“Mony Mony” - the Billy Idol version, not the Tommy James and the Shondells original - came up on my MP3 playlist today and it reminded me of how people chant the “hey motherf***er” lines in between the lines of the verse.
There she comes round singin’ Mony Mony (“hey motherf***er…”)
Here in Singapore, the ‘added’ lines always sounded like “hey motherf***er hey hey motherf***, but when I was in the US people would chant “hey motherf***er get laid get f***ed”, but the general swearing theme remains intact. So I was thinking that this is a very strange thing to spread globally - does anyone know the origins of this “tradition”?
Looking it up on Google, I found an entertaining thread about the whole “added lyrics” thing: I did know that people do sing “so good, so good, so good” in between the chorus of “Sweet Caroline”, and that “Family Tradition,” by Hank Williams Jr., gets punctuated accordingly:
“Hank, why do you drink? (TO GET DRUNK!)
Hank, why do you roll smoke? (TO GET STONED!)
Why must you live out the songs that you wrote? (TO GET LAID!)”
But I certainly didn’t know the other examples - was particularly amused by the “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” one:
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose [LIKE A LIGHTBULB!]
And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows [LIKE A FLASHLIGHT!]
All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names [LIKE (examples vary)]
They never let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games [LIKE MONOPOLY!]
Then one foggy Christmas day Santa came to say [HO HO HO]
Rudolph with your nose so bright won’t you guide my sleigh tonight
Then all the reindeer loved him and they shouted out with glee [YIPPEE!]
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, you’ll go down in history [LIKE GEORGE WASHINGTON!]
Yay - reindeer Monopoly! But back to my original point - does anyone know how the “Mony Mony” thing originated? One link:
I have heard a handful of theories as to why one should shout “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!” (the north Toronto alternate with less cussing was “Oy, bubby, zaidy, get bagels, get lox!”) after every line in the verses. My favourite one is that the original – performed by Tommy James and the Shondells – was on the radio when Billy lost his virginity.