This lyric is about watching a heroin addict--- deeply stoned on heroin--- shuffle through the streets of Harlem. He moves real slow... swaying to the left and to the right, and sometimes he "nods out", his knees buckle and he almost falls. He scratches like a monkey: "monkey" is code for a "monkey on your back that you can't shake", ie., addiction to a drug such as heroin or cocaine. Those addicted to opiates, after about 2 or 3 hours into their high, start itching all over... Heroin addicts scratch themselves all over. "Monkey shine" is street code for heroin. Black American artists have famously couched all matter of taboo topics into coded song lyrics, and this one is no exception.
This lyric is about watching a heroin addict--- deeply stoned on heroin--- shuffle through the streets of Harlem. He moves real slow... swaying to the left and to the right, and sometimes he "nods out", his knees buckle and he almost falls. He scratches like a monkey: "monkey" is code for a "monkey on your back that you can't shake", ie., addiction to a drug such as heroin or cocaine. Those addicted to opiates, after about 2 or 3 hours into their high, start itching all over... Heroin addicts scratch themselves all over. "Monkey shine" is street code for heroin. Black American artists have famously couched all matter of taboo topics into coded song lyrics, and this one is no exception.
@rasputin1963 Maybe...although it also reads like a nice raunchy sexual metaphor.
@rasputin1963 Maybe...although it also reads like a nice raunchy sexual metaphor.