3. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (1967)
Immediately after “What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round?” on PAC&J, Peter Tork does a 30-second novelty track called “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky.” It is one of the silly frivolities that is a modest annoyance on some Monkees’ albums, though it also presciently nails the presence of skits on later rap albums.
If you stick it out for the 30 seconds, you then get the best rock song the Monkees ever did.
“Pleasant Valley Sunday” isn’t hard rock. It is pop. But it does rock with a solid groove and great harmonizing vocals. It’s a Goffin-King composition that smacks down modern suburbia. Micky sings with typical backing from Davy and Peter. Peter also adds some piano to the mix, and Mike gets to rock out on guitar without the water wings usually provided by session players. It’s just a great song.
2. “Randy Scouse Git” (1967)
So, if you dislike the Monkees’ ventures into the more vaudevillian aspects of rock & roll, there’s no way you'll consider this song among the best. I love it. Peter’s piano and Micky's scatting vocals shouldn’t fit in a rock song. Neither should Micky be banging on a timpani nor the layered vocal tracks that careen into each other.
And yet, it all works. It is an original Micky composition – the only one on this particular list - and it shows off his particular musical sensibility beautifully. The closing track on the third album, Headquarters, is right in the middle of the band’s battle for artistic autonomy.
1. “Goin’ Down” (1967)
Micky Dolenz is never going to be mentioned on a list of the greatest rock and roll singers. He doesn’t provide powerhouse vocals. He is mostly considered a solid professional pop singer, which is fine. But the technical proficiency he displays on “Goin’ Down” deserves recognition.
If you dispute that, print out the words to this up-tempo jazz pop tune with lyrics from Diane Hildebrand and music supplied by the entire band. Then just try reading them – don’t even try singing. Just read them in a reasonably fast rhythm. It will give you a new appreciation of Micky.
This is as psychedelic as the Monkees would get. They’d veer off course with similarly experimental tracks on other albums, but never as successfully as they would manage here. It also has some good guitar work from both Mike and Peter, and a full-fledged horn section that simply wails.
“Goin’ Down” was originally released as the B-side of the supremely poppy “Daydream Believer” but was not included on any studio album. Nonetheless, it became one of the band’s most popular live songs and would eventually be released on expanded versions of PAC&J.
Oh, and I’ll just say this once before signing off. The Monkees should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This being a family column, I removed all the expletives I had initially typed into that sentence.