Micky, Davy, Mike, and Peter started out as TV characters — a clown, a romantic, an intellect, and an innocent — living in a Malibu beach house, episodically trying to make a go of their music careers in a lighthearted, often surreal, and very meta sort of way. Significantly, the characters’ first and last names and those of the actors who played them were the same, blurring the lines between fiction and real life. From there though, they did one better. The TV characters stepped out of the screen to become a recording entity and went on to play songs written for the show in live settings as a band. In this way The Monkees became a uniquely multimedia experience, spilling over into real-life in a way that was unprecedented.
Like a lot of pop cultural innovations, not everyone got it. There was backlash, with accusations that the band were not really a band at all, and that their records and performances were a part of some kind of ruse. “Isn’t that dumb?” as their Monkee characters might say. We’ve learned better now. Most critics worth their salt have come to realize that so many of The Monkees’ songs, written by some of the greatest pop songwriters and played by the best studio musicians of the time, are some of the finest of the era. Considering the high bar set by contemporary artists of the time, that’s really saying something. In this, they more than proved their worth as a recording unit as much as any band has. Here are 20 examples to hang your wool hat on; hits, deep-cuts, and outtakes all-inclusive and even spanning the decades to remind multiple generations of how beloved The Monkees were and are.
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Last Train to Clarksville
Their debut single also appearing on 1966’s The Monkees and written by the songwriting and production team Boyce & Hart, “Last Train to Clarksville” is exceptional on several levels. First, it captures the winsome spirit of the Beatles as intended, particularly well-represented by session guitarist Louis Shelton’s George Harrisonesque central guitar figure. Second, it showcases vocalist Micky Dolenz’s seemingly natural skills as a pop singer.
Third, it’s surprisingly subversive, being a payphone conversation between a soon to be deployed soldier and a loved one, wondering if their planned meeting will be their last. At a time when the Vietnam conflict was ramping up, this is a bold statement that flew under the radar while packing an emotional punch to prove its point.
Listen: Last Train to Clarksville
Take a Giant Step
Written by another legendary songwriting team in Gerry Goffin and Carole King and serving as a B-side to “Clarksville…”, “Take a Giant Step” is about taking a chance to pursue love instead of keeping ourselves locked away to avoid heartbreak. Dolenz’s vocal demonstrates his impressive sensitivity and range as an interpretive singer, accompanied by folk-rock-meets-Marrakesh stylistic influences.
Its sound creates a kind of idealized world of Sixties optimism, going beyond the boundaries of a simple love song into an area that suggests the hope for transformation. Later in the decade, folk-blues singer Taj Mahal would record his understated and contemplative version, bringing some of those spiritual implications further to the foreground.
Listen: Take a Giant Step
Papa Gene’s Blues
In addition to the external songwriters who wrote and produced material for the band, Monkees member Michael Nesmith’s “Papa Gene’s Blues” appears on their debut self-titled record as one of Nesmith’s earliest songwriting efforts, and among the first of his Monkees production sessions. Right away, it takes the intended Beatlesque approach in a rootsier direction as he would on many other cuts later on.
With its big singalong chorus that beams with joy, a wonderful twangy guitar break from the legendary James Burton, and its happily frenetic percussion, “Papa Gene’s Blues” shows the stylistic range and musical talent behind The Monkees inside the band and out. It is a key song that established their unique identity and Nesmith’s authorial voice from very early on.
Listen: Papa Gene’s Blues
I’m a Believer
An enduring favourite in their catalogue of hit songs, covered by many, “I’m a Believer” is a rush of pure pop magic from writer Neil Diamond. The Monkees released it as a single at the tail end of 1966 paired with the wonderful garage-rock number “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” as its B-side. Both songs appear on the band’s follow-up album More of the Monkees released in early 1967.
“I’m a Believer” is a story of a pessimist’s awakening to love, laden with musical hooks; the bobbing organ, the now-iconic guitar riff, the singable instrumental break, and the dual vocal interchanges in the outro just to name a few. Micky Dolenz shines again on this song, practically his signature number as a timeless burst of joyfulness and positivity that leaves everyone with a good feeling to take away with them.
Listen: I’m a Believer
All of Your Toys
The Monkees recorded a lot of material that would not see light of day until decades after the initial recording dates in the Sixties. Recorded in early 1967, and featuring contributions from all four Monkees for the first time in their recording careers together, “All of Your Toys” demonstrates how musically compatible they are as a band even this early on with a strong vocal from Dolenz, and with Peter Tork’s harpsichord part being standouts.
Undone by licensing complications and then-musical director Don Kirchner’s disinterest, it was scuppered from being their third single. Twenty years later, “All of Your Toys” would appear on the first of the “Missing Links” volumes, and subsequently on compilations, album re-issues, and even setlists as the lost classic that it is.
Listen: All of Your Toys
Sometime in the Morning
Hooking into a sunshine pop melody along the lines of The Association with a kind of Byrds-like folk-rock jangle, this Goffin-King number is a highlight on the More of the Monkees album. “Sometime in the Morning” is about another awakening to love, but this time in a more contemplative frame of mind.
Also sung by Micky Dolenz, this wistful and affecting tune explores the sudden realization of just how much a lover’s presence means, and knowing what matters the most in the people we love that we don’t always appreciate as much as we should. It’s one of those songs that seems to beam with the idealism of its times, a quality that makes The Monkees’ songbook so beloved even today, over half-a-century later.
Listen: Sometime in the Morning
Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
This cut is another Neil Diamond composition on the More of the Monkees disc. This time, singer Davy Jones serves as lead, showcasing his ability to convey a sense of drama through song, the best vocalist in the Monkees for that purpose.
Jones really finds his voice on this one, overtly bridging the gap between the band’s musical output and their characters in the television show, with Davy being the starry-eyed romantic who falls in love too easily being a common trope in the series. But where this song really wins is in the edginess of the arrangement reminiscent of a soul record, with handclaps, grinding rhythm guitar, popping organ blasts, and deftly scrappy drumming from veteran session drummer Buddy Saltzman.
Listen: Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
Sunny Girlfriend
The Monkees cut their landmark third record Headquarters in the spring of 1967, having taken control of their own musical output by playing on all of the songs together while working with Turtles bassist Chip Douglas who produced the sessions. Nesmith’s “Sunny Girlfriend” is one among many examples of The Monkees as a cohesive recording unit, with Tork on guitars, Jones on backing vocals, some excellent drumming from Micky Dolenz, and a great lead vocal and guitar from Nesmith.
This is a rollicking countrified rocker, which may or may not include a veiled drug reference by way of the titular character with her own sunshine factory. Otherwise, it’s also one that’s full of fun-loving and jangly bounce perfect for a signature Monkees romp.
Listen: Sunny Girlfriend
For Pete’s Sake (aka “Closing Theme”)
Best known as the closing theme of season two of The Monkees TV show, this tune stands as Peter Tork’s own personal manifesto as he plays lead guitar to back up Micky Dolenz’s impassioned lead vocal and impressive skills behind the drum kit. Meanwhile, Michael Nesmith mashes the organ keys while singer Davy Jones’ dexterous tambourine holds down the rhythm.
“For Pete’s Sake” shimmers with positivity, at one time beaming into living rooms all over the world as a stalwart part of an Emmy-winning television show. As such, it helped to outline the ethos of the counterculture in its simplest form, showing the mainstream that the hippie dream wasn’t all that radical or frightening a thing to consider after all.
Listen: For Pete’s Sake (Closing Theme)
Shades of Gray
Featuring the poignant dual leads of Davy Jones and Peter Tork with Micky Dolenz’s distinctive backing vocal, this song by Cynthia Weill and Barry Mann offers a sobering contrast between innocence and experience, complete with soaring French horn, Tork’s classical-tinged piano, Nesmith’s weeping steel guitar, and austere military snare from Dolenz.
“Shades of Gray” is miles away from their lovable goofball personas on screen. Instead, Jones and Tork present a more thoughtful reflection on the times their generation faced, caught in a period of social and political upheaval. Just by singing it, they were able to convey an important statement about their times from a youthful point of view to multiple generations of viewers.
Listen: Shades of Gray
Randy Scouse Git (aka Alternate Title)
By 1967, The Monkees were an international sensation including in Britain. In making a transatlantic trip, they found themselves in the presence of those after whom their show was initially based; the Four Kings of EMI themselves, The Beatles, who welcomed them as the musical Marx Brothers rather than condemned them as the Pre-fab Four.
In part, this is what this song is about — the impressions of the party held in their honour in Swinging London. This song shows great songwriting promise on Dolenz’s part as his first self-penned hit song, containing vivid references to the kaleidoscopic landscape of the times expressed by quirky syntax and a flurry of colourful images. Besides that, how many songs feature a lead tympani?
Listen: Randy Scouse Git
The Door into Summer
The Monkees and producer Chip Douglas landed on a hybrid approach to recording when making the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, ltd. record. They’d still collaborate as musicians together, but also include greater input from sessioners to hurry things along on this, their third album of 1967! “The Door into Summer” is one of the best results of this approach, being a parable about a man who has lost touch with his own sense of childlike wonder, bogged down by a morally disconnected adult life.
Presented in a languorous, dreamlike tune that captures the imagination, “The Door into Summer” features robust and detailed keyboard work from Peter Tork, the supportive backing vocals from Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz, and one of the best lead vocal performances from Nesmith on any Monkees track.
Listen: The Door Into Summer
Cuddly Toy
Up until the Pisces, Aquarius … record, Davy Jones’ excellent vocal contributions were called for primarily on the more teen idol side of the Monkees’ stylistic spectrum. Writer Harry Nilsson’s “Cuddly Toy” showcases Jones’ background in musical theatre. His voice is seamlessly intertwined with Dolenz’s supportive harmony, that combination perfectly suited to Nilsson’s vaudevillian melody.
The song frames Jones’ powers as a vocalist and interpreter in a lighthearted and delightful tune that lends important stylistic dimension to the band as well as to his own musical persona. The team would shine again later in a similar way with “Daddy’s Song” on the Head soundtrack, and later still in the 1970s when Jones and Micky Dolenz appeared together post-Monkees in a stage production of Nilsson’s The Point!.
Listen: Cuddly Toy
Pleasant Valley Sunday
The Monkees deliver this pop masterpiece from writers Goffin-King with a satirical bite — a derisive song about the very suburbs where their viewership tuned in to see them every week. The central guitar figure played by Michael Nesmith is an iconic hook by now, underpinned by Peter Tork’s deft keyboard work that’s become indispensable by this time.
Micky Dolenz shines again on one of his best-known lead performances, blended seamlessly with Nesmith’s supporting harmony vocal. The “ta-tuh-tuh-ta” middle section is another highlight shared with Davy Jones that wonderfully intertwines their voices as well. All of this is helped along by Chip Douglas’ exceptional ear for production as the whole song crashes into a giant wash of roaring sound by the end of this cut which is the pinnacle of their time as a working band in the studio.
Listen: Pleasant Valley Sunday
Daydream Believer
The Monkees recorded writer John Stewart’s “Daydream Believer” during the Pisces, Aquarius … sessions and released it as a single in October of 1967. It’s also featured on 1968’s full-length The Birds, the Bees, and The Monkees. Lead singer Davy Jones lays down a career-best performance, making the whole thing shine as an extension of his own musical personality for all time.
He’s helped along by Peter Tork’s masterfully simple and affecting piano part, proving that Tork is less the band’s Ringo, and more like their Brian Jones. Further enhanced by Shorty Rogers’ sympathetic, sumptuous, and slightly melancholic string and brass arrangements, “Daydream Believer” still inspires good feelings and idealism tied to misty Sixties memories, even for those who weren’t born yet.
Listen: Daydream Believer
Goin’ Down
Riffing on Mose Allison’s “Parchman Farm” and serving as the B-side to the “Daydream Believer” single, all four Monkees teamed with songwriter Diane Hildebrand to pen this tale about being rejected, throwing oneself into a river, and then fighting to stay alive to see a better day after all.
It’s a jazzy and twisting tumble that features Micky Dolenz’s most intricate and dexterous vocal performance to date, propelled by Tork’s crazily descending bassline, Nesmith’s energetic rhythm guitar, and stalwart Monkees session drummer “Fast” Eddie Hoh’s hyper-kinetic skills behind the kit. All the while, arranger Shorty Rogers’ wailing horns help bolster its chaotic energy. For a song about an attempted suicide, “Goin’ Down” ends up being one of the most fun tunes in The Monkees’ songbook.
Listen: Goin’ Down
Tapioca Tundra
The Monkees as an idea it isn’t just one thing — television show, studio project, live band. It’s all those things in varying degrees at any one time. A highlight to 1968’s The Birds, The Bees, and The Monkees record, this cut is a lyrically lateral reflection on The Monkees as a kind of presence, set to a folk-jazz melody and awash in psychedelic haze that makes it feel dreamy and otherworldly.
“Tapioca Tundra” is Michael Nesmith’s take on being a part of something bigger than he is without fully understanding its nature, belonging as much to its audience as to anyone. His gift for abstract and evocative language certainly suits the attempt to capture something that’s not to be fully explained by reasoned prose or rhyme, but remaining vital for that very same reason.
Listen: Tapioca Tundra
As We Go Along
Featured on 1968’s Head soundtrack and as the B-side to the “Porpoise Song” single, this song by Carole King and Toni Stern is set to a rhythm that incorporates an alternating 5/4 beat, a musical signature usually used to communicate urgency. Here it works in exactly the opposite way, creating a restful atmosphere in this song about considering life’s possibilities at one’s own pace.
Micky Dolenz takes lead to deliver one of his most affecting performances in a song (with accompanying sequence) that comes off as the only part of the Head film to serve as a satisfying benediction to The Monkees TV show. Years later, “As We Go Along” also sounds like a heartfelt send-off for the series’ young audience who were soon to grow up and to face adulthood, with this an invitation to bask in their innocence while they can.
Listen: As We Go Along
Listen to the Band
“Listen to the Band” was released as a single in April of 1969 about a year after the TV show ended and following Peter Tork’s departure a few months before in December. It’s included on The Monkees Present album, made during the band’s brief trio period. This is a soaring country-pop epic adorned by steel guitar and anthemic brass, with a fade-out and fade-in that’s complete with the sound of crowds cheering — the closing song to a show we don’t want to end.
Hindsight may inform the lines Now weren’t they good/They made me happy/I think I can make it alone making this song seem like their “Let it Be” and a tribute to the phenomenon of which they’d all been a part. By early 1970, Nesmith departed. After one more contractual obligation record as a duo between Dolenz and Jones in 1971, The Monkees dissolved.
Listen: Listen to the Band
Me & Magdalena
The spirit of The Monkees endured with TV syndication starting in the Seventies and with reunions from the Eighties to well into the 21st Century. Easily the best recorded result during these eras was 2016’s Good Times! produced by Adam Schlesinger in celebration of their golden anniversary as a unique multimedia pop culture phenomenon. It includes new and archival contributions from all four Monkees, supported as a labour of love from fans who’d become accomplished producers, songwriters, and musicians themselves.
This includes Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. His “Me & Magdalena” is truly affecting, showcasing the intwined voices of Dolenz and Nesmith as conveyors of incredible pathos, and evoking themes that can be found in so many of their classic songs; love, connection, and being in the moment with someone you love.
Listen: Me & Magdalena
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Runners up and bubbling under:
- Saturday’s Child
- Sweet Young Thing
- (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone
- Words
- She
- Laugh
- The Girl I Knew from Somewhere
- I Don’t Think You Know Me at All
- Apples, Peaches, Bananas, and Pears
- You Just May Be the One
- What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round?
- Daily Nightly
- Star Collector
- Valleri
- Circle Sky
- Porpoise Song
- Daddy’s Song
- Someday Man
- You Bring the Summer
- Birth of an Accidental Hipster
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The Monkees was an innovative outside-of-the-box idea that gained incredible popularity during very tumultuous and even violent times of the late 1960s. Amid all of the episodic and wonderful silliness of their TV show, they were countercultural emissaries to the mainstream. They were the young generation, and they did have something to say. Much of that is reflected in their songbook.
There is something that remains enduringly ineffable about those fine songs made with some of the greatest writers and musicians of the Twentieth Century. Each tune continues to create worlds for listeners of all ages to live inside for a while. Defying the boundaries of generations, the passage of time, and even death, those four young guys are always Monkee-ing around as avatars of innocence and idealism in our hearts and imaginations.
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Learn more about The Monkees at monkees.com
Check out the Zilch podcast for a deeper dive into The Monkees, their history, their recordings, and their continuing impact on pop culture.
For Monkees-related news past and present, monkeeslivealmanac.com is a great resource, too.
