Heard Tommy James tell this story on his SiriusXM show:
Tommy James & the Shondells originally recorded the song “Mony Mony” in 1968 after landing on the song’s title in a way that was anything but rock ‘n roll. From Tommy James:
So we knew what kind of a word we had, it’s just that everything we came up with sounded so bad. So Ritchie Cordell, my songwriting partner and I, are up in my apartment up at 888 Eighth Avenue in New York. And finally we get disgusted, we throw our guitars down, we go out on the terrace, we light up a cigarette, and we look up into the sky. And the first thing our eyes fall on is the Mutual of New York Insurance Company. M-O-N-Y. True story. With a dollar sign in the middle of the O, and it gave you the time and the temperature. I had looked at this thing for years, and it was sitting there looking me right in the face. We saw this at the same time, and we both just started laughing. We said, ‘That’s perfect! What could be more perfect than that?’ Mony, M-O-N-Y, Mutual of New York. And so we must have laughed for about ten minutes, and that became the title of the song.
The song became the best selling single in Britain at the time and was covered often by various bands in the years that followed. The song was reborn again when British punk rocker Billy Idol recorded it in 1981, shortly after leaving the band Generation X, but the single stalled at #107 on the Billboard Top 100. Six years later Idol released a live version single of the song, changing wedding receptions and prom dances forever.
Tommy James & the Shondells originally recorded the song “Mony Mony” in 1968 after landing on the song’s title in a way that was anything but rock ‘n roll. From Tommy James:
So we knew what kind of a word we had, it’s just that everything we came up with sounded so bad. So Ritchie Cordell, my songwriting partner and I, are up in my apartment up at 888 Eighth Avenue in New York. And finally we get disgusted, we throw our guitars down, we go out on the terrace, we light up a cigarette, and we look up into the sky. And the first thing our eyes fall on is the Mutual of New York Insurance Company. M-O-N-Y. True story. With a dollar sign in the middle of the O, and it gave you the time and the temperature. I had looked at this thing for years, and it was sitting there looking me right in the face. We saw this at the same time, and we both just started laughing. We said, ‘That’s perfect! What could be more perfect than that?’ Mony, M-O-N-Y, Mutual of New York. And so we must have laughed for about ten minutes, and that became the title of the song.
The song became the best selling single in Britain at the time and was covered often by various bands in the years that followed. The song was reborn again when British punk rocker Billy Idol recorded it in 1981, shortly after leaving the band Generation X, but the single stalled at #107 on the Billboard Top 100. Six years later Idol released a live version single of the song, changing wedding receptions and prom dances forever.
