Harry The Hairy Ape Songtext

Well, a strange thing happened the other night
You won't believe it, but I swear it's true
Harry the hairy ape made his escape from the city zoo
& under cover of darkness he made his way
To the middle of the municipal park
& he hid in the bushes & waited for somebody to come
Walkin' along by hi'self in the dark
Then along come somebody not suspectin' nothin'
peeegfi ,jdleeho
Harry jump out of the bushes all of a sudden
Beat on his chest [sound effect of this action]
Jump up & down & he say:
Wooo-hoo-hee-hee-hoo-hoo
Which is Harry-Ape talk for "Boo, I betcha I scared you, ha ha!"

Waaa! Scared that poor cat so bad his eyes bugged out, his hair turned white!
He ran off through the municipal park, screamin', hollerin', diggin' up the lawn,
tearin' up the shrub & knock down the "Keep off the grass" sign, run through the
hurricane fence, fell into the municipal park swimming pool & drowned hi'self! Woo
hoo!

Well, Harry thought this was the funniest thing that he had ever seen
& he laughed "Ha ha," jumped back in the bushes & got ready to do it again
The next guy to come along was the near-sighted local DJ
Just boppin' down the sidewalk on his way to work with a box of records on his arm
that he was gonna play
So here he come, not suspectin' nothin'
peeegfi ,jdleeho
Harry jump out of the bushes all of a sudden
Beat on his chest [sound effect of this action]
Jump up & down & he say:
Wooo-hoo-hee-hee-hoo-hoo
Which is Harry-Ape talk for "Smile, you're on candid camera!"

Man, that DJ was so near-sighted he thought Harry was a rock 'n' roll singer!
So he gave him the old glad hand, smiled, slapped him on the back, sayin',
"Don't worry, baby, I'm gonna play the record 'cause you're too cool, too cool, too
cool!" & he said bye, bopped on off down the sidewalk every 4 or 5 steps he'd stop &
turn around,
doin' a little boogaloo-shing-a-ling!
Well, this really shook Harry up, I mean it blew his whole bit, you know, ruined his
whole day So he run back to his cage as fast as he can go, jump up on his little swing,
put both hands
over his eyes & didn't look for 3 hours & 45 minutes. But that's not the end of the
story
Here's what happened:

The DJ played Harry's record [What record?] Shut up!
It was a hit and he became a star
Got him some tight britches, got him a manager
Went on a promotion tour, combed his hair back & took up playin' the guitar
& every Sunday afternoon you can go see Harry at the zoo
& the girls will scream & he'll sit on his swing & pick & sing his hit record for you

[backing vocals over ape noises]:
[Shoo-be-doo-wa-shoo-be-doo wa, shoo-be-doo wa-shoo-be-doo wa
[Shoo-be-doo-wa-shoo-be-doo wa, shoo-be-doo-be-doo-wah]

Ray Stevens Harry The Hairy Ape songtext