Lyrics for Monkey Gone to Heaven as interpreted by numb

Monkey Gone to Heaven Lyrics
There was a guy
An underwater guy who controlled the sea
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
From New York and New Jersey

This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven

The creature in the sky
Got sucked in a hole now
There's a hole in the sky
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold
Everything is going to burn
We'll all take turns
I'll get mine, too

This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven

Rock me, Joe!

If man is 5
If man is 5
If man is 5

Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6

And if the devil is 6
Then God is 7
And God is 7
And God is 7

This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven
This monkey's gone to heaven

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shineonyoucrazydiamond84
07-14-2009

Rated 0 
i luv this song, i can completely agree with zot
analysis.

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ivegotnipplesgreg
06-10-2009

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i think its an ecologigal anthem about pollution hole in the sky=hole in the ozone layer etc

however the 5 6 7 bit is wierd
5 could be 5 fingers on a hand symbol of humanity
6 666 is the number of the beast
7 holy number commonly associated with god
im sure thatthis has been said but i think as the numbers go up the organisms are getting more complex
if four was said maybe it would have meant an animal if you get me

great song

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andweirdfishes
01-08-2009

Rated 0 
idk guys, I feel like they are just making fun of religion, and the stupid rules that make the monkey think he's going to heaven lol

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chinchin69
10-22-2008

Rated 0 
or, 5th track bomb dropped on japan
6th track dead, when they died,
7h track, they finally go to heaven

in here comes your man it says a guy who controlls the sea. could mean a boat.......

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chinchin69
10-20-2008

Rated 0 
i finally realized it. Look at the cover. there are four numbers on there. the numbers 5,6,7 and in the corner a small 13. five is in the upper left corner. 6 and 7 are in the right bottom corner, allong with the unmber 13 circled. 6 +7= 13. ok now look at the track number...if man is 5... the fifth track is here comes your MAN. if youve looked up the meaning for that, you know the song is about the a bomb dropped on japan. ok now the devil is 6... 6th track is dead, devil is lord of the dead...Then god is 7... monkey gone to HEAVEN. each track is expalined by black in that line and thats all ive got right now lol

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Natalia7531
09-13-2008

Rated 0 
"The creature in the sky" is us, the individuals that make up humanity. It plays into the overall meaning of the lyrics because it is a commentary on our, western-style religion. It shows, through an arbitrary method of beginning a set of 3 continuous numbers, how arbitrary our religion is. OK, so I HOPE this makes sense!
Basically what the song is saying is how our divisions are extremely simplified conceptions of reality. We have this mental divisions of God, the Devil, and Heaven... we see only three entities and one place (and the fouth, hell, is entailed by the use of contrast God and the Devil, but it is indeed effectively left out, by our immediate response to it's insinuation (of hell) it proves just how "rigid" and simplified it is. On could say that this consencous found in western religion of Hell, Heaven, God, Devil, is in fact proof of its truth, but really everyone knows that you don't even need to find these people, just go to other countries and you will have indeniable evidence of people acknowleding religions without sharing or at least ommiting certain notions of our religious realities.
The number's used, 5, 6, and 7, some argue have meaning within themselves (5 for the fingers, 6 for the triagonal 6, and 7 for the magical number heaven) but this is highly tied, once again, to our religion. In reality it's aribitrary, 5, 6, 7,.
"What comes after 6?"
Wow, !!! I know!!! Seven!!!
"You are 100% perfect in this knowledge!"
In the same way we simplify God, Heaven, Hell down to the level of a monkey's unsophisticated intellect. Basically it is saying that we toy with reality and don't take it seriously enough. We take life as if it were child's play, creating stories that are as cheap and superficial as the soap opera's on T.V. Yes, we really are as dumb as all the author's from our English classes hinted. *
*tear...
The whole
"Got sucked in a hole now
There's a hole in the sky
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold
Everything is going to burn"
Contrast between a hole (hell) being in the sky (heaven), the hole is essentially in the sky... the sky is its inverted ground. The contrast between cold and burn further further shows that contrast between the devil, god and hell and heaven.

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JSugarhigh5
08-29-2008

Rated 0 
aww man, doesn't anyone thing this has a little bit of weight from daniel johnston??? during his rant about the numbers he mention the devil being 6 and God being 7. the biblical reference is obvious. and the hole in the sky with the creature... revelation all the way.

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sharisunshine
07-30-2008

Rated 0 
oidimed, man was created on day six,
the numbers verse it simply referring to man's inferiority, in my opinion.

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chinchin
07-08-2008

Rated 0 
obvious. first verse is about how were destroying the sea. second verse is about the ozone layer.and the third verse is about global warming. he also says were all gonna burn ill take my turn. meaning even though he isnt doing it, he has to pay for it too, aka our youth of 2morrow who will have to deal with it but didnt cause it. also the last part isnt that confusing guys. i write songs myself, and at the tender age of 16 i gutess my minds just more open...humans r least powerful so satan can control us to do bad things aka sin. but the last line in the song he screams god is 7 in a triumphant voice, therefore telling us even thought satan caused us to sin and ruin the earth god will make it better on judgement day and all the good monkeys go to heaven, aka man who didnt do the bad stuff and is saved, which gives meaning to the verse ill get mine 2 when refering to the global warming problem. hope i was helpful

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jdberk
12-06-2007

Rated 0 
you can't really believe anything black francis says about this. If i was in his position i would fuck around with the fans all the time, and I certainly wouldn't put it past frank to deny any meaning in the songs just to laugh at fans' reactions. I think the environmental interp and wowza beans's death-of-god one both make a lotta sense.
but it doesn't seem like anyone's considered that "this monkey's gone to heaven" might be ironic. I always thought that the line was mocking the idea of humanity -being basically a bunch of monkeys- would be worthy of heavan anyway? The lines about the guy drowing in industrial ooze seem to be kinda absurdist in that they bluntly present a very ugly death. the neptune thing works too. anyway, if humanity is being mocked by being called monkeys, and animals were made on the fifth day, then it makes sense that humanity would be called five and not six.

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trodanman
11-01-2007

Rated 0 
the first 2 verses of this song are just great storytelling, like all pixies songs, and dont need to be deciphered, but i will say something of the second verse... "the creature in the sky got sucked in a whole now theres a hole in the sky"... the "creature in the sky" being God, has left us due to what we(as the human race) have done to this earth(gas emissions, burning coal and whatever else) we have opened a hole in the sky(the ozone layer). as we are now Godless, we will be left to burn(on earth) which takes me to this first verse actually. being that this "underwater guy got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from N.Y. and N.J." it is fitting that this man or "monkey" has gone to heaven but the rest of us shall "all take turns, i'll get mine too". what i find most interesting,is the third and final verse "man is 5, the devil is 6, and god is 7". man is the lowest number in this equation and it is fitting that the devil(6) should be between man(5) and God(7). is not more simple to sucumb to more evils than goods? for instance it is easier to pick up a bad habit such as smoking or drinking, than to take a higher road and stay clean. another example: do not most of us commit premarital sex, where as God says we should wait? yes, it is fitting that the devil should stand between us and God.... by the way, does any one else hear a piano repeating two notes as a trill during each chorus of this song??

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psipunk
10-02-2007

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And furthermore, to prove this is accurate (I forgot to include this in my original posting), the sludge coming from New Jersey and New York is in reference to thus:

"from New Jersey and from New York" refers to the Exxon/Mobil merger in 1999. Exxon became the new name for "Jersey Standard" which was the common name for Jersey Standard Oil Company and Mobil became the new name for "Socony" which was the common name for "Standard Oil Company of New York".

Thus, Frank is referring to the sludge from the oil spill as an environmental catastrophe on behalf of both Exxon and Mobil (from New Jersey and from New York).

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psipunk
10-02-2007

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Firstly, I'd like to agree with the many people who have noted biblical/numerological meaning behind the 5,6,7 "phenomenon" on this song. I just want to add a few comments, though.

I tend to agree with the idea that "this monkey's gone to heaven" is a play on the schism between the church and evolutionist beliefs. Its an ironic phrasing, really, considering Frank is referring to both types of beliefs at the same time within the same phrase. Whether he intended it or not, that's how it comes across. He's referring to the man who dies as a monkey (born from evolution), but a monkey can't really go to heaven because if you believe we descended from monkies then you don't believe in creationism. They're two seperate ideologies combined into an ironic duo.

In terms of the 10 million pounds of sludge, I believe I have a different idea. The Exxon/Valdez spill of 1989, which is the same year this album was released, is quite possibly the largest spill of oil in history. Actually, it is said that 11 million gallons of oil was lost into the sea.

Anyone who grew up during this time period or who can vaguely remember the spill can recall the images of washed up fish covered in black oil along with birds and other marine mammals suffering from exposure to the toxic "sludge". This may be part of the inspiration for this song. It alludes to the destruction of our environment by humankind while also referencing a very real, significant event in human history.

I strongly feel that Frank is referring to "sludge" not as mere garbage, but as a specific thing: the oil that spilled into the sea that year.

Take this as you will.

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bafflewit
09-27-2007

Rated 0 
People are reading way too much into a song that is about vasically nothing, as per Frank Black. While it is open to various interpretations, when the writer of the song says it is about nothing in particular, I tend to take them at their word.

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caurus
08-01-2007

Rated 0 
ok the whole monkey got to heaven thing could be a ref to the fact that we are victims to ourselfs you know like global warming etcetc and that we are primitive enough to do it in the first place.
"underwater guy who controled the sea" and the "creature in the sky" if their was anything magical/better we would have killed it/already have. the man is 5 thing has been covered in what people already said about the hebrew stuff i guess xxx

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patchwork cat
07-23-2007

Rated 0 
5,6,7 it's just a ladder of acension. But seriously that's just bull. This monkey will sort out his own shit- Man is a monkey?- monkey's just throw theirs.
Great song though- they played this on BBC2 and i got turned on to the pixies.
Oh, i 'got mine 'too' when that hole went round the Northern Hemisphere, i got some changes on my hands. Has held out ok so far.
It's not 666, that's certain. Anyway, numerology is wobbly as a dolphin on a bike.

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DecoyRobot
07-05-2007

Rated 0 
To me the song seems to be criticizing modern ways and religion. The old gods (“an underwater guy who controls the sea”, “The creature in the sky”) are killed off by pollution and a hole in the ozone layer. The sludge is from New York and New Jersey, emphasizing the contrast between modern ways and archaic gods. Saying “monkey gone to heaven” is like saying “non-believer gone to heaven,” because you would have to believe in evolution, not creationism, to consider yourself a monkey. The “man is 5, etc.” section seems to be a poke at empty Bible verses that Sunday school kids have to memorize. The references are genuinely biblical, but no real meaning comes from them. The devil is 6, so what? But the monkey is repeating it back and so he gets to go to heaven.
The meaning of the song in a nutshell: we’re killing the planet and the spirits, and we have no faith, but we think we’re going to heaven because we know what’s in the Bible.

or maybe i'm reading to much into it.

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MistLeavesandForest
05-20-2007

Rated 0 
This song is about mans relationship with the evironment and the divine, the man being neptune, god of the sea. Ask wikipedia. Wikipedia knows all.

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MistLeavesandForest
05-20-2007

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This song is about mans relationship with the evironment and the divine, the man being neptune, god of the sea. Ask wikipedia. Wikipedia knows all.

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outcesticide121
05-18-2007

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To me... part of what the last verse is saying is that man is closer to satan than god.

simple enough, right?

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OpinionHead
05-07-2007

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By the way, I've never listened to this song until now.

As I figured, it rocks!

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OpinionHead
05-07-2007

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I was just surfing the internet today, bored out of my mind, waiting for the school year to come to an inexorable conclusion. Somehow, I was playing around, writing mathematical equation using nothing but 6's and mathematical operations to make 666. As I surfed though, I found that a fragment, a snippet really, of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has the number 616 listed for the number of the beast.

Now, I remember awhile back that the Bloodhound Gang wrote the song "Fire Water Burn" and mentioned the same numerological words as in this song, but with monkey renamed as 'honkey'.

So, I pondered today, what if 666 is wrong?

What if man really is 5 and the devil really is 6? Is the AntiChrist really 56 and not 666?

And then I found 616. 616 equals 56 * 11, which is 56 * (5 + 6).

Weird stuff, huh folks?

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axhacker
03-28-2007

Rated 0 
Whoa! You're all freaking me out! AAAAAahhhh.
And here I always thought they were singing, "this Monday's gone to heaven." As apposed to, "this day just went to hell." Freaky.

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rkpetersen
03-15-2007

Rated 0 
I like the environmental interpretation of this song. And the title could be mocking religion and humanity; wouldn't be surprising for Black. The numerology at the end of song makes for GREAT lyrics but I don't think I'd attach too much more significance to them than that.

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lisap86
03-05-2007

Rated 0 
When I was a kid I always thought this song said "This Monk Has Gone To Heaven" - that made more sense to me than "This Monkey". The song still doesn't really make sense to me, but I love it nonetheless.

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