On 25 December 1966, my life changed forever. Although I was coming up to my tenth birthday, I had already started to develop a love of music. My mother had already bought some singles for me, the most memorable of which was the Rolling Stones’ cover of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away and I had the grand total of one album, A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles. My main Christmas present on this occasion was an LP called the Monkees. For a very long time, it was never off the turntable.
The Monkees were not a real band. They were put together as America’s answer to the Beatles for a TV show. The line up consisted of two actors, Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz and two musicians, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork. Their first album could have been terrible, but it wasn’t. It was brilliant. The majority of songs were written by professional songwriters and the musicians were the best session players in the world, with only Peter Tork actually playing anything. In my opinion, the record still stands up today as a fine collection of songs.
Soon, I knew all the words of all the songs and even today I can sing This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day without checking the internet. The first verse went as follows:
“I guess I should have stayed in bed, my pillow wrapped around my head Instead of waking up to find, a nightmare of a different kind. She went away. This just doesn’t seem to be my day.”
The TV show was like no other. I quickly worked out the characters – the comedic Mickey Dolenz, the serious Mike Nesmith, the cute Davy Jones and the goofy Peter Tork. It was quick fire, funny and scattered throughout were wonderful songs. I could not get enough of it.
The years went by and the ‘band’ churned out a stunning line of big hits, culminating with Neil Diamond’s I’m A Believer, John Stewart’s Daydream Believer and Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s Pleasant Valley Sunday. We all knew that the Monkees had little to do with the production, the instrumentation or the songwriting. It didn’t matter. Any shortcomings were deemed irrelevant by the quality of what we were listening to.
In the late 1960s, they attempted to become a real band. Dolenz had learned to play passable drums and alongside Nesmith and Tork, session players could beef up the sound. They started to write their own songs, make their own albums. They gained artistic control, although they lost large numbers of fans who didn’t want to move on from the Last Train to Clarksville. They gradually faded and died.
As the years went by, various versions of the Monkees appeared in reunions. I saw the band without Nesmith at the Newport Centre in the late 1980s. It was in 1996 when the band really got back together again, releasing an album called Justus featuring songs entirely written by the Monkees, who were also the only players and singers. In 1997, they toured the album and on 12 March 1997 I saw Messrs Dolenz, Nesmith, Jones and Tork in concert. They played two sets. The first accompanied by backing players, the second just the four Monkees. It was one of the greatest concerts I ever saw. They remained full of energy, they were funny and they could sing and play. The setlist was superb (courtesy of Setlist FM):
- Last Train to Clarksville
- Circle Sky
- Sunny Girlfriend
- Mary, MaryP
- You and I
- Randy Scouse Git
- Shades of Gray
- Zilch
- You Just May Be the One
- Oh, What a Night
- I’m a Believer(Neil Diamond cover)
- Two-Part Invention in F Major(Johann Sebastian Bach cover) (Peter’s keyboard solo)
- Rio(Michael Nesmith song)
- Lucille(Little Richard cover)
- Since I Fell for You(Buddy Johnson and His Orchestra cover)
- Daddy’s Song(Harry Nilsson cover)
- For Pete’s Sake
- A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You
- Goin’ Down
- Your Auntie Grizelda
- Valleri
- Listen to the Band
- Porpoise Song (Theme From “Head”)
- Daydream Believer(John Stewart cover)
- Encore:
- (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone(Paul Revere and The Raiders cover)
- Pleasant Valley Sunday(Carole King cover)
In subsequent years, the band continued to tour in various guises and a part of me wanted to see the original line up again. However, on 29th February 2012, Davy Jones, the voice of Daydream Believer, died. For me, the dream died there and then, yet in 2016 the surviving members, using some surviving tapes of Davy’s voice, released a brand new album called Good Times, which included songs especially written by the likes of Andy Partridge (XTC), Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) and a co-written gem by Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller. To my absolute astonishment, it was a very good album. Who’d have thought that possible?
Yesterday, we learned of the passing of Peter Tork aged 77 after a long battle with cancer. As an old softy, I was immediately transported back to our little record player in Brislington, a I gently lowered the needle onto the record. “Here we come, walking down the street. We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet.” I was, once again, a young boy, listening to the music that became the soundtrack of my life. They were going to live forever, just like I was. Davy and now Peter are no more. Nothing lasts forever after all.
As time went by, it didn’t matter than the Monkees were put together by TV producers, didn’t write many of their greatest hits and early in their career barely played an instrument on their records. The music stood comparison with much of the best pop music ever written. And I still love them all.
RIP Peter Tork.
