Back in '64 I was feeling 63 The strangest sort of feeling Started creeping over me It's not the kind of feeling You would easily forget My head started burning And my knees began to sweat I figured I was crazy So I went back to my chair But I looked into my mirror And I just wasn't there Just then the window shattered And a monkey hit the floor Looked like it was time for me To make it to the door But the monkey grabbed my coat And took away my hat And I don't remember What happened after that Except my friends hear the story About how I left it all behind Seems ever since that day I've had that monkey on my mind Tried to do my best And make something of my life So I cut off all my relatives And then I left my wife I've tried a hundred cures Anything that I could find
But you know life ain't easy With a monkey on your mind Every time I make my mind up I'm really gonna try Well that monkey starts jumping And looks me in the eye Oh dig the monkey Well something exploded When the monkey got loaded And we went out on the town The monkey got so drunk He started getting funky It was hard to hold the poor boy down He did the boogaloo the shoogaloo The Eskimo the Hindu He even made the teenage queen Oh the joint started leaping Everybody was a-freaking The greatest show they'd ever seen Then someone started screaming And I woke up from my dreaming Tried to get myself realigned But it's all right And it all comes easy When you got a monkey on your mind Dig the monkey Oh one more time Dig the monkey