needed a laf too. I had already seen Week 17, only labeled "Moon River" I marked it for my guys........they'll love it!
Don't know about balls, but a friend sent me a whatcacallit video email of chimps. One is aaaaahhhh, fingering his back passage and tasting when he falls off the tree, the other is "getting a drink". I'll see if I can find it tommorrow and blue clicky it.

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Metchosin
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:01 AM

.....after that Spaw there is not a hell of a lot you can say about monkey nuts........Were Bert and Ernie looking for monkey nuts?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:07 AM

There's just gotta be a song in here somewhere called
MONKEY NUTS

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Metchosin
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:26 AM

Come on Sorcha, we just recovered from glowing pickles, are we ever to remain fixated on that part of the male anatomy. BG

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: GUEST,Johnnie L
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:37 AM

Monkey nuts was what we called peanuts when Iwas a child in Scotland in the Fifties.That was how my parents and everyone else referred to them.Teachers being pedantic told us there was no such thing as monkey nuts.But what would they know?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:39 AM

(WE?) Recovered? Who is WE? Me and my paw we killed a bear. You may have recovered, but I haven't. :>)

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Metchosin
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 01:45 AM

OK Sorcha, Where's yer song?

When I was small I shoved a peanut up my nose? Could that be it?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 02:29 AM

"Monkey nuts" also shows up in the halyard chantey "Serafina" which is about a Spanish prostitute of that name. The line where it is mentioned is: "She used to work for monkey nuts but now she works for vino." It can be found in Stan Hugill's Shanties From The Seven Seas. He doesn't give an explanation of the phrase, but reading the message above about it being a British Isles slang expression for peanuts puts it in perspective. That might be what is meant in the chantey. That's conjecture, but it makes sense.

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 04:47 AM

Is that like the guy who crossed a chimp with a prostitute and got one that swung from lampost to lampost and did it for monkey nuts?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 10:55 AM

When I was studying zoology one of the courses involved primate behaviour.

From direct observation I can confirm that the monkey did indeed do the said thing with a nut.

If anybody is interested in other things that monkeys do when they think they aren't being observed....don't expect me to post it here!!

All the best,

mcmoo

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: bob schwarer
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 02:58 PM

Hell, it's bad enough what they do when they know they're being observed.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Nogs
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 01:05 PM

There is also the line from "The Battle of Sowerby Bridge" which states:

The enemy then retired into the wilds of shifting glen
The switchback were invaded by an 'undred thousand men
They hung their wounde out to dry across the ariel flight
And they stuffed their guts with monkey nuts and challenged us to fight

I suspect that the use of this term has as much basis in truth and logic as the rest of the song, but i always get asked about it. Any clues?

Chris: its good to here from you since I last saw you at the Half Moon Ale lo these many years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 08:19 PM

OK, Nogs I'll bite -- I'm not recalling you from the Ale by that name, but who are you when you aren't Nogs?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: toadfrog
Date: 02 May 01 - 10:41 PM

All very interesting. D.H. Lawrence had a story called "monkey nuts," in which a young farm laborer rejects the advances of an agressive young woman, and she cries at the end as he leaves, shouting "monkey nuts" at her. So it must mean something. Do any of the English MC's know?

Subject: RE: Lyr. explanation: monkey/nuts
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 May 01 - 03:21 PM

Hi Callie, no "freezing the balls off a brass monkey" means something completely different, it concerns how cold the temp. is. The monkey refered to here is a triangle pan that holds cannonballs in a 3 sided pyramid type fashion, a brass monkey would be the same only instear of an iron tray it would be a fancier brass pan used by say an admiral or on board the flagship taken out as a show piece. The iron cannon balls & the brass mokey being of dissimilar metals would expand & contract at different rates, I believe the brass in very cold weather would contract (I may have this part backwards) much faster than the iron therefore forcing the cannon balls to be squeezed off their tray (monkey). Barry