THE MONKEES – “I’m A Believer”
My feelings about the Monkees and their music are entirely entangled with my feelings about their TV show, and childhood TV in general. Pop music wasn’t a big deal in my house growing up, and I had no real idea of the Monkees as ‘a band’, even if they played a band in the show: I just didn’t know what that might mean or what a band might do.
There was a massive gap, it seemed to me, between American shows like the Monkees, or the Banana Splits, and British programmes like Ivor The Engine, or Fingerbobs, or Bagpuss. (Of course now I know that these shows were made for very different agegroups, but they would run together during the UK school holidays so I consumed them as a whole.) I preferred the British shows, by a long way – the Monkees upset and annoyed me, their shows seemed to make no sense, and though just as plot-light were more frantic: talking about it to Pete the other day, he described the American style excellently as “nothing happens all at once”. The Monkees seemed to be always running about – I could not imagine the genial hippies who fronted or narrated Fingerbobs or Ivor running anywhere. Those presenters reminded me of my parents, who would tell me a story and then leave me to my imagination. The Monkees reminded me of my nursery school teachers, forever chivvying me to join in and have fun.
(The running about in the American shows, of course, wasn’t because American kids were much livelier than British ones: it was mostly because the budgets were bigger and so children’s programme making wasn’t confined to tiny broomcupboard studios which necessitated the crafts-and-puppets approach the UK output took.)
I went wandering down this route when I was trying to figure out why I’ve always had such a blindspot about the Monkees. “I’m A Believer” is professional, slick pop, crammed with hooks and imaginative touches – and I often love professional, slick pop. I’ve danced to this song, I’ve thrown shapes on the “I’m in love!” parts, I can listen to it now and hear some subtle, surprisingly soft vocal touches: it’s a terrific bit of craft and full of heart and enthusiasm too. I ought maybe to be right behind the Monkees as some kind of godfathers of the artificially created band. Instead, even as I enjoy the record, I can still feel my five-year-old self, nervous and uncomprehending, faced with the Monkees’ kind of televised fun and resenting it.
7
I also agree with wwolfe about the Monkees’ first single getting over on its music without the help of the show, so it was already a hit when the show went on the air (and I thought it was a great song, sounding like “Paperback Writer” but outdoing it “Writer” in intensity) (or, to my ears, since “Writer” had fallen off the charts right before I resumed listening to Top 40 in mid ’66, “Paperback Writer” when I heard it was something the Monkees had subsequently done better; I don’t think I’d feel that way now, but I don’t actually own either of those songs). But “Last Train to Clarksville” didn’t reach number one until the show had been on the air for several weeks. There was a lot of amazing competition. Here are the American number ones from when I started listening mid July ’66 up through Frank & Nancy in April 1967: “Hanky Panky,” “Wild Thing,” “Summer In the City,” “Sunshine Superman,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Cherish,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “96 Tears,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Poor Side of Town” (Johnny Rivers, and I don’t remember this at all), “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “Winchester Cathedral,” “Good Vibrations,” “Winchester Cathedral” (return), “I’m a Believer”/”Steppin’ Stone,” “Kind of a Drag,” “Ruby Tuesday” (which went to number one as a B side, because most stations wouldn’t touch the A, but the A probably helped sell the record), “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone,” “Penny Lane”/”Strawberry Fields,” “Happy Together,” “Somethin’ Stupid.” 1966, The Year That Punk Broke (though really the initial break comes in late ’64 when Stones and Animals start getting serious airplay). By the way, moving farther in 1967, the U.S. number ones don’t have the falloff in quality that you guys keep forecasting for Britain.
I think quite a few people here are singing from the same hymn sheet here: the pop/rock divide is perceived more than it actually happens in real life – although it does seem to affect the media, which gives it a knock-on effect of its own.
The relevance of the Monkees I think is that folklore seems to view them as the start of manufactured bands, and that cuts both ways – people who want to argue against anti-pop predjudice can and do point to them as a great advert for the idea.
But of course they weren’t really the first manufactured pop act – if anything, almost the exact opposite is true. Rebellion has always been part of the process anyway, of course.
You’re right about ‘Stepping Stone’ which my book says got to 20 in the US charts. It wasn’t listed on the UK chart, but obviously became well-enough known to inspire plenty of covers. Mickey Dolenz directed the video of PJ & Duncan’s version, you know.
From frank kogan: “…the idea of transgressing against pop is a pop idea.”
I love that. That’s one of those ideas that floats around in your head for a long time in a muddled state and then someone else says it exactly right and the light bulb goes on.
“Poor Side of Town” was a ballad – possibly Johnny Rivers’ only hit that he wrote himself – that starts with him singing, “Doo doo doo wah, shooby doowee. (Which looks like Sinatra in print, but doesn’t sound like him as Johnny delivers it.) The real hook is a neat little guitar lick, but I don’t know how to present a typed facsimile.
It’s very interesting that you compare “Clarksville” to “Paperback Writer.” I heard a radio interview with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and one of them said that he was in his car one night when he heard the last few notes of the new Beatles’ single, “Paperback Writer,” fading into the distance on his car radio. He thought it had a great riff. but he mis-heard the lyric as “Last train something-something.” So he and his partner took that initial inspiration and wrote “Clarskville.” (That place name turned out to be the name of a major embarcation point for soldiers headed to Vietnam, giving it another layer of meaning that I assume the writers hadn’t anticipated.)
wwolfe
theres a fantastic, camp tv movie made about the boys from a couple years back, that seems a super annuated, coded discussion of the pop vs rock, art vs commerce fights of the 90s, that tried to make the monkees great misunderstood romantic heros, well worth finding
(i mean by that last comment, is that the monkees have since their beginning been a sort of litmus test for poptism)
All I have to say here is, transatlantic #1, y’all, and also…
I’ve heard the live Robert Wyatt version and it ROCKS.
get a life!
look behind the bins. you might have put it there by mistake.
Yes!
First single I ever bought and won a bet with my brother who bought Penny Lane as to what would get to Number one. Sadly cracked it in a game of elephant football in our living room.
Great pop record as was Daydream Believer (what number is this 7a) and The girl I met somewhere being a great b side as well.
Yes, this was a great record and I was an avid watcher of the show back in the day. grimley at # 36 mentions “7a”, which Davy follows up with “it’s because I’m short, I know”, thereby opening “Daydream Believer”, which got stuck at number two. As indeed did the wonderful “Alternate Title”, which Micky D wanted to call “Randy Scouse Git”. That pesky Tony Blair gets links in everywhere, doesn’t he?
On a site chock-full of lovely writing, this is some lovely, *lovely* writing.
Last night’s 1 Show featured the Monkees and LAWRENCE FROM FELT/DENIM (being interviewed by Gyles Brandreth). And some otters. And a feature on Barrow in Furness which I’ve always been rather intrigued by…
As for the Monkees’ tv show, it was frequently inspired and subtly subversive as F Kogan has suggested. The episode where they destroy the ‘fake’ beach movie pop star has multiple layers of authenticity-questioning complexity (especially as the actor was Bobby Sherman, who three years later superceded them as a pre-teen pin-up).
They were actors playing a group who wanted to be The Beatles in a tv show. They didn’t want to be The Beatles themselves.
What the heck is LAWRENCE OUT OF FELT/DENIM/GO-KART MOZART up to these days?
And why are you so intrigued by Barrow in Furness? Having been there, several times, I can assure you that there is not much there worth the intrigue. Unless you have a special connection to the place, I suppose…
#40, busy wearing a truly bizarre furry hat, it seems.
Re 40: Well, he’s apparently finished a new album (though it’s not mixed yet), and is the subject of Lawrence Of Belgravia which (though it’s not edited yet) should be in the London Film Festival this year.
Barrow in Furness – it’s a big town, on a peninsula, which – Cumbrians aside – no one in Britain ever visits. Oh, and its name does remind me of Witchfinder General.
Great record this one – I guess it has to be an 8 or 9, but it’s so very hard to assign a number to something that’s just kind of been in the air one’s whole life. Surprised to discover that this is the Monkees only UK #1, they had bunches elsewhere, and certainly both Clarkesville and Daydream seems to me to belong with the top tier of who/beatles/stones singles (for a long time as a kid I thought Clarkesville was by the Beatles!).
Anyhow, three subsidiary points. (i) As a kid I thought that Peter from The Monkees *was* Tim Brooke-Taylor from The Goodies. Make of that what you will! (ii)I like a lot of what Frank Koganbot says above about the Monkees overall. It’s true, for example, that growing up in New Zealand the whole Flying Nun scene was kind of VU mixed with Steppin’ Stone (and no one can tell me that Pattie Smith didn’t get a big chunk of Rock ‘n’ Roll N*gger from SS). (iii) The missing link between monkees and banana splits is, of course Lancelot Link.
Re 43:For fans of Barrow-in-Furness and early post-war culture I would recommend the various published diaries (collected by the Mass Observation project) of Nella Last, housewife and mother, and resident of B-in-F, covering World War II and the post-war period up to around 1953.
Oi! What’s wrong with Barrow-in-Furness?
Some very good people (cough) were born in Barrow and some of us (cough) have seen fit to return there in our semi-retirement to be close to the mountains and the sea.
Not that we want to encourage loads of people to come and visit, you understand. Our eleven miles of safe, flat, sandy beach punctuated by dunes and rock pools remains unspoilt by hordes of grockles even on the warmest of summer days, the mountain vistas are stunning, we can feast on the world’s best fish and chips as purveyed by Andy’s of Hastings Street, and the world’s best meat and potato pies by Green’s of Jarrow Street, and we are sustained by a host of top-notch microbreweries. With secrets like these, you’d want to deter the hordes don’t you think?
Where else would the municipal statuary include the finest stand-off half rugby has ever produced, and the captain of the greatest club side in the history of football?
Re 44: Ah yes, I can see the Tork/TBT thing. Mickey Dolenz looks exactly like a Banana Split (did he single-handedly invent the Link/Splits antics?) who has just stepped on a shovel.
No mention yet of the Porpoise Song, the Monkees’ first flop, but a beautiful, genuinely psychedelic single. And the ‘video’ in Head is something else – incl. mermaids, suicide, and one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.
Yes, Dolenz is the spit of one of the Banana Splits. And Bingo is his name-o! As he mentioned on the show, Micky is currently in Eastbourne starring in “Hairspray”. A couple of weeks ago he turned up in a pub run by a good friend of mine and had a roast beef dinner. The guy is a never off duty fruit loop.
Barrow is well worth a visit. I went up there a couple of years ago on a joint venture to make contact with Rosie and to see Eastbourne Borough lose. Mine host took me on a long sea front walk. The scenary was breathtaking.
#46.
Nowt wrong with BiF. But all the things you’ve mentioned can be matched (at least qualitiatively if not exactly) by many other places. It’s a nice enough town, pleasant enough to retire to. Like a lot of places in Cumbria (or indeed the North, many parts of Scotland and Wales) as it goes. So pleasant, yes – intriguing, not really, imo.
And which stand off are we talking about? As far as I am aware, Dan Carter was born in New Zealand, which takes care of Union and Darren Lockyer and Wally Lewis are from Oz, taking care of League.
“Stepping Stone” was not introduced by the Monkees. It had been on a Paul Revere & the Raiders album six months earlier, sounding rather more ferocious.
Cumbrian @ 49
I speak of the one and only Willie Horne, His personal tragedy, and the reason he’s Barrow’s favourite son, is that he hampered his career in insisting on playing for Barrow for the whole of it when he could have played at the very top of the game. It’s a bit like Beckham insisting on playing for no-one but Leyton Orient.
Even Crazy Horse is wearing Willie’s boots!
@50, Elsa. Thanks for that. I’ve never heard the original then – will have to track it down.
@51
Well, I had an interesting night last night looking up stuff on Willie Horne, so cheers for that. Willie Horne strikes me as being an even more extreme version of Tom Finney (who turned down a move to Italy during his career that could have made him an even bigger star than he already was) – in that staying with Barrow didn’t elevate him as much as it might have done if he’d played for Wakefield Trinity or whomever.
I assume that we’re talking about Emlyn Hughes here rather than Neil Young’s backing band right? Though it would be pretty amusing if Danny Whitten had been turning up to the Filmore East in an old pair of leather rugby boots.
Re 52: It’s slightly rockist to think of Paul Revere & the Raiders’ version as the “original” as it was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, previously no-marks who did a lot of early Monkees demos and landed the gig when the show took off.
The Monkees’ version ups the organ hook and adds the verse/chorus tension, but the Raiders’ take is no slouch.
Emlyn Hughes’ nickname of Crazy Horse thing confused me for years. Was his favourite record Cinnamon Girl? Was he half Furness/half American Indian? Made a change to “Emmo” or “Hughesy” anyway.
#50, #52: I found a copy of The Flies version of “Stepping Stone” at a jumble sale, nearly didn’t get it thinking “ok, another lousy cover version”
Got it home and whoa! It’s not lousy!
cumbrian & wichita @ 5[34]
The junction of Abbey Road/Holker Street/Rawlinson Street where the Emlyn Hughes statue is now know throughout Barrow as Crazy Horse Corner. Its infamy helped by the notorious traffic lights.
I thought it would amuse the Swede to sit in the window of the Duke of Edinburgh hotel with his pint of Lancaster Amber looking upon Emlyn clearing the ball towards the station.
@54
The wiki on Emlyn Hughes claims that it was because he rugby tackled a Newcastle player to the ground during a game at Anfield early on in his career at Liverpool. Don’t know how true it is though – as with anything on wiki, fact checking probably required.
@56
That’s pretty cool. BiF needs a Stray Gators Alley and a Shocking Pinks Boulevard to continue the theme.
I quite like these statues that pop up to relatively recent local heroes – and the attitude of the public to them too. In Carlisle, we’ve got a statue of Hugh McIlmoyle outside Brunton Park – good player but not exactly a household name outside Carlisle. Nevertheless, once it went up it was pretty much immediately embraced (figuratively – the thing is on a plinth) by the public. I like the Arthur Lowe statue that’s sat on a park bench in Thetford too.
cumbrian @ 57
It’s when they start naming streets and other civic items after people younger than you that you start worrying. Winslet Close in Reading was disturbing but had been trumped by Daley Thompson House in Notting Hill when I was not much more than 30. However, I believe Faldo Close, on an estate named after golfers in Leicester, was in place when I was a mere 27 and possibly before. The Faldo in question was known to be a strange child two years below me at a rival school in Welwyn Garden City.
As for statuary, Laurel & Hardy in front of the Coronation Hall in Ulverston is pretty funky.
@54, wichita. Your point is well taken. Rockist, moi? Boyce and Hart weren’t figures in my world until a few days ago, but I guess I did know by the time I wrote my last note that it was a little farcical to describe Steppin’ Stone as anything other than their baby – they wrote Clarksville too, right? Nice.
A very funny (abbreviated) piece of Simpsons script about being ‘with it’ that I’ve meant to post for some time, and that’s vaguely relevant to Rosie’s last remark.
——————————————–
Bart: Dad, please, you’re embarrassing us.
Homer: No, I’m not…. Grand Funk Railroad paved the way for Jefferson airplane, which cleared the way for Jefferson starship. The stage was now set for the Alan Parsons project, which I believe was some sort of hovercraft.
Bart: Dad! No one cares about any of your stupid dinosaur bands! You have the worst, lamest taste in music ever.
[turns off the radio]
Homer: I’m just trying to party with you guys.
Bart: Homer, first of all, it’s “par-tay”, and second, we wouldn’t “par-tay” with you if you were the last dad on Earth.
Troubled by being mocked in this way, Homer decides to visit his old favorite music store, formerly named “Good Vibrations” but now renamed “Suicide Notes”. He searches around for the latest Bread releases and is surprised when the clerk directs him to the oldie section.
Homer: Now, here are some of your no-name bands. Sonic Youth? Nine Inch Nails? Hullabalooza?
Clerk: Hullabalooza is a music festival; the greatest music festival of all time.
Homer leaves, and walks the street, dejected.
Homer: Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It’s a scientific fact.
Flashback to the darkest 1970s, where a group of teens are installing a strobe light in a custom van of theirs: Quadraphonic sound, a waterbed, and now a strobe light.
Teen Homer: Gentlemen, say hello to the second-base mobile
Homer (VO): Back then, we didn’t care what anyone thought and the chicks found that irresistible….But most of all, I remember the music…
Teen Homer and Teen Barney, in Teen Homer’s room, butcher “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing”, when Homer’s dad Abe interrupts them.
Abe: What the hell are you two doing?
Teen Barney: It’s called rockin’ out
Teen Homer: You wouldn’t understand because you’re not “with it”.
Abe: I used to be with it, but then they changed what “it” was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you.
But teen Homer just smirks and looks at himself in the mirror in his 1970s polyester pomp:
Teen Homer: We’re gonna keep on rockin’ forever [echoes]… forever… forever…
Fade-in to adult Homer, at night, looking at his reflection in the en suite bathroom mirror, disconsolate. Marge props herself up in bed.
Marge: What’s wrong, Homie?
Homer: [sighs] I went to the record store today and they were playing all that music I’ve never heard of. It was like the store had gone crazy.
Marge: Hmm. Record stores have always seemed crazy to me, but it doesn’t upset me. Music is none of my business.
Homer: That’s fine for you, Marge, but I used to rock and roll all night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I’m lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky. [pause] I’ve gotta get out of this rut, and back into the groove!
[for the rest of the show Homer takes Bart and Lisa to Hullabalooza]
I used to be with it, but then they changed what “it” was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you.
Quoted for truth.
Re 55: Lucky you! Never found a copy of this half-speed freakout .
I was going to call it a “rave-up” which I believe was the with-it term when the single came out.
# 60 – swanstep via The Simpsons has just delivered a microcosm for the whole of the Popular project, especially for those of us ancient enough to have got ten bob notes for pocket money.
… but given that Homer has now been 36 years of age since 1989, isn’t it about time he came out as a teenage Guns n’Roses fan?
(Not a patch on the life story of William Brown though – in the first “Just William” book in 1922 he gets a job below stairs in a posh house; in the last, in 1970, he gets a Beatles LP for his 11th birthday!)
@erithian. Your point is well-taken. The ep. was from 1996 of course, at which point the Homer being a teen in 1977 made complete sense.
The point you raise is, now I think about it, a really good and searching one. Comedies are all about going round and round in a circle whereas drama is all about arc – beginnings middles and ends. The advantage of animation for comedy is that the characters don’t have to age whereas aging/advancing rapidly towards death is inherently dramatic with human casts, which interferes with the comedy.
But, heh, whenever The Simpsons wants to goose their show with a little drama they can do so by plunging into the past in flashbacks.
That’s great but – as you effectively point out – that introduction of dramatic notes does hold real peril for the show if lingered over because it must lock in time frames and imply morality and aging back in the show’s present (I don’t think they can disavow Homer’s ’70s pedigree at this point). The advantage animation presented for a long run comedy show must gradually leak away insofar as the past is gradually mined for dramatic points.
BTW, I remember being disturbed as a child by the apparent agelessness of Biggles, flying first in WW1 then WW2 then having cold war adventures….
Homer skipped GnR and went straight onto Grunge, when he changed the style of his R&B band, after discovering Marge and her college professor having a tender moment. He changed the name too, to Sadgasm.
I know it’s de rigeur to claim that The Simpsons hasn’t been funny “in, like, forever” but I still find plenty of things to amuse me in more recent episodes – particularly the fact that the show runners seem to embrace the fact that Homer has been a teenager in several different eras (I’m looking forward to when he was into Limp Bizkit – which should happen in about 10 years). In effect, they have disavowed Homer’s 70s pedigree. The episode quoted above got pilliored in the critical press for it too. I don’t think I care too much about Homer’s shifting back story – this is a guy who has had every job in the world pretty much, hasn’t aged in 20+ years and still seemingly holds down a job in a Nuclear power plant, despite being borderline retarded. Realism and continuity are not why I watch The Simpsons. I watch it because it has jokes in it. Maybe that is too base.
I will grant that The Simpsons can’t touch its Imperial Phase – but then neither can most bands, shows, singers, whatevers, that had an Imperial Phase.
Is this a spoiler-ish conversation, given a future #1?
Very good point, blame swanstep @60 (and me and others for joining in)! Only a handful of entries to go as I write, so let’s park this conversation until then…
@cumbrian, 60. Thanks for the info about Homer’s shifting backstory. (I watch the Simpsons irregularly via the occasional rerun.) According to wiki the episode that updated Marge and Homer’s courtship (and Homer’s musical interests) to the 90s was not only hated by the fans but has since been ignored, i.e., subsequent flashbacks and refernces have always been to Homer and Marj as teens in the 70s, to Homer’s mom as a late ’60s radical, and so on.
Oh and, yes, oops: All hail the bunny!
Is this one of those number ones that have had parts ‘added’ to make it the ‘definitive’ version (arguable)?
Reeves and Mortimer’s “boom boom boom OY!” gets added (by someone in the vicinity) no matter whose version is playing.
A bit like The Goodies’ contra/intro melody for “Wild Thing”
Re 69: “Reeves and Mortimer’s boom…”
Fortunately not anywhere I’ve ever gone.
@wichita, 62. Just got around to clicking on your link to the Flies’ version of Stepping Stone. Holy mackerel, it’s awesome. Thanks.
‘Classic’ rock: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/10/boo-move-night-of-fear.html Merci tout le monde!
Finest worksong: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/10/baffled-dancers-cat-stevens-matthew-and.html Thanks for reading!
And stuck behind in the NME – http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.com/2011/10/rolling-stones-lets-spend-night.html Thanks for reading, as ever!