nixsight

Okay, so this week I’m resorting to a theme, because I’ve got a head full of it.

First up, we’ll start with something new:

3: Monkey’s World - Monkey

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If you read my Twitter feed, you know that the drama between ordering the new Damon Albarn/Jamie Hewlett album and actually receiving it was a little long-winded. You’ll also know that my first listen was a little disappointing. So if your first listen to this track is a bit peculiar, don’t worry – it makes sense in the context of the album, and it takes a while to grow on you.

What Albarn has done here is a proper Chinese Opera extravaganza - the album as a whole is abstract and bewildering, with the only possible touchstone I can think of being the classic and just as original Akira soundtrack – but if you begin to imagine the spectacle that might have joined it on stage, it begins to come together.

And this is one of the classic stories of all time, so goddamn it I am going to listen to it until the gorgeous illustrations on the inlay start to come alive for me.

2: Monkey Gone To Heaven – The Pixies

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In the story ”Journey To The West”, that Albarn’s play is based on, the Monkey symbolises, among other things, the quixotic and stubborn nature of man, railing against authority. At least, I choose to think he does.

That has nothing to do with this classic, beyond that the monkey here probably also represents the human experience, and while the lyrical content of the song doesn’t follow it through, the title evokes a recurring theme within the story.

Actually, there’s probably very little that the one and the other have in common, beyond the obvious “monkey” thing. But come on! It’s monkeys!

And also it’s Frank Black screaming that line: “If the devil is six then God is seven, then God is seven, then God is seven”, before the softness of the chant kicks in about that monkey, and how he’s gone to heaven. Lovely…

1: Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head – Gorillaz

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Yes, yes, strictly speaking this is a little cheap, as it’s Albarn and Hewlett again. What do you want from me? I never said there were any actual RULES to this weekly Top Three thing.

But really, this has to be one of my favourite songs ever – certainly my favourite Gorillaz track, and I love the band so that’s saying something. The story in the song is evocative and poignant without the allegory in it ever being too obvious, and having it delivered flat by an unusually restrained Dennis Hopper is inspired. This is possibly the prettiest and most sensitive that Albarn’s voice has ever sounded, too.

That final verse, delivered after the rest of the action, always jarred with me as being a bit too blunt after the near-whimsy of the rest of the song, but now that I’ve got used to it, it seems vital.

A final treat after the break…

This is where a generation’s obsession with Wú Chéng’ēn’s 16th century classic began. Certainly this is when I fell in love with the story.

When I found out “Monkey” – we knew it as “Monkey” here in the UK, and I don’t know when the “Magic!” got added to the title, even though it was always in the song – was based on an old story, I imagined that a lot of liberties had been taken when making the show. There was no way that such an old story could contain so much surreality, earthiness and bewilderment!

Of course, I’m an idiot. The book is even weirder. And I loved it just as much as the show.

My favourite bit? When the stone monkey smashes out of his egg – “The nature of the monkey was irrepressible!”

(Although “The egg became magically fertile” is right up there with the Marvel comics “Suddenly, the teardrop explodes!” for narrative non-sequitirs, and for that it must be applauded.)