Thanks for nothing, you stupid rock group, who pelt the public airwaves with the following lyrics:
I may not be a biologist, but I am familiar with one basic fact.
Chimps are APES!!! They are not MONKEYS!!!
It’s very, very easy, guys. The monkeys have tails, the apes don’t.
Thank you so much, Barenaked Ladies, for single-handedly, with one idiotic song, spreading more ignorance than the Straight Dope has managed to eradicate in 30-odd years of publication. An entire generation, except for the 5% who pay attention in biology class, will now grow up thinking chimps are monkeys.
OK, OK, maybe I overestimate the influence of one rock group. But if I don’t post something, I swear I’ll scream the next time that damn song comes on the radio.
But apes aren’t as funny! And probably more importantly, they don’t fit the fast rhyme that Ed loves to do.
In a way, I agree with you. It bothered me the first couple of times I heard it too. However, it is just a song, and a comedy one at that. If there are people in the world who take BNL songs (as much as I love them) as gospel, then I should imagine that there’s plenty of deep-rooted ignorance in there anyway.
Eh, you should have learned long ago that for rock lyrics, the normal rules don’t apply. They are like subatomic particles, free from the bonds of Newtonian physics - and our normal tolerance for inanity. In the words of the greatest rock band of all time:
Shake for me, girl
I wanna be your backdoor man.
Hey, oh, hey, oh
Oh, oh, oh
I know, it’s a comic song. And not a bad song, as songs go. I get a laugh out of it, but it also makes me go … . urrrrrgghhhh!
Art really does have a major impact on culture. Who said, “Let me write the nation’s songs, and I care not who writes its laws,” or something like that? Frex, I’ll bet half of the people who know that Istanbul is a newer name for Constantinople know it from They Might Be Giants.
Could they not have stretched their minds for a rhyme that used “apes” instead of “monkeys?” Grumble grumble grumble . . .
While you’re at it, can you do something about that stupid Old Navy commercial–the one in which Fran Drescher scolds a chimp for “monkeying” around?
It’s a strange (and annoying) commercial, especially since the chimp’s appearance is entirely gratuitous. But it shows that the whole chimps=monkeys assumption isn’t limited to BNL.
What makes me mad is that their latest tour, the tickets were $35 each here, they only played one show, and it was through Ticketmaster so a pair of tickets were over $90. I hate ticketmaster. Price gouging sucks.
BNL is my boyfriend’s favorite group, and we tried to get tickets less than an hour after they went on sale. What did they have left? Single scattered seating. At $90 for two tickets, that wasn’t going to happen. Left my BF bummed for the rest of the day.
GRRRRRRRR
I know! A while ago, a friend asked me if I wanted to see Bare Naked Ladies. Well, I can think of two things wrong with that name. Boy was I disappointed to see it was really four chubby Canadian dudes! Talk about your false advertising!
They’d have a job of going ‘back’ to frat houses in Canada. They’re not all that common up there, and they’re populated with the people who wouldn’t get into fraternities in the US.
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They were banned from a parade because they weren’t family friendly… the producers (I believe in NY) thought they were actual ‘naked ladies’. Dumbasses.
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But if I don’t post something, I swear I’ll scream the next time that damn song comes on the radio.
And did anyone seen BNL on Monday Night Football with Doug Flutie on drums?