Download Instrumental    “Mony Mony” has everything a rock song should have – pounding bass, heavy beat with that double snare, and guitars on overdrive.  It’s a great song to perform for a dance crowd that wants old-style, solid rock’n’roll – as long as you don’t do it like “Tommy James and the Shondells”.  Do it like Billy Idol, please.  He turned a good rock song into a great rock classic… yes, he did.

Oh, I know, Tommy James is the original artist and we always like the original best.  Well, not this time.  James wrote this piece with three other people and it took them nearly a year to get it together.  If you listen to the lyrics, you wouldn’t think it could take more than five minutes.  Problem was, they had the music down and all the so-called lyrics except for one little thing – the name of the song.  What were they going to name the girl?  The melody needed a name with two syllables.  Rhonda maybe?  Nope – The Beach Boys had that one wrapped up.  Susie, perhaps?  No… too cute and cuddly.  How ’bout Michele?  The Beatles snagged that one.  Besides, the girl in this song isn’t French – I just know it.  Oh, my… what to do, what to do?  They just couldn’t come up with a name that was offbeat enough without being totally bizarre.  Boy, the things we humans agonize over (never end a sentence with a preposition – just sayin’).

But then inspiration struck!  Tommy and one of his songwriting partners were working on this tune in his Manhattan apartment and were still getting nowhere with the title.  Finally, disgusted, they threw down their guitars (I’ll bet they didn’t actually throw them down) and stepped out on the balcony for a smoke.  They looked up and started laughing – a huge sign on top of the building across the street read “Mutual Of New York Insurance Company”.  There it was… M-O-N-Y.  Ain’t life funny?  And now they had a hit song – but it took Billy Idol 15 years later to get it right.