I love 96 Tears and realized I didn't have it in my collection. So I remedied that. Song reminds me of many jukeboxes and dive bars back in the day.
I'm going to chalk it up to youthful rock-n-roll rebellion, which I kinda like. Sure it's crummy to torpedo your own band-mate's song, but the Who trashed their instruments on the Smothers Brothers and that seems to have been accepted. Look, I don't condone Zal acting the fool, but at the time a lot of people were bristling - somewhat naively - at convention. It's not entirely surprising he took the opportunity to exhibit his dislike at being on TV performing something he didn't enjoy. It's having a thumb-your-nose rock-n-roll attitude. And I like the song "Darling Be Home Soon" a lot.
Seems to me the guy says, You're way on top now since you left me. You're always laughing way down at me. But one of these days I'm gonna get you. I'll be on top and you'll be right there, looking up. But for now I'll just cry .... I just looked up the lyrics and that's a reasonable paraphrase. More of a who get's the last laugh versus performing the act. Sorry, I get lyrics and meanings wrong all the time, but the gist of 96 seems pretty simple, so I was surprised at your "blue" take on it.
I was thinking that same thing.My problem if you want to call it that is sometimes I just don't know what to say about a song other than I like it or don't like it.I grew up in the 70s so that time frame of music as we get to it may give me more to say as I am more familiar with it and perhaps since I was there perhaps. 96 Tears...I just don't know what to say.Not even sure if I like or dislike.I like the thread.
I have been following since just about the start of this thread, and still will follow, it is fun and interesting. I loved and still love just about all of the early music before this current era, knew the names of almost every song, could sing along to everything. To me, the earlier music was pure fun and something to dance to at teenage mixers, etc. I was around in HS for the songs coming up now, but strangely, I have found I didn't know the names of some of these songs, but could recall the songs when I heard them. Don't know if I recall them from back when or from hearing on the radio later. I had no clue what the song 96 Tears was until I heard it in this thread, then I remembered it, but not the name. I certainly don't know the words to that one. Some of the more recent songs in this thread have not been among my favorites, and while I don't hate them when I hear them I don't seek them out. I think I like most of the songs the rock critics hate, LOL! The softer sounds. I like what I like!
Song composed by versatile songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, whom a year earlier had composed another song for television that would gain iconic status.
Last Train To Clarksville I was always at least dimly aware of the Monkees; they were showing reruns of the show from the time I first started watching TV. Yet I never heard their stuff on the radio and didn't actually watch the show, figuring it was for older kids. The first time I ever actually recall hearing them was on a trip to Paris in the late seventies. The tour bus I was on was playing oldies, and they played Last Train To Clarksville. I liked the song, and when I learned it was the Monkees, I became intrigued and vowed I would check them out when I returned to the States. However, I was in Europe for 12 weeks, so that was a long time in the future! But when I finally did return, it happened that the show was on for a limited time only on a local station. I tuned in, and the first thing I saw was a musical romp with the boys running around in a building, to the tune of -- Last Train To Clarksville. That summer, I became an enormous fan of the Monkees show and by extension, their music. I have remained a fervent evangelist for the group ever since. It was not an easy thing to be, especially in the late seventies/early eighties, when they were about as unhip as they ever got. At the time, none of their original albums was in print save a Greatest Hits, which did me no good -- I thought ALL their songs were 'Greatest Hits' (unlike artists whom I discovered through oldies radio, I had no idea which songs of theirs were even the hits and which were the album/TV tracks. I only knew them from the show and the songs that were played there. And some of their actual hits, like A Little Bit You, a Little Bit Me, I somehow always missed when they were on the show, so I was surprised to find out how big they were back in the day). The attitude "serious" critics had to the group then is pretty much the attitude my friends had a decade later: the Monkees were bubble gum, silly, not a real group. I didn't get it. My ears heard one fabulous track after another by these guys. In fact, I thought their actual hits were for the most part their least interesting "good" tracks (like anyone, they had some clunkers, but for the most part, what they did ranged from good to exceptional to classic pop). For years, the only Monkees tracks I owned were recorded by placing a tape recorder next to the TV when they played them on the show. I wore the hell out of that cassette tape. But I had no other options if I wanted to get the deep cuts, and that was MAINLY what I wanted. When I got to college, I finally met other people who loved the Monkees as much as I. Indeed, I would say I had more Monkee-loving friends than friends who liked any other sixties act save the Beatles. It was then that I had my epiphany. I was not really a classic rock fan. I was a classic pop fan. I would much rather listen to a two and a half minute pop song with a great beat and wonderful hooks than any ten minute long jam by anyone. I liked a song with bite and power, but if it didn't have a memorable melody, chances are I would never LOVE it (the Velvet Underground is damn subversive, for example, but at heart Lou Reed is a fantastic song writer, and his craftmanship carries you through and enhances the crazy stuff). And sure, pop could get too sugary and flowery, but the really great stuff usually sidestepped that trap well enough. As for Clarksville: I like the song, as I like most of their stuff. But it's my second least favorite big hit of theirs after Daydream Believer. It still has many strengths. Mickey Dolenz showed right out of the gate that he is a GREAT pop singer. At a time when they were not playing their instruments or writing/choosing their songs, the singing was the main way they could make their presence felt, and he hit it out of the park pretty much every time. I think I read the song is supposed to be about a guy shipping off to fight in Vietnam or something, but I think of it as more universal than that. I also dig how they throw in some interesting variations to the song, especially that bit near the end when, after he says "I don't know if I'm ever coming home", they go into that long bit with the jangly guitar and harmonies. It's a different approach to a solo. On the downside, I think the song is way overplayed, especially when I consider so many of their other great numbers underplayed. And I find it a bit repetitive after a bit. So, let me welcome to the Monkees in this thread! In honor of my discovering them in Europe, here is a ditty that never gets old: their theme song. But maybe a little different than the version you all know!
The Clarksville single had as its B Side one of the Monkees most wonderful early numbers. Take a Giant Step was written by Goffin and King, and is a simply beautiful ballad. Dolenz once again gives a fantastic vocal performance, and I love the quasi-eastern/sort-of-psychedelic feel of some of the instruments. Think about how revolutionary this show was. The Monkees show came at a time when long haired boys were not shown on TV sitcoms (can you think of four men with hair that long starring in a weekly show at the time? I can't). A more typical show about a rock group from that era might have featured four Frankie Avalon types. Or if they did do rock, they would have had shorter hair and played the sort of generic surf-rock-by-fourth-rate-talents that generally passed for rock on TV shows in those times. Imagine the kind of rock 'song' Gilligan might be listening to on the castaways' radio to get a sense of what I mean. But this show got GOFFIN AND KING, legitimate hit makers, to create a classic song. They had four "long haired weirdoes" miming to the music, and they used their actual names. There was no adult supervision, no parental figure to teach those crazy kids a lesson. They freely threw in non-sequiturs, broke the fourth wall all the time ("who writes this stuff?" the boys often wondered aloud), and were just as likely to present their numbers in a surreal romp format (the boys running around while the tune played) as in a more normalized in-show performance. Dig this clip for an example. The boys perform a great pop song, Mr. Clean makes a guest appearance, and Micky Dolenz is in drag. Typical doings at Chez Monkees! (Fun Fact: this number was later covered by Taj Majal!)
"Clarksville" is an OK single, delightfully Beatly, if already perhaps a bit dated on-release, but my favorite Monkees tune will always be "Pleasant Valley Sunday", a brilliant Carole King tune really well-realized.
I was into The Monkees for about a year and a half before I lost interest. They still put out some good singles but I guess I felt I outgrew them so sometime after Daydream Believer, it was curtains for me. I remember the hysteria at the time and the anticipation for the show and any music that was made available. I suppose for us Americans, they were our homegrown version of Beatlemania and I daresay Clarksville sounds a bit like Ticket To Ride era Beatles. Also like The Fab Four, the early albums came fast and furious - four in the space of a year. It's surprising that Clarksville was the only single released from that first lp especially since I Wanna Be Free was played incessantly on the radio and was easily as popular. Apparently, studio politics involving Kirshner, Nesmith and several other players caused a lot of problems in that first highly successful year.
The Monkees story is certainly interesting and a bit frustrating too - it seems the pure idea of simply making music for the joy of it is something that has eluded artists for many decades. I never watched the show too often, and I don't remember why not - but the records were always cranked up when they came on the radio. Clarksville is a great pop single. It has a catchy guitar riff (like something George Harrison would just toss off) and those jangly guitars at the end recall the kind of thing the Byrds were doing at the time. A deservedly #1.
"Clarkswville" is an ok song, never been one of my favorites, as is the case so many times, also with the Monkees... I think their non-#1's were far superior to the 3 #1's they had. Pleasant Valley Sunday was mentioned, an amazing piece of work that topped out at #3, and "Words" which came in at #11 was an awesome song, great atmosphere was created with the wind chimes, and the effective use of the dual call and response lead vocal of Dolenz and Tork. For me, the best of all Monkees single has to be "Valleri", with that ass kicking guitar riff, which I feel is one of the best in music history.
This song was definately on my radar as a kid, as I, or rather, my sister watched The Monkees every Saturday morning. But, that show is how I remember the song, and a great song it is. I wonder how many people caught on that it's about a guy going off to war (presumably Vietnam). Anyway, it's my favorite Monkees song.
Hi, first time posting in this thread but I figure I'd start now that I will probably recognize more and more of the songs as time goes on... 96 Tears: My Dad (who was in college in the '60s) once told me that one of his fraternity brothers used to always pretend to play the keyboard line from "96 Tears" on a table at their parties. Last Train to Clarksville: Classic Monkees tune. And yes, they ARE a "real band."
I've never been a big fan of Last Train to Clarksville. But I used to watch the show and the debut LP was my first ever. They had plenty of songs I like better scattered across their LPs.
The Monkees were about ten years before my time..Good pop but Last Train was never a fav.I thought Valleri and Little Bit Me...were better songs.These should have been No.1s
I was snobby enough at the time to dismiss the Monkees as a contrived rip-off of the Beatles. I still haven't got any Monkees in my collection (don't believe I ever did), although in retrospect when I occasionally hear one of their tunes, I like it. And I sometimes still say "and here in status symbol-land"
The Monkees were my gateway drug to being a serious rock fan, during their big '80s comeback when I was 13. Before that, I had hundred of 45s my grandfather had given me for Christmas and birthdays (he was a jukebox repairman) and I loved them, but I'd never really dug any deeper as far as rock history or other oldies beyond my collection were concerned. The Monkees were the first group I liked enough that I made an effort to learn about their story and dig into their catalog - starting with my aunt's old copies of their first three albums, which had somehow found their way to our house and had been kicking around there for a few years. I ended up buying a few others as well and just playing them to death for about a year. I even taped every last song - even "The Day We Fall in Love" - to play in the car on trips to visit my grandparents and so forth. Then came the day shortly after my fourteenth birthday when I discovered my mother's old copy of The Beatles' Second Album. My obsession with the Monkees came to an end just as suddenly as it had begun, and to this day I'm still kind of burned out on them - but I've never forgotten how they first ignited my behind-the-music curiosity about nearly everyone I've listened to since then, how they got me into the habit of studying writers' credits on the songs and wanting to learn more about who those writers were, poring over the details of who played on which track (and, since this is the Monkees we're talking about, a healthy skepticism of whether or not the credited musicians really did play), etc. They definitely recorded some real gems, too, but I'd expect nothing less given the access they had to the best songwriters of the era. And what of "Last Train to Clarksville"? Well, it never really was a favorite. I preferred several other songs on their first album, my favorite probably being "This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day". I also wonder whose idea it was to make this their debut single and what that person was thinking...'well, it's a group aimed squarely at preteen girls, so let's kick it off with a song about a soldier shipping out to Vietnam - it's outside the box!' That said, I do appreciate the subversiveness of it all, and it is a finely crafted song. They did a lot better, but they also did a lot worse.
I won't be posting when it gets into the late 80s. I will have little to zero interest in music from 1990-forward.
Agree totally. Valleri would be the great group's last big Top 10 hit. It peaked at a very high No. 3 in 1968.
For me, there will be a gap of participation between 2002 and 2008, unless Outkast's "Hey Ya!" reached #1.
