Tones and I on the story behind Dance Monkey

Dance Monkey may be one of the catchiest pop songs of 2019, but the story behind the lyrics is darker than you’d think.

Bella Fowler

2 min read

January 22, 2020 - 12:35PM

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It’s the song we’ve had stuck in our head for what feels like an eternity.

Dance Monkey, Tones and I’s furiously catchy tune – among those tipped to score number one in Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown – burst onto radio waves in May 2019.

An instant hit, Dance Monkey catapulted the previously unknown Bryon Bay busker Toni Watson, 26, to international stardom within weeks.

It was the star’s second single from EP The Kids Are Coming – released after her debut Johnny Run Away – an equally as addictive tune written about Watson’s best friend coming out to his disapproving father at a young age.

It was Dance Monkey, however, that topped the charts in over 20 countries, breaking the record for the longest-running number one single ever on the ARIA chart with 24 weeks – a record set by Bing Crosby’s White Christmas way, way back in 1943.

But while we all know the song – and can’t help but find ourselves humming it after so much as reading the title – there’s a little-known story behind the lyrics.

It speaks of “bad side of busking”, the star explained in an interview with British newspaper, The Times.

Watson, who grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, originally uploaded her music to Triple J’s Unearthed before going on to clean up at November’s ARIA awards.

At the ceremony she scored Best Independent Release, Breakthrough Artist Award, Best Female Artist and Best Pop Release.

While Watson says she wrote upbeat pop track Dance Monkey as a party anthem for her Byron Bay hostel crew, she added that the lyrics actually tackle the politics of busking – behind the scenes of the street performances seen by the public.

Explaining that she had once vowed to busk until she was 50, Watson revealed she started to feel anxious every time she set up her keyboard after being “bullied” by competing musicians.

“I was getting a little bit bullied by guys who thought I was taking their customers, and it got to the point where I was anxious every time I set up my keyboard,” the star told The Times.

She went on to say that the art of busking quickly began to lose its appeal, but she was reluctant to stop.

“Drunk people came past and yelled profanities at me. The negative was outweighing the positive, but I didn’t want to stop just because people were being horrible.”

The track first gained traction on Triple J, but went viral around the world on Spotify, where it has been streamed nearly 940 million times at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the viral film clip for Dance Monkey, in which Watson stars as an old man wreaking havoc on a golf course with a crew of other grey haired men, has over 557 million views on YouTube.