Lyrics to
Gorilla

This version of Gorilla was released by James Taylor in 1975.

Our About James Taylor page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Gorilla from 1975 as well as all of the other lyrics from James Taylor that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to James Taylor or about the 1970s in general.

He’s got arms like legs, he’s got hands on his feet.
He’s got a nose like a doughnut, got a tendency to overeat.
He don’t use tools or weapons, he don’t eat meat.
He likes to stick to the bushes, tends to avoid the street.
But he rides my El Dorado when he comes to town.
You know he’s out there somewhere trying to track you down.

Look up in the sky, mama that’s the one, yeah.
See the mighty profile block the noonday sun.
He comes from the heart of darkness a thousand miles from here,
that’s the land where they understand what a woman might like to hear.
You know that he loves you baby for what you really are,
his love is a burning hot as a big old ten cent cigar.

Now most of y’all gave seen a gorilla in a cage at the local zoo.
He mostly sits around contemplating all the things that he’d prefer to do.
He dreams about the world outside from behind those bars of steel,
and no one seems to understand about the heartache the man can feel.
The people stop and stare but nobody seems to care.
It don’t seem right somehow, it just don’t seem fair. He’s still a gorilla.

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James Taylor has released many songs over the years besides Gorilla. James Taylor released songs from 1968 to 2002 spanning across albums like James Taylor, Sweet Baby James, Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, One Man Dog, Walking Man, Gorilla, In The Pocket, JT, Flag, Dad Loves His Work, That's Why I'm Here, Never Die Young, New Moon Shine, Hourglass, and October Road. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by James Taylor.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1975 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Gorilla by James Taylor

The lyrics for Gorilla are defined as the words making up the song released by James Taylor in 1975. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Gorilla have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only James Taylor and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Gorilla by James Taylor if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Gorilla" means the words set to the music of Gorilla, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by James Taylor. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Gorilla and the lyrics to Gorilla are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of James Taylor who came here looking just for the lyrics to Gorilla, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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