The Hustlers - Boston Monkey

Listen: The Hustlers - Boston Monkey

Once upon a time, people used to make up crazy dances. In fact, these dances were so crazy that they were called "dance crazes." You may be familiar with some of them: the twist, the swim, the mashed potato. Sometimes kids would make up a dance, and songwriters and record producers would try to cash in by recording a song to go with it. Sometimes the songwriters and record producers would write songs for dances that didn't exist, with the expectation that the kids would figure out how to turn the vague lyrical directions into a movement.

In response to Kendall's post about Boston (which definitely has the best fireworks, for what it's worth), I bring you a compendium on a dance craze that may or may not have originated in the Cradle of Liberty, the Boston Monkey.

I was able to dig up seven songs about the Boston Monkey. Not different versions of similar songs, but seven unique songs. Of course, the directions on how to do the Boston Monkey depend on which of these songs you are listening to.

Billy Butler - "Boston Monkey" (1966): Shake your hands, baby. Move your knees, baby. Side to side but not fast, just like a clap. First you take a dip, yeah, and then you shake it like a whip, yeah.

Les Cooper & the Soul Rockers - "Let's Do The Boston Monkey" (1965): Let's try it with a little bit of soul now. Let's go down to Soulville now.

Richard Anthony & The Bluenotes - "Boston Monkey" (1966): People get ready because it's Monkey time. Grab your baby, form a big boss line.

The Manhattans - "The Boston Monkey" (1965): With the Boston Monkey you don't have to be a Fred Astaire Everybody stand in line, let your hands take to the air. Hear the music with the honky tonk beat. Move your hands, your hips, and your feet.

The Hustlers - "Boston Monkey" (1965): On your right side and move. Now push your arms out baby, to the left side groove. Sway you hips and follow through. Boston Monkey, too.

Alvin Cash & The Registers - "Boston Monkey" (1966): Move to the left, move to the right. Shake your hips, and baby do the bite.

Otis Redding - "Boston Monkey" (Posthumous release, 1992): Shake your shoulders, wiggle your knees, clap your hands, do it if you please. You got to keep a groove going any kind of way, just do it, baby, just any old day.

The Boston Monkey was a big enough fad to warrant mention in a March 1966 issue of Time. Of course, by then it was on it's way out, replaced by moves like the Boogaloo and the Philly Dog.

Since Thanksgiving, the dance at discotheques and hip parties had been the Boston Monkey, which consists of keeping both feet still and shaking the hips and hands. But the kids got bored and started moving, so right now in Manhattan nightspots it's the Boogaloo, in which you swivel from side to side, shuffling feet, rotating shoulders and pelvis.

The kids from New York were bored with what was cool in Boston. It's Peter Stuyvesant vs. John Winthrop, egg creams vs. cream pies, and Yankees vs. Red Sox all over again.

The final word goes to the Hullabaloo Discotheque Dance Book, which provides the best instruction on the Boston Monkey that you're probably ever going to see.

Feet: Together, knees bent.
Body: Bent from the waist.
Hands: In front of you, palms down, at waist level.
Movement: Hips to the left, hips to the right.
You push your right hip out, and slightly back, at the same time moving your hands to the left.
You push your left hip out, and slightly back, at the same time moving you hands to the right.
All done bobbing, Monkey-like.

Now you've got it!