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Not Friday on my Mind 70: The Girl I Knew Somewhere. RIP Mike Nesmith

This posting falls out of the usual sequence of my music posts because Mike Nesmith of the Monkees died only a couple of days ago.

The Monkees may have been a manufactured band but they recorded some great songs like the one below and of course Nesmith went on to have a successful solo career. I also read that his video for Rio provided the inspiration for the setting up of MTV.

Nesmith wrote three of my favourite Monkees’ songs, Listen to the Band; Daily, Nightly; and the one below which came out on the B-side of A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, which I bought back in the day. Its title is The Girl I Knew Somewhere. According to Wikipedia it was the first recording the group played on themselves rather than merely providing vocals.

I have mentioned before I alluded to its title in my novel A Son of the Rock. That was in the throwaway lines:-
“Who’s Sile?”
“A girl I knew somewhere.”

I must confess I’m not much of a fan of this video. It is of its time. It’s the only one I could find, though, of the original mono mix which was of course the one on that B-side.

The Monkees: The Girl I Knew Somewhere

There is another version of The Girl I Knew Somewhere on You Tube (possibly a demo?) which features Mike on vocals.

The Girl I Knew Somewhere with Mike Nesmith vocal:

https://youtu.be/Doibz5eVNmc

Robert Michael Nesmith: 30/12/1942 – 10/12/2021. So it goes.

Friday on my Mind 202: Different Drum

This was most people’s introduction to the voice of Linda Ronstadt as she was the lead singer in the Stone Poneys. The song had been released before by the Greenbriar Boys but wasn’t a hit. (Nor was the Stone Poneys’ version a hit in the UK.)

Its writer though was Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. He offered the song to them but the show’s producers turned it down. He recorded it himself in 1972 and his version has a much more ‘country’ feel.

The Stone Poneys: Different Drum

Michael Nesmith: Different Drum

Friday on my Mind 191: The Sun Goes Down

A bit of psychedelia today. I previously described The Monkees as an unusual source of psychedelia. I would submit this group is equally unlikely.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich: The Sun Goes Down

For comparison purposes here is the A-side from the same single. In this clip the group is obviously miming. Standard practice for the day, though.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich: Zabadak

Not Friday on my Mind 54: For Pete’s Sake. RIP Peter Tork

Sad news again. This time it is Peter Tork of The Monkees who has joined the great lost band in the sky.

He played keyboards and bass in the band – once they were finally allowed to play on their records – but was cast as the least intellectually gifted of the four fictional band members; a role which I believe came to irritate him.

He was, though, a capable musician and wrote a few of the band’s songs including the one which ran under the TV show’s closing credits, For Pete’s Sake.

End Credits. (They all look so young.):-

This is a fuller version of the song, taken from the band’s third album Headquarters.

The Monkees: For Pete’s Sake

Peter Halsten Thorkelson (Peter Tork): 13/2/1942 –21/2/2019. So it goes.

Not Friday on my Mind 45: What Am I Doing Hanging Round?

For some reason this song came into my head this week.

Good enough reason to feature it here as a typical example of The Monkees’ ability to bang out a good tune. (Or or their handlers’ ability to pick one.)

The Monkees: What Am I Doing Hanging Round?

Live It Up 3: Shipbuilding

The most poignant protest song from the 1980s was written by Elvis Costello – about the Falklands War – or the War of Thatcher’s Face as I like to call it.

Shipbuilding was a minor hit for former Soft Machine member Robert Wyatt – wheelchair and all. Wyatt had been paralysed after a fall from a window. When he had a 1970s hit with I’m A Believer (more famously a hit for The Monkees) the producer of Top of the Pops is supposed to have said the wheelchair was, “not suitable for family viewing.” Wyatt “lost his rag but not the wheelchair.”

Like Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s Last Train to Clarksville – also recorded by The Monkees – the lyric of Shipbuilding is subtle, not overtly stating its theme.

Robert Wyatt: Shipbuilding

Reelin’ In The Years 43: Rio

A wonderfully laconic offering from Michael Nesmith – post Monkees.

Michael Nesmith: Rio

One of those oddities that crop up from time to time concerns Nesmith. His mother invented Liquid Paper – correction fluid of this type is known as Tippex in the UK – see also Mike’s Wiki entry. He inherited her fortune.

Friday On My Mind 66: Shades of Gray

For Davy Jones.

It was only after I’d gone to bed on Wednesday that I realised that this song might have suited the mood better.

“Today there is no day or night,
Today there is no dark or light,
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray.”

Shades of Gray was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil whose list of song-writing credits is mightily impressive.

The Monkees: Shades of Gray

Davy Jones

I was sad to hear that former Monkee Davy Jones has died, apparently from a heart attack.

Though Davy was nominally the Monkees lead singer, that duty frequently fell to fellow actor Micky Dolenz, leaving Davy to flail away somewhat unconvincingly with a pair of maraccas.

They were probably the first manufactured band, brought together to reproduce the Beatles films’ format on TV, but had some of the best pop songwriters of the day composing for them. This – I chose it because it actually features Davy on lead vocals – was written by Neil Diamond.

The Monkees: A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You was the only Monkees single I bought back in the day and I came to love the B-side The Girl I Knew Somewhere, written by group member Mike Nesmith. So much so I referenced its title in a line of A Son of the Rock.

David Thomas Jones, 30/12/1945 – 29/2/2012. So it goes.

Friday On My Mind 34: Last Train To Clarksville

Not more Monkees, I hear you cry.

Yet in many ways this one track sums up the music of the 1960s. A pitch perfect pop song which is at one and the same time catchy yet profound, capable of being taken on its own surface terms as light and inoffensive but hinting at the darkness underpinning the decade.

A protest song by The Monkees? About the Vietnam War?

It may seem unlikely (it may not even have dawned on the band members themselves and certainly not on their handlers I’d have thought) but the song’s composers Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were undoubtedly alive to its subversive nature.

Apparently it wasn’t intended specifically as a protest song as such (but it is amenable to that interpretation.) For there are several Clarksvilles in the US, all near military bases, though the name itself was chosen for its euphony.

Consider verse 2.
“Cause I’m leaving in the morning and I must see you again,
We’ll have one more night together till the morning brings my train
And I must go. Oh no, no, no. Oh no, no, no.
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.”

That recurring last line is rendered more poignant by that context.

The Monkees: Last Train To Clarksville

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