Karl Pilkington's Space Monkey

LISTEN TO (and watch) KARL'S VERSION OF THE STORY HERE.

"Space Monkey" by John Prine

Space Monkey, Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon
Way up in the air.

Come gather round me
You little monkeys
And a story I'll tell
About a brave young primate
Outer space knew him well.

He was born at the top
Of a big old tree
Way back in 1953.

He could swing through the jungle and hang by his toes
Till they took him to Russia cause they could I suppose.
They dressed him up in a spacesuit and it started to snow.
Shot him off in a rocket where no man would go.

Space Monkey Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon
Way up in the air.

There'll be no one to greet you
When you get back home.
No hammer or sickle
You'll be on your own.

He had plenty of Cuban bananas
And loads of Spam
But he found great difficulty trying
To open the can.

One day he slipped on a banana peel
And the ship lost control.
It spun out of orbit
And shot out the black hole.

It's been four decades now,
That's nine monkey years.
That's a long time for a Space Monkey
To confront all his fears.

Space Monkey Space Monkey
What you doing out there?
Why it's dark as a dungeon
Way up in the air.

There'll be no one to greet you
When you get back home.
No hammer or sickle,
You'll be all on your own.

Space Monkey, Space Monkey
It's time to get real.
The space race is over,
How does it feel?

Cold War's had a heatwave,
Iron Curtain's torn down.
They've rolled up the carpet
In Space Monkey town.

Now Leningrad is Petersburg
And Petersburg's hell.
For a card-carrying monkey
With a story to tell.

The Space Monkey was reportedly last sighted
About a half a block off of Red Square
In a karaoke bar
Having a few drinks with some of his friends.

There was the dog that flew Sputnik
And a blind red-headed, one legged parrot
Who had done some minor research
For Dow Chemical.

They were drinking American Vodka
Imported all the way from Paducah, Kentucky
And reportedly had their arms around each other's shoulders
Singing."Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end".

Space Monkey, Space Monkey
There's nothing to do,
But it's better than living
In a Communist zoo.

There'll be no one to greet you
When you get back home.
No hammer or sickle
You'll be all on you own .

The United States launched flights containing primate cargo primarily between 1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. France launched two monkey-carrying flights in 1967. The Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys between 1983 and 1996. Most monkeys were anesthetized before lift-off. Overall thirty-two monkeys flew in the space program; none flew more than once. Numerous back-up monkeys also went through the programs but never flew.