[100 years ago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Butler Act, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that law and the famous trial it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks on educators.]
On three
layers to the monkey-centered content and tone in Bruce Springsteen’s
under-appreciated gem (one of my wife’s favorite Boss songs):
1)
Humorous Intent: I don’t think Bruce has
written a funnier verse than this song’s first: “They prosecuted some poor
sucker in these United States/For teaching that man descended from the
apes/They coudla settled that case without a fuss or a fight/If they’d seen me
chasin’ you sugar through the jungle last night/They’da called in that jury and
a one two three/Said part man, part monkey, definitely.” I have to believe that
Bruce, who has a delightful sense of humor in and about his work (and in life
in general), began writing this song with precisely that straightforward thought—that
this was a really funny premise and twist on relationship songs (he apparently
first wrote and recorded it during the Tunnel of Love sessions, when he
was focused on such subjects). Plus, as my wife would insist I add, “these
United States” is one of Bruce’s funnier individual turns of phrase in any
song.
2)
Human Impulses: I can count on one hand the
Bruce songs that don’t have multiple layers, though, and it’s the way in which each
verse in this song takes us to a new place that makes it as great as it is. The
opening lines of the second verse connect the song’s central image very fully
to Tunnel’s raw, honest, and frequently dark portrayal of marriage: “Well
the church bell rings from the corner steeple/Man in a monkey suit swears he’ll
do no evil/Offers his lover’s prayer but his soul lies/Dark and driftin’ and
unsatisfied.” When the song’s speaker then asks the “bartender” what he sees
and the bartender responds, “Part man, part monkey, looks like to me,” that repeated
titular image is no longer just a funny depiction of the quest for sex or love—it’s
a reflection of some of the most natural yet most destructive human impulses,
the most animal and unattractive parts of ourselves.
3)
The Heart of the Issue: After a very sexy
bridge, the song’s final verse takes us to a logical but still I would argue
unexpected place—back to the Scopes monkey trial, and to the heart of that
trial’s debates. “Well did God make men in a breath of holy fire?/Or did he
crawl on up out of the muck and fire?/The man on the street believes what the
Bible tells him so/Well you can ask me, mister, because I know/Tell them
soul-sucking preachers to come on down and see/Part man, part monkey, baby that’s
me.” By the heart of the issue, I do mean in part questions of religion and
evolution, of what we believe about where we come from. But I also and
especially mean the question of whether we believe because of the myths we’re
told by traditional “authorities,” or believe based on our own critical perspectives
on and understandings of the world as it is. And I’m with Bruce’s speaker (and
Clarence Darrow, and Scopes): to believe based on the myths we’re told is, ultimately,
soul-sucking.
21st
century contexts this weekend,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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