Showing posts with label Michael Nesmith. Show all posts

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Today in Music (1967): The Monkees “Daydream Believer” hit #1

Daydream Believer

The Monkees

Writer(s): John Stewart (see lyrics here)

Released: October 25, 1967

First Charted: November 3, 1967

Peak: 1⁴ BB, 1⁴3 GR, 1³ HR, 12 CL, 5 UK, 1¹Click for codes to charts.)

Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 5.0 world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 4.0 radio, 93.82 video, 196.54 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

“There’s a beautiful conundrum at the heart of the Monkees. Here we had a fake band, created for a TV show, who turned out to be more successful as a band than they were as a TV show.” ^SG The show ran 59 episodes from 1967 to ’68 while the group kept going through 1970 (plus a reunion in 1986).

At the height of their popularity in 1967, however, they took the bold move of demanding more control over their music. “By the time the Monkees landed the last of their three #1 singles, they looked practically respectable.” ^SG “All four Monkees play or sing on ‘Daydream Believer,’ something that wasn’t true of their other #1s.” ^SG Davy Jones sings lead, Michael Nesmith plays guitar, Peter Tork is on piano, and Micky Dolenz provides backing vocals.

“Daydream Believer” was written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio. He wrote it “about one half of a couple staring into a mirror and realizing that his marriage has lost its magic.” ^SG It was the third in a trilogy. ^WK The record company insisted on changing the word “funky” to “happy” in the line “You once thought of me as a white knight on a steed / Now you know how funky I can be.” Stewart eventually relented ^RC which changed the song “from a sober reckoning to a dizzy love song.” ^SG

“As a love song, it works well.” ^SG Producer Chip Douglas, formerly with the Turtles, “effortlessly pulls in the strings and horns of that first baroque pop period (just as he’d previously done on ‘Happy Together’), adapting the Monkees’ starry-eyed pop to the psychedelic moment.j The song doesn’t have the same immediate punch as ‘I’m A Believer’ or ‘Last Train to Clarksville,’ but…it remains a gem.” ^SG

Resources:

^FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 233.
^RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Page 190.
^SG Stereogum (10/24/2018). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan
^WK Wikipedia

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Monkees debuts on TV: September 12, 1966

image from buzznet.com

Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran ads on September 8, 1965, seeking musicians to act in a new television show. ^WK The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night was the obvious inspiration for the wacky comedy about “four insane boys” ^WK seeking to become rock stars. That movie, by the way, ranks #1 on the Dave’s Music Database list of the top 50 music movie of all time.

From the 400 who showed up to audition, fourteen were brought back for screen tests. Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork were cast as the funny one, the serious one, the naïve one, and the cute one respectively. These types were designed to line-up with the respective personalities of the Beatles’ John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney.

Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, the pair of filmmakers who conceived the series, turned to avant garde film techniques including improvisation and breaking the fourth wall to give their show its loose feel. Each episode also included a musical vignette which could now be seen as predecessors to the modern music video.

The show lasted 58 episodes; the last one aired March 25, 1968. It won the Emmy in 1967 for Outstanding Comedy Series. During the show’s run, the Monkees also landed three songs atop the Billboard Hot 100 (“Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m a Believer”, and “Daydream Believer”). They continued as a working group beyond the television series, but only managed a handful of top-40-charting songs.

Awards:

I'm a Believer (written by Neil Diamond, 1966) one of the top 100 songs of the rock era (“I’m a Believer”)
top 1000 songs of all time, according to the DMDB (“I’m a Believer”, “Daydream Believer”)
one of the top 100 best-selling songs in the world (“I’m a Believer”)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll (“Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m a Believer”)
top 1000 albums of all time (1966’s The Monkees, 1967’s More of the Monkees)
Biggest #1 Albums in U.S. (1966’s The Monkees, 1967’s More of the Monkees)

Resources and Related Links:

Thursday, March 1, 2012

In Memory of Davy Jones

Image from dancirucci.blogspot.com

As Billboard magazine put it, “The cute Monkee is gone.” ^BB Davy Jones was “the crush of millions of girls during the ‘60s and beyond,” ^BB including Marcia Brady in a classic episode of television’s The Brady Bunch. Of course, Jones and his fellow Monkees had made a huge splash on TV long before that (The Monkees debuts on TV: September 12, 1966). That show was modeled after the fun and camaraderie of The Beatles in their 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night. The “made-up” band took flack from some rock ‘n’ roll purists since the group didn’t originally play their own instruments, but The Monkees still went on to great chart success and a career selling more than 50 million records worldwide. ^BB

Jones died of a heart attack at Martin Memorial Hospital in Stuart, Florida on the morning of February 29, 2012. He is survived by fourth wife , Jessica, and four daughters. He was 66.