I was looking this week at some promotional material for an event called “SHE Columbia: The Ultimate Girls’ Weekend,” and given my penchant for digression, I of course got to thinking about Elvis Costello’s “She,” which seemed more aesthetically rewarding than thinking about the 1965 film by that name.
Then, I also thought of “She” by The Monkees.
Which got me to wondering…
I was into The Monkees when the show first came on, when I was in junior high school in New Orleans. That was in my first year or so back in this country after two-and-a-half years without television or any easy access to American (or English) pop culture, and I was really, really into almost everything that TV threw at me. Take your pick: “The Monkees,” “Batman,” “The Time Tunnel,” “The Wild Wild West.” Hey, I even enjoyed watching Merv Griffin and “The Dating Game” (which will always have my respect for using Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream”). If it was on TV, I thought pretty much anything was cool, with the obvious exception of Lawrence Welk.
Anyway, I bought The Monkees’ first couple of albums, and when I briefly took drum lessons, it was the percussion part of “Stepping Stone” that I tried to master.
So, when I found myself highly impressed at the choice of music over a meth-cooking scene on “Breaking Bad” this past half-season (sorry; I can’t find video of it), and finally recognized it as The Monkees’ “Goin’ Down,” I thought, Wow.
The song worked so well as the accompaniment for that frenetically edited scene that it got me to thinking… were The Monkees actually better, musically, than conventional wisdom had it? After all, I hadn’t listened to them since I was a kid with indiscriminate tastes. How would they sound now? I had that thought months ago, but it didn’t occur to me to test the supposition until this week, by calling up their songs on Spotify.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but, well, conventional wisdom was mostly right. On song after song, my mind went “Ow!” and I clicked on the “next track” button.
The good stuff — and “Goin’ Down” fits in that category, with “She” and “Stepping Stone” not being all that bad — was pretty rare amid all that dross. The few hits for which they are remembered, such as “Last Train to Clarksville,” tower over the filler material on the albums.
Which, I suppose, is what you’d expect from a made-for-TV band in the mid-60s. You can’t just manufacture hits; they sort of have to come from inspiration. Which makes the achievement of those who did the music for “That Thing You Do” even more impressive. You ever listen to the soundtrack? One song after another that, while it might not make your Top Ten, you can easily imagine getting decent airplay on the radio circa 1964-65.
But you have to hand it to The Monkees “Goin’ Down.” That actually clicked. Not even the lyrics made me cringe.
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Goin’ Down is a Mose Allison piece, who is just one of the illustrious group of composers and lyricists who wrote for the Monkees. They were quite musically respectable. The issue was that at first Davy and Mickey could not play any instruments, and that they were assembled by “suits” rather than came together on their own like “real” groups did back in that moment.
I love that number, and almost wore out my record trying to figure out the lyrics. Never got all of them right, until the internetz helped out.
The other one I liked was Randy Scouse Git. It is from when they went to London to hang with the Beatles. “The Four Kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor.” I only knew this also, thanks to the internetz.
Davy Jones. Sigh. RIP.
Isn’t Michael Nesmith credited with creating music videos, or something like that?
Yes. He was one of the first, if not the first, to produce them.
And his mom invented Wite Out!
My band recently played “Stepping Stone” for a while. When you play it big, it’s scary.
A Monkee’s song is “scary”? Maybe if your 2 years old and suddenly turn the volume to 11 not knowing what you’re doing.
Nice Spinal Tap reference.
Back in the day, I would really like to have grown up to be in a band that played “Stepping Stone.”
Actually, I think it would be pretty cool today.
I can imagine “Stepping Stone” being played in a way that would be pretty hard-core.
Speaking of which… a few years back, I compiled a CD of cover songs. It was a wide range, including a punk band (I forget the name of the band) doing the theme from “Laverne & Shirley,” Pearl Jam doing “Soldier of Love,” The Bangles doing “Hazy Shade of Winter,” and so forth.
Anyway, I ran across something interesting. We all know the Stones’ version of “Satisfaction” (which is the general class of song I think Boyce and Hart were going for with “Stepping Stone” — something sort of growly and soulful). But there are two covers that make fascinating bookends for it. On one side you have the Devo cover, which as you might expect is so geeky sounding, so mechanical, as to be (intentionally) utterly devoid of any trace of soul.
Then there’s Otis Redding’s version, which in terms of pure blood-and-guts soul (or whatever word you want to use for it) puts MIck Jagger to shame. It’s like Otis was saying to the Stones, “Is THIS what you were shooting for?”
I just listened to the Otis Redding version again. It sort of makes you doubt, if only for a moment, that James Brown was the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business…
Not much beats the version of Start Me Up from A Mighty Wind by the Folksmen (the Spinal Tap guys remade as the Kingston Trio)
Love that one, too.
Also “Best in Show”
Waiting for Guffman is also good, especially the deleted scene where Corky displays his Remains of the Day lunchbox and My Dinner With Andre action figures.
For Your Consideration, not so much.
I know it’s cheesy but I always liked Daydream Believer.
Well, I think that’s one of their pretty decent pop tunes. There are others. For instance, if you ignore the awkward, trite, over-earnest attempt at social relevance in “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” it’s a pretty good listen.
So is “Valerie.”
Sometimes, even with the better songs, you can get a feeling that you’re in an alternative universe, hearing echoes of songs that are almost, but not quite, songs by other bands from the same period.
Sort of like the Rutles, except that the Rutles were hitting you over the head with it.
Here’s what I mean: “Valerie” suggests “Gloria” (I refer mostly to the choruses.) “Love is Only Sleeping” sounds kind of like “Tomorrow Never Knows,” just without the weird electronic accompaniment. And so forth.
Which you would expect from a group created to order to sound like other pop bands of the era. Hey, even “real” bands put out a lot of highly derivative songs, so this is no rap on the Monkees.
Monkees were good, if you consider “The Monkees” a combination of the actual 4 Monkees plus assorted writers, arrangers, studio musicians, not to mention using stuff by great songwriters, as Kathryn points out. In the end, “is the music compelling” is all that matters, and the question of what the “input-percentage” of the four on-screen guys vs. all the behind-the-scenes people is irrelevant to that. It was really that the Monkees began as a made-for-TV project that created any controversy in the first place; lots of other bands even at the time were creating their sound with the help in large part of studio musicians and so forth, but they weren’t catching the flak or being critically dismissed in the way that the Monkees were, because there wasn’t that connection with the “cheesiness” of TV.
Actually, I’m letting that Spotify playlist run in the background while doing other stuff, and some of the same songs I dismissed when writing this sound better.
Music appreciation — pop music appreciation, anyway — seems to be such a function of mood, or context, or something. With me, anyway…
I think pop music is especially designed to be “catchy” and widely appealing. I bet Phillip can explain the specifics….
I just didn’t think any of those movies with those guys was anywhere near as good as “This is Spinal Tap.”
That was inspired. The others felt to me a little like a bunch of funny people got together, and they had a concept, and they labored mightily to squeeze comedy out of that concept. I felt like I could see how hard they were trying. Just not as funny.
Think about it: Was anything in any of those other films as funny as the first time you heard, “These go to eleven?”
Or, “The problem MAY have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being CRUSHED, by a DWARF.”
That one’s even funny out of context. But the context, and the vehemence with which it is delivered, really make it…
Well, as more a dog lover and drama geek, I related to the others more than to the rock and roll Spinal Tap. I even used to listen to the kind of folky music from A Mighty Wind.
The My Dinner With Andre action figures….one the first arty films I saw, and well…..the Remains of the Day lunchbox?!?! Gold.
Christopher Guest as the NC owner of a bloodhound is priceless. Dead on the money, and a true characterization of a type often mischararacterized. Lots of people do dumb Cockney Rockers, but….
Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as the braces-wearing catalog-shopping lawyers who met at Starbucks on opposite corners. They own a Weimaraner….so do I. They are uptight. Me, too.
Michael McKean singing Barbara Allen to his dog over the phone as a lullaby….
Very sophisticated stuff. Of course, I have watched them many times…..as well as TIST, which I own all three video versions of…..
They are all gold.
Completely agree. I confess, I watch the Westminster Dog Show every year. I only wish there had been a Jack Russell in the movie.
Goin’ Down is one of maybe a couple dozen songs that seldom leaves my mp3 player. I also like Papa Gene’s Blues and She.
Nesmith wrote Different Drum (Sone Poneys/Linda Ronstadt) and Some of Shelly’s Blues (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and others). It was his insistence that the Monkees play more of their own songs that in part led to their breakup.
Actually, this one of those posts that I sort of regret later.
My assessment that day was that conventional wisdom was right, and the Monkees weren’t very good musically.
But, as sometimes happens with these musical judgments (it happened back here, for instance), I’ve listened to some of the old stuff more since then, and have decided I was too harsh. No, not all of their songs were great, but they probably had more really good ones than most bands from the era that I listen to respectfully today.
When you consider the large number of great songs from one-hit wonders, they probably had a greater-than-average number of good songs.
Not everybody can be the Beatles, or Elvis Costello. After a certain point, not even the Beatles or Elvis Costello can keep cranking them out at peak quality…