Gorillas in the Mix

The simian star Koko, a lowland gorilla who quite famously speaks sign language and understands spoken English, is already a star in print with, among other works, the young-adult favorite Koko’s Kitten and the primatologist favorite “Mirror Behavior and Self-Concept in the Lowland Gorilla.” Now she’s ready to conquer the pop music world with her latest release Fine Animal Gorilla, a benefit CD for The Gorilla Foundation.

Though Koko herself was not directly responsible for any lyrics on the nine tracks, her journals inspired the actual songwriters, a group called the Laurel Canyon Animal Company, consisting of members Skip Haynes and Dana Walden, with the help of 40 other contributors.

“Koko’s recorded communications did indeed inspire the songwriters and musicians of Laurel Canyon Animal Company who created Fine Animal Gorilla,” Lorraine Slater, a Gorilla Foundation spokesperson writes in an e-mail.

Originally some press mistakenly reported that Koko herself had penned the songs, but the gorilla’s only active role in the creation of the CD was to indicate her preferences of lyrics and musical styles. Linguistics professor Bert Vaux, who has lectured on Koko in his class, Social Analysis 34: Knowledge of Language, responded to early claims that Koko was a songwriter, saying, “This scheme is consistent with what [The Language Instinct author Steven] Pinker accuses the animal trainers of doing with Koko and the other ‘talking’ animals – taking utterances of limited content and coherence and augmenting them with more fluid pronouncements from the imaginations of the human handlers.”

A perfect example is the title track, “Fine Animal Gorilla,” the moniker by which Koko refers to herself. While the phrase clearly bears no sexual connotation in the words “fine” and “animal,” the songwriters take full advantage of these implications. As trumpets blare and bongos thump suggestively in the background, a sultry female voice whispers “I wanna make a baby/And I don’t mean maybe/I’ll say it straight/I need to procreate.” Later in the song, a crowd of people eggs on the primate in an act that only the criminally unbalanced can imagine (“Go Koko! Go Koko! Go Kokokokokokoko!”).

But as easy as it is to mock the songs’ oft-misguided lyrics, the album can hardly be criticized for not realizing its vision. It is actually a very decent album as far as children’s music goes. Though hardly reaching the transcendent heights of They Might Be Giants’ “No!” or the Schoolhouse Rock albums, Fine Animal Gorilla is about on par with any of the Sesame Street releases (and is certainly no more deceptive than claiming that Elmo can sing). Highlights of the album include “Even Gorillas Get the Blues,” a slow-burner that actually sets a bluesy mood quite nicely, and the ethereal “Gorilla Lullabye,” a touching number that describes the various friends Koko will see in her dreams, including her late gorilla friend Michael.

There are also a handful of songs that remind one of the loftier purpose this disc serves. “I’m Goin’ to Maui,” written from the perspective of Koko, declares “I’ve been thinking ‘bout wide open spaces/Where my friends and I can roll and play/Oh, Maui’s calling me.” The song refers to the Maui Ape Preserve that The Gorilla Foundation, led by Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson, is hoping to build in Hawaii.

So is Fine Animal Gorilla worth the $14 that it costs at www.koko.org? With the humanitarian cause and serious camp value factors added in, Koko has a lot going for her. Take it from Vaux: “It’s not quite as unintentionally campy as ‘Golden Throats’ or ‘The Shaggs’ or ‘Sketches of my Culture,’ but it could be good for toddlers or tormenting unwanted guests.”