It’s surprisingly difficult to come up with a definitive ranking of the Monkees’ songs. I mean, it’s hard to come up with a ranking of any popular band’s songs, but I think the Monkees pose a particular challenge. And I suspect that has a lot to do with their origin story.
As you may know, the four members of the Monkees – Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork – were not an organic entity. They weren’t childhood friends who grew up listening to the same types of music. They weren’t mature performers who gravitated toward each other due to shared musical affinities. Half the band weren’t even musicians.
The Monkees were the creation of filmmaker Bob Rafelson and his producing partner Bert Schneider. Rafelson’s original idea for a fictional rock band predated the success of the Beatles, but the idea didn’t gain commercial traction until the lads from Liverpool overtook the world.
Consequently, the development of the idea was heavily influenced by the Beatles, in terms of both their music and their madcap, absurdist humor.
What kind of music did the Monkees play?
So the Monkees were created via a casting call and not through musical gravitation. Micky and Davy came from theater backgrounds. They could sing, but they didn’t play instruments. That didn’t concern Rafelson, Schneider, or Don Kirschner, who was tasked with creating their sound. They wanted cute boys who could sing and who had compatible comic personae.
Mike and Peter – it turns out – were pretty good musicians, but early on, they were barely allowed to write songs or touch instruments. Songwriting pros like Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and Carole King and Gerry Goffin would supply the songs, and elite session players from the famed Wrecking Crew would play the instruments. The boys would sing and look good.
Eventually, all four of the Monkees chafed under such constrictions. Dolenz learned to play the drums (with typical self-deprecation, claiming that rock drumming was not exactly rocket science). Nesmith wrote more songs and played guitar on more tracks, while Tork did a little bit of everything.
The move toward autonomy had mixed results. The Monkees would create some of their very best music after they seized control of their output, but their commercial success began to diminish. Part of that had to do with changing tastes as the ‘60s counted down.
Tork would eventually leave, and the entire band would split up by the dawn of the ‘70s. They released nine original albums in the five years from 1966 to 1970. Occasional reunions would result in four more albums over the next 47 years.
The Monkees split up for a variety of reasons. One of the most obvious gets back to what I opened with – the difficulty in coming up with a reasonable “best” list. Since they were forced into partnership by casting directors, the four members had four distinct musical tastes.
Davy and Micky both gravitated toward the theatrical side of pop music. Davy stayed more in the pure pop lane while Micky branched out into a bit more psychedelia. Mike had strong country influences. Peter was a musical polymath, going from rock to acid to progressive.
Playing together did bring them closer in some ways, so that Davy tried his hand at harder rock while Mike began writing pop and psychedelic tunes. So in the end, there was an identifiable Monkees’ sound, though it was never very difficult to tell which member was responsible for any given song.
And so, back to my initial complaint. A list of the Monkees’ best will depend on which of the many threads you prefer. Because – and this should go without saying – though I call this a “best” list, it is in fact a “favorites” list. My favorites.
Since I like songs from each of the disparate influences, I can broaden the list a bit. But still, I am sure I will be leaving out some of your favs, and you may disagree vehemently with what I consider to be their best.
But that won’t stop me from writing it all down.
Honorable Mentions
I don’t usually do honorable mentions on lists like this, but there are far too many quality songs to confine them to my ten favorites. So here, in chronological order, are fifteen other excellent songs from the Monkees.
- “Papa Gene’s Blues” (1966)
- “Take a Giant Step” (1966)
- “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” (1967)
- “For Pete’s Sake” (1967)
- “Salesman” (1967)
- “The Door Into Summer” (1967)
- “Auntie’s Municipal Court” (1968)
- “Daydream Believer” (1968)
- “Valleri” (1968)
- “Porpoise Song” (1968)
- “Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?” (1968)
- “Listen to the Band” (1969)
- “Never Enough” (1996)
- “Birth of an Accidental Hipster” (2016)
- “Me & Magdalena (Version 2)” (2016)
And now, on to the top ten.
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