Space Monkey, Space Monkey
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What you doing out there?
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Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
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Come gather round me you little monkeys and a story I'll tell
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About a brave young primate, outer space knew him well
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He was born at the top of a big old tree
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Way back in 1953.
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He could swing through the jungle and hang by his toes
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Till they took him to Russia cause they could I suppose
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They dressed him up in a spacesuit and it started to snow
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Shot him off in a rocket where no man would go
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Space Monkey Space Monkey
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What you doing out there?
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Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
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There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
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No hammer or sickle you'll be on your own.
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He had plenty of Cuban bananas and loads of Spam
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But he found great difficulty trying to open the can
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One day he slipped on a banana peel and the ship lost control
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It spun out of orbit and shot out the black hole
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It's been four decades now, that's nine monkey years
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That's a long time for a Space Monkey to confront all his fears
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Space Monkey Space Monkey
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What you doing out there?
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Why it's dark as a dungeon way up in the air
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There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
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No hammer or sickle you'll be all on your own.
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Space Monkey, Space Monkey
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It's time to get real
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The space race is over, how does it feel
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Cold War's had a heatwave, Iron Curtain's torn down
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They've rolled up the carpet in Space Monkey town
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Now Leningrad is Petersburg and Petersburg's hell
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For a card-carrying monkey with a story to tell
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The Space Monkey was reportedly last sighted about
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A half a block off of Red Square
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In a karaoke bar having a few drinks with some of his friends
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There was the dog that flew Sputnik
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And a blind red-headed, one legged parrot
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Who had done some minor research for Dow Chemical
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They were drinking American Vodka
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Imported all the way from Paducah, Kentucky
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And reportedly had their arms around each other's
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Shoulders singing.
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"Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end"
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Space Monkey, Space Monkey
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There's nothing to do
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But it's better than living in a Communist zoo
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There'll be no one to greet you when you get back home
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No hammer or sickle you'll be all on you own
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Space Monkey
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John Prine |