Agreed. My youth in the 60's and 70's was within this world. And it was blissfully happy. No phones, no crime, happy blu-collar family days and nights, long summer days with friends exploring, bike riding, fort making...people are always chasing an imaginary ring, we had the ring.
In my opinion, Micky Dolenz had one of the best voices of the 1960s some of the notes he could hit were incredible. Just listen to him at the end of this song.
Had the amazing pleasure of meeting & working with Micky Dolenz a few months ago. He is still an extremely sweet, funny and creative man. I did get to tell him Pleasant Valley Sunday is my favorite song of theirs and he was grateful for it. Also considering I'm from suburban NJ (the same area King wrote the song about) is surreal.
How fortunate you were! As a young teenager, I had a serious crush on Mickey. DH&I are from Hunterdon County. We moved our family to Kentucky in 1988 before the county became heavily suburban.
I'm 45, and when I was a kid, I discovered the Monkees through reruns of the show. And I fell in love with the band and their music. I don't care if they were just actors. They always made me smile. And the music still is on my playlists. ❤
My thoughts on the Monkees in general: they are remembered as a sort of '60s version of Milli Vanilli. That's false, the voices on those records were theirs. But they didn't play the instruments? True, early on. That was mostly the famed session team the wrecking crew. But who played all the instruments on the Beach Boys 'Pet Sounds'? It was recorded by Brian Wilson and - surprise! - the wrecking crew. So was it a fake album? Were the Beach Boys a fraud because they didn't play the instruments? But they didn't write their own songs! Hah, Lennon and McCartney were an anomaly, most groups didn't. Nobody says Motown is a sham because they sang songs written bu other people over music performed by the wrecking crew. So because the Monkees pretended to be playing they were inauthentic in that regard but in reality they were like a ton of bands in the 60s except for the visual of them pretending to play on TV. Let's just look at the music for what it is, not some canned presumption that it's somehow fake.
I completely agree. The Wrecking Crew, the Muscle Shoals guys, Motown, the entire Nashville session scene-all essential to the music of the times. I think the Monkees' story is one of four ambitious, talented guys who ended up as a product of the music industry, in a way that was, unfairly, considered "wrong" by critics. It might even be the beginning of snooty music critics' contempt for anything they considered not "authentic." That same year, the leading authority in the "critics vs. fans" war was launched: Rolling Stone. My guess is that all four Monkees, together or alone, would've achieve success even without the industry packaging them. Nesmith, after all, wrote Linda Ronstadt's first hit (with the Stone Poneys), "Different Drum."
I agree. Session musicians were the music industry standard. Then add the songwriters which for the most part were split into composers and lyricists. The bring in the vocalist and it all comes together. The Beatles broke the mold in the mainstream, but the music scene in Nashville and Memphis also the folkies were doing it for a long while before.
You're correct in that they didn't play on the early records. However, let's not forget they all knew how to play their instruments but were forbidden by the musical producers from doing so. It was only under threat of quitting the show did the musical producers finally give in and let them play. And let's also consider that at the time these records came out, it was common practice to have studio musicians play on records and have the band play live in concert. That's why you had guys like "The Wrecking Crew" and others like them who were solely studio musicians. This should not take away from the four members of The Monkeys who were great musicians in their own right.
Say what you will about the songs message, the recording is brilliant! Energy, passion, sincerity, not to mention a bevy of talent from the boys (Mike's lead guitar work is stellar and Mickey's best vocal) and the contributing musicians (especially Eddie Hoh) this song kicks ass. It's their pinnacle of work. Thanks for covering this masterpiece.
@Inside the Song I agree completely, but I've spent the last 55 years thinking this song was about the San Fernando Valley...you know, Valley Girl...because it fits so perfectly as I can attest from personal experience.
Remember Monkees records on the back of Cereal boxes? Pleasant Valley Sunday was one of them and it sounded pretty good Mickey is a seriously underrated singer
Yes, I was 17 and watched their show. I have a couple LPs and 6 45s. I don't recall solo work by the others, but Mike Nesmith had several albums that are quite good.
Yes. My friends and were only 7. We were some of the most fortunate kids ever. Our entire childhoods were filled with the best R & B, Soul and Rock and Roll. I heard my older sisters' records, the 50's and 60's. Wouldn't trade that for anything.
"Pleasant Valley Sunday" is possibly the best song among albums full of amazing songs!!! The Monkees proved credible artists and it is a travesty that they are not in the RRHOF!!!! RIP DAVY, MIKE AND PETER!!
@@InsideTheSong - some of the best songs of the era, because they had some of the best popular songwriters and session musicians of all time. Not to take anything away from the vocals and later efforts of their own, but their early hits were as good as anything else out there.
The echo and reverb at the end were to give the song a psychedelic accent which definitely helped sell records in 1967. Also implied that they could see the things referred to in the song because they were "turned on," "cool" not "square." Excellent video.
So many "bands" were just vocalist in the studio, often backed by a house style band on tour and singing songs their producer choose, The Monkees didn't deserve the derision they received, notably they were accepted by other musicians and I don't think the fans ever cared
I have always wondered why (still) The Monkees caught some much BS for, obviously, using The Wrecking Crew when most Sunshine Pop groups did the same. Was it their TV Show?
@@jazzpunk it may have been that some people felt that they had an unfair advantage with their TV show getting their music played on the radio. Other than that they weren't doing anything that other artist hadn't done in the same era, using outside writers using outside musicians it was commonplace
@@daveyvane The Monkees were no more "phoney" than the vast majority of other bands of that era. They eventually were able to gain control of their music, riding many of their own songs and playing their own instruments. Pretty much the Beach boys only sang on their albums, and this was true of more groups than you can imagine. Studio time is very expensive and they don't have time to do take after take because the drummer can't keep proper time or the bass player can't get the rhythm right. You bring in studio musicians they cut the tracks the album goes out and then the band goes on tour. Much of the music recorded today isn't even played by human beings. It's pretty easy to program a lot of the beats and rhythms, then somebody just comes in and sings over it with a machine behind them to correct their vocal pitch. I was listening to a song the other day and it was nothing more than a drum machine and about five notes played on a synthesizer that were then sequenced then varied repetitively. I'll take that phony band the monkees any day
Their songs were written by some choice song writers. Carol King ( Pleasant Valley Sunday) Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart( Last Train To Clarksville) And they DID sing on their recordings. The Monkees were making some quality music that stacks up better than anything written in the last 20 years
I found the chords patterns of the two Beatles songs and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" to be really happy riffs! All three of those songs put me in a good mood every time I hear them! Really upbeat and positive sounding chords!
I'm a singer songwriter, and I can tell that every songwriter builds from and is influenced by other songwriters and performances. It's a natural progression and there's nothing wrong with it. Not copying of course, but thinking, "That's a cool riff" or lyric, and it can send you on your own exploration and evolution. Plus add in what the current trends might be and what will help you make your mark, and you get "augmented creativity"!
Same here. I don't how many times I've heard something in a tune I wrote years ago and realized that I inadvertently lifted a little motif. But even so, you're right about the building, exploration, and innovation. We all start by consciously ripping something off (Sabbath and Tull in my case) and then trying to make our own statement.
Thanks for this. My first big time concert was the Monkees at the Denver Coliseum when I was in 6th grade. I lived in NW Kansas and our family always went to Denver at least once each summer. My brother and I convinced our parents to take us to the Monkees concert. It blew me away and was hooked on live music. Recently, Mickey and Mike were also the last big-ish show I went to, this time in KC shortly before Mike died. It was during Covid, but after vaccines, and it was a terrific show. Near me in the audience were grandmothers who brought their granddaughters, who already know all the songs! Mickey’s performance was strong and the stories and songs were warm, but it was clear that Mike was fading. I’m super glad I went.
Yea, the signature riff was yet another Beatles tune, I want to Tell You, which was more recent to when the sing was cut... in fact, it was this use of a major scale with a minor 7 that has made it a R&R trope... starting with What'd I Say, in 1959, then lifted by Bobby Parker in his R&B hit Watch your Step, which although it wasn't a hit in the white market, it lit up the discotheques all over Europe, and even here in the states, despite not charting nationally... it was then lifted by the Beatles for I Feel Fine, in which the Beatles, recognizing its origins, gave Ringo a chance to show off his chops playing that famous drum part to What'd I Say... one of the songs he was known for playing flawlessly, when none of the other Liverpuddlian drummers could TOUCH it... and the Beatles from this point on were constantly using that flat 7 from then on, because it sounded cool, and put that one cool minor note to make the major key more bearable.
Same here. I don't know how I missed it, and I thank everyone who's brought it up. For God's sake, "I Want to Tell You" is also in A! I think I was too distracted by the silly fake Tool song, frankly.
I "adapted" this song to refer a suburb in Simi Valley, California where my brother lives ( excerpt: 🎶"Another Simi Valley Sunday,brush fires burning everywhere. The nearest mini-mall is miles away,but no one seem to care " 🎶
Nice rewrite. I also write additional lyrics to songs I like. My goal is to write something so true to the original song that unless you already know the song by heart, you won't know which verse is original or which ones I added.
There used to be a radio show back in the mid eighties called Kids America. I remember I wrote a letter to the show requesting this song. A couple weeks later, I was live on the show requesting it over the phone. This was 1986 when they had their big comeback and MTV and a local TV station in Detroit, Channel 50, used to show their old episodes. Good times!
This is all history now. The Monkees never" lost their public," which was pre teen and teenage girls primarily, and little kids in general. The reruns of the show began immediately on Saturday mornings and new young fans emerged. It's incredibly obvious and was that the Monkees were designed for that market, designed after the Beatles and their Hard Days Night film image and not the underground FM radio station playlist club. And they were band trying to make it big...and irony in itself. They stepped up rehearsed hard and became a band, going on gigantic tours with large crowds. they had to fight Din Kirschner and th e producers to play on their own records too, they took up the challenge and did it. the pressures of filming a TV show and recording at night NO OTHER band was doing. Those that criticized them, ignoring the fact that they were a TV show and NOT a real band, never were intended to be, which was up front. The naysayers were idiot critics and piranhas looking for something to kill, and they still are...many other artists basically never played their own instruments on records and used the Wrecking Crew on their records, and song writers for all or some songs, such as Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Pappas [except John Phillips] and nobody bitched about that. There are many in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fickle Fame that did not write their own stuff most of the time. the real culprits are the ones that invented the show and Don Kirchner, not the band members.
Couldn't agree more. All four were talented guys with different strengths, and it's great for them that their fame did last. (I was one of those little kids watching the reruns in the '70s.) I don't find any fault with the guys themselves, or frankly even the idea of a manufactured rock band. If it works, it works. Music industry sleazeballs are another matter.
Most definitely. Well said. The Beatles liked them and offered words of encouragement to The Monkees when they visited London. The Beatles were in the process of completing a little album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Groovy times! 😎👍
Very understandable, especially given the times. Nesmith was a songwriter ("Different Drum" by The Stone Ponies put Linda Rondstadt on the public map; Jones was an actor with a good voice ("Oliver!"); Tork was a smart but so-so folk singer from the New York cafes; Dolenz was a Hollywood TV actor since childhood who also had a good singing voice. They each responded to a trade newspaper ad and were hired (A TV series - 13 episodes - at SAG scale pay, music, low-demand comedic acting, silliness and "chicks!" What's not to like?) When challenged as a pre-fab music group, Davey Jones once quipped "THE BEATLES were the FIRST pre-fab music group." Meanwhile, Dolenz and Tork hung out in Laurel Canyon, smoking pot with "legitimate" musicians Crosby Stills and Nash, The Byrds, The Mamas and Papas, Joni Mitchel, a few of The Eagles, etc, etc.
When I was a kid, I was TRULY, MADLY, RABIDLY in love with the Monkees. So much so that if I missed one of their shows (Saturday mornings at 11 AM!), I was nearly inconsolable--THE WORLD WAS ENDING! I remember racing to a friend's house down the block in time for both of us to watch the show, and was in love with each of them individually at different times. In fact I was even Davey Jones for Halloween one year! So when they sang "we'll maybe come to your town" I took that as a PROMISE that they would in fact do so. Alas, twas never to be. Years later as an adult, I watched a few episodes and thought, _what the hell was I thinking?!"_ It was all so cheesy and slapstick...but the music was AMAZING. They really were 4 very talented young men, especially Mike, who had a true musical background. Of course, back then I thought bands performed live at the radio station when I heard favorite songs come on, so what did I know. Can't believe only Mickey is left....
I’m actually review on one of my most favorite songs ever. Thank you so much very well done for a major TV band. They played admirably out of all the work that they done on their own and played on their own.
The Monkees were actual musicians before the 1966 TV show. Mickey and Davy were childhood actors who sang. Mickey played guitar and sang in a band and Davy was a real drummer. Peter was a folky and muti-instrumentalist and everybody knows and Mike Naismith was a real singer songwriter.
Yeah, they were all talented guys. Music industry packaging is mostly the reason they ended up with a bad rep for so long. But they got respect from the big names at the time.
@@InsideTheSong At their worst the Monkees were a competent 60’s pop group, unambitious but appealing. At their best, on any number of singles or album tracks they could rival ANY of their contemporaries. And that, for a group of people put together by TV executives to pretend to be a musicians is quite a compliment.
Nesmith was also a solid rhythm guitar player. Listen to the live recording "Cosmic Partners" it's just him, Red Rhodes a bass player and drummer. Nesmith holds it down and fills it as solidly as any rhythm guitarist I've ever heard.
Pleasant Valley Way, runs through West Orange and Verona New Jersey. My dentist is on that road and I have had root canal there. It was not a Pleasant Valley Monday. Get grumpy about the suburbs, write a song, get a pop band to record it, make millions in royalties. That is the American Dream.
I have a happy memory of 3 pals Diane, Linda, Pat and I, at school. We enjoyed their music and Tv show...We even acted as the Monkeys in Drama class at school.Those were happy days.🥰🇬🇧☮️
The Monkees were my favorite first band when I was a kid and all I cared about was singing the songs and not about the bullshit behind it and well maybe that’s the point… Now some years later, I still play my guitar every day and try and recapture that feeling of being a kid and it works every time… Keep on rockin
Several viewers have correctly pointed out that the Monkees' riff was created by producer/session man Chip Douglas, inspired by a different Beatles song than the two mentioned in the video: "I Want to Tell You," from Revolver (1966). And that song is actually in A major (and its riff in A Mixolydian). What an omission! I appreciate the correction. Chip was also the guy who made the change to the lyrics in the bridge.
I have never understood what is being criticized? Everything described makes perfect sense: the rock band does practice, people do mow their lawns, and who wouldn't be happy if their roses bloomed? The only ones who would sneer at this would be wealthy elites looking down on average people as peasants.
Conform or be cast out. It's not a Pleasant Valley Sunday for everyone. Only for the status symbol seekers. No diversity there, only sameness. No sickness, disability, neurodiversity, or mental problems allowed. Only barbequing on green lawns. It's the American Dream. It's a happy cocoon that shields the residents and destroys their empathy for other people's problems outside of their bubble. Those who can't or won't conform to the perfection Pleasant Valley demands are completely alien and are not to be discussed in polite society.
I think it's just the idea that to the person singing the song, everything and everyone is always the same every day (Sunday in particular), and the people all around are increasingly content with seemingly mundane "creature comforts" and little or no adventure in their lives. It's not a terribly harsh criticism, and as another poster pointed out, in the 1950's and early 60's the country was still coming off the upheaval of the Great Depression and World War II, so for adults the chance to feel settled and comfortable again was probably very welcome. Teenagers at the time were feeling stifled and rebellious though, which is why to me the song takes on a whole other feel when I hear Carole King's demo of it. Although she was over 20 when she recorded it, she sounds like a teenage girl singing it, and the lyrics make much more sense being sung from that POV.
Love this song and Carol King's demo. You can also listen to I'm Your Captain (Grand Funk), I Want To Tell You (Beatles, Ted Nugent) and Time Out (Joe Walsh). All variations on a theme.
A lot of girls, (My sister too) got a crush on at least one of these guys....yeah. But they were fun. I knew they were kind of put together but they were FUN! And the show was our generations 3 Stooges with music. It was a lot of fun. Goofy fun. Good memories. And a lot of their songs were good and written by folks who wrote a lot of hits of that time. Great memories.
I'm so glad the people are beginning to treat The Monkees seriously. Some of their music was bubble gum pop, but other songs (this and "Daily Nightly") were thoughtful and deserve close analysis.
DN was also experimental, with the Moog synthesizer track really hitting the spot. The early recording (a bonus track on one of the re-release albums) lacks the Moog and it's a radically flatter sound that it's hard to believe
@@ShamrockParticle Thank you for the information. I've never heard the early recording of DN. The first time I remember hearing the Moog after this song came out was Walter/Wendy Carlos' score of the film, "A Clockwork Orange." That was close to 5 years after DN. There were probably other Moog recordings in between, but the soundtrack is the one I remember. Very cold and chilling. I always thought that "Randy Scouse Git" reflected an experimental attitude. It's like the Monkees combined 3 or 4 songs into one. And it's still very listenable.
As far as some of their music being bubble gum/pop, they were an extremely successful commercial gold mine intentionally targeting a certain audience, and twelve year olds were not into music like In A Godda DeVitta.
Nicely done. A few nights ago I was working on this one, about a month after I had started practicing George's riff. I was running through it and it occurred to me that these two would work well together. Cool.
To be honest, I do not know the difference between an A Major or a C Major. I loved the Monkees then and (an almost 68yr old) I still love the Monkees today. BTW I'm a big Led Zeppelin, then and now. Big difference in music. Semper Fi from an old Marine Sergeant.
@Inside the Song thank you. I always tell people the same thing, it was an honor to serve our great Nation and our beloved Marine Corps, I served 1973 to 1977. Tell your uncle Semper Fi
I grew up in Verona New Jersey. From Bloomfield Avenue (main street through Verona), when you turned onto Lakeside Avenue, on the right side it is all residential track homes and on the left side was the park, that ran all the way to the West Orange border. Once you cross over the Verona/West Orange border it becomes the local business district. Pleasant Valley Sunday described life exactly as it was in the 60s along Lakeside Avenue. As for the song, it is one of the great classics of the 60s.
Charles, what a brilliant piece of analysis on an excellent Monkees song. It never occurred to me that the opening riff could borrow from Paperback Writer and Day Tripper, but you do make a compelling case. Pieces like yours are TH-cam at it's very best. Count me in as a subscriber. Thank you!
I was in a garage when the Monkees show aired. Everyone in the band was a fan. We all wore those big floppy caps they wore. I think I was 12. The Monkees did several music videos on every show. That's what impressed me most. Later I read that Stephen Stills had auditioned to be a Monkee but was not cast. That turned out rather well for Stephen.
Great breakdown of a great song! I enjoyed the music theory portion of the video (nice PRS guitar). I'm a bass player primarily. I have my own Allman Brothers tribute band, Idlewild West. here in the Bay Area. I just went to Macon, Georgia a few weeks ago to do the Allman Brothers pilgrimage. I also play guitar, just enough to get in trouble. lol Looking forward to more videos.
Thank you, and that's cool re the Allman tribute band! I'm at work on the next one. I can't devote myself to TH-cam full-time yet, so I won't be as quick as I'd like to be.
Great breakdown of a stone cold classic pop song! Have subscribed in the hope of more song breakdowns in the future. Cheers from Aotearoa, New Zealand. 👍✌🖖
Great pop song and an entertaining analysis of it! I wasn't aware that urbanites Gerry and Carole had a front row seat of the suburbs, having just moved into one. Lyrically it does seem to be critical of suburbs, paricularly "rows of houses that are all the same," built and sold inexpensively allowing veterans to start family life now that they were back from WWII. If not exactly a paean to tract housing, the lyrics nevertheless seem to celebrate that sort life to a degree as well. Rose gardens, TVs, garage bands, barbecues may have numbed outsiders Gerry and Carole's souls but allowed them to observe and encapsulate an American way of life that millions lived inside. Great post !
Nice work, man. I had always tied Mike’s licks to I Want To Tell You, Last Train To Clakesville, and felt you could play it with Paperback Writer, but you snagged me on Day Tripper. Right on. I get off on everything from Loretta Thorpe to Mozart to The Allman Brothers to Rick Nelson to Al di Meola to The Association to Bob Marley and The Monkees. And Jones was right. They weren’t the first “prefab” band. Who was the first drummer of The Beatles? And are The Byrds fake because they used studio musicians? Dolenz … “the four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor, … “ when he was falling for Samantha and Lennon told the Monkees - or Nez - they were doing good. Thanks for reminding us that they and the this song made us feel like dancing.
Peter is playing an electric piano on that one, possibly a Wurlitzer. Also, the Pleasant Valley guitar riff is also echoing "Last Train to Clarksville". Also, there are different mixes of Pleasant Valley that have different endings.
Thanks! I used to watch the video for Black Hole Sun with the sound off but listening to this song instead. This came about as the first time I saw Black Hole Sun the sound was off and I found it amusing trying to figure out what THAT song was about!
The similarities of "Day Tripper" & "Paperback Writer" to "Pleasant Valley Sunday" are undeniable. However: I heard a long time ago that the opening riff was inspired by "I Want To Tell You": Chip Douglas, a former member of The Turtles who produced the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd album, played bass and came up with the guitar part, which was based on The Beatles "I Want to Tell You." He taught it to Nesmith, who overdubbed it twice. You can see him play the line during a close-up for the "video." Perhaps there's a way to verify...?
Fortunately the vast majority of us wanted and still want to live the Pleasant Valley Sunday life. A decent house in a decent neighborhood and the career to pay for it. As an 11 year old I couldn't understand what the song was about and discussed it with my mom. She explained that the lyrics were whiny and complainy about a comfortable and pleasant middle claas American life. At that early age I came to understand that the lyrics of many, many songs were just plain dumb. As I got older I came to understand that some people - artists in particular - simply cannot be satisfied or content with the normal that most of us actually seek. Normal bores them. They are addicted to excitement - functionally they are adrenaline junkies and sometimes outright hedonists. How was the squeaky guitar effect created on Black Sabbath "The Thrill Of It All" from the Sabotage album? It starts after intro at 1:02 and continues until bridge at 2:40.
Or maybe the "pleasant valley Sunday" really is a soulless pastiche of what we "think" we should want while all the time, yearning to get off the middle class suburban treadmill, working to afford the car, the house, the pool, the country club memberships, that we can't enjoy because we're too busy working, other than as "performance art" on "pleasant valley Sundays"
@@catzkeet4860 That comment sounds like something a progressive true believer would write. True believers are required to infer they are an authority even on matters that they have no first hand knowledge of. There is and never has been any guarantee that happiness comes from status even though that is a common fictional character personality defect. I may be misremembering this quote: 'money cannot buy happiness but it can buy off unhappiness'. Isn't that the basis of welfare, guaranteed income and raising the minimum wage? An attempt by big government to create middle class citizens by legislative fiat and deficit spending?
I was 12 in 1967, growing up in a very lovely, wooded suburban subdivision outside of a Midwestern city. I immediately understood and agreed with the more subtle message of the lyrics. But there was nothing I could or particularly wanted to do about it, and I loved the melody, the arrangement, and Mickey's voice. Ironically, the song still reflects the lives and lifestyles of the residents in many suburbs today. Not much has changed, including that it is still my favorite song recorded by Monkees.
Peter Tork was also a member of the Laurel Canyon club and was good friends with Steven Stills. Stills also tried out for the monkees and Tork introduced Buffalo Springfield at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967.
this was fascinating. great comparison to the paperback writer - one of the few unheralded beatles tunes. and love the tool version. i'd pay for that. and of course the rush nod is wildly appropriate.
13:08 - Why the photo of Neil Peart on the line, "Conform, or be cast out?" If anything, he represents an approach that draws on the greats that preceded him...giving proper credit to his influences in the process...while continuing to innovate at a level that makes _others_ try (and generally fail) to be like _him._ Having said that, Stewart Copeland is my favorite drummer, _despite_ the fact that...when I first started playing drums, back in the late '80s...I set up my kit in front of the TV and practiced along to (1) VH1 and (2) The Monkees reruns. Great video! Considering how many of _today's_ stars got their start in pre-fab teen pop bands...that don't write their own material or play instruments...The Monkees deserve a break. P.S. If I'm correctly informed, the main reason _Head_ was so bizarre was that The Monkees wrote it while holed up in a hotel, getting high with Jack Nicholson.
The story of the intro sounding like paperback writer has been told so many times over the song's lifetime but my favorite version is this one I heard it went something like this ; The intro to pleasant valley Sunday sounds like it was borrowed from John Lennon and Paul McCartney version of paperback writer . That could be a compliment to Lennon/ McCartney from King/ Goffin being that Lennon/McCartney Said that they wanted to be the next Goffin/King. And as the beatles, Lennon/McCartney often copied Goffin/ King on a lot of early beatles music. So now with pleasant valley Sunday sounding like the beatles' paperback writer is this idea . Pleasant valley Sunday is Goffin/King trying to sound like the beatles with paperback writer while what we have with the beatles' paperback writer is Lennon/McCartney trying to sound like Goffin/King. So pleasant valley Sunday just completes the musical circle because it sounds like Goffin/ King trying to sound like the beatles who in turn started out trying to write like Goffin /King . So basically pleasant valley Sunday is just Goffin / King trying to sound like Goffin/King via through Lennon /McCartney. It happens everyday in pop music.
Actually, there’s a good deal of paper back writer in Clarksville. They needed a “B” side for the monkees theme. Bobby Hart hopped in his car back then turns on the radio and catches the ending of paperback writer. And Clarksville was immediately born then.
Good point. And the electric guitar fills in "I'm a Believer" are evocative of various Beatles riffs too. At some point I guess you just say "Late '60s pop music had cool but similar guitar riffs"!
@@InsideTheSong Thanks! Up until the Pepper album, many a band/song writer(s) were doing their best to capture the Beatle sound from the previous 3 1/2 years. A few years back i was listening to Snoopy’s Christmas(Royal Guardsmen) my daughter asked if it was the Beatles. I said i always thought the same thing when i was a kid. She was about 14 then.
Anti-Vietnam song: "Last Train to Clarksville" (1966) was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. In an interview, Hart explained, "Yes, it was a Vietnam War protest song about a young man who gets drafted. The train is taking him to an Army post, and he knows that he may die in Vietnam." About the last line, "And I don't know if I'm ever coming home," "We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it - we kind of snuck it in." In a 2016 interview, Dolenz said, "Considering that it was a Monkees song, I was always surprised that the record company even released it unless it just went right over their head." Clarksville, Tennessee is near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne Division.
I grew up watching the Monkees in reruns in the ‘70s, and I loved the show. I love this song too. It’s got a really catchy tune and it’s very well done. That said, I have always been more than a little irritated by the song’s message. It clearly presents a picture of mid-century American suburban life as being somehow “empty” or “meaningless,” a soulless scramble for material prosperity and consumerist comfort. It reminds me of the much later TV series Mad Men, which showed stylish, beautiful people living during the peak of America’s material prosperity, but where _every_ male character is a despicable, philandering, sexist pig who leads a pathetically empty life devoid of real meaning. _Every_ suburban scene positively drips with the implication that these people all live utterly superficial, meaningless, shallow, phony lives, wearing polite smiles that they show each other, even as they connive and gossip maliciously behind each other’s backs. And no one, but _no one_ is actually _happy._ Every man and woman walks through life like a robot, doing what's expected and appropriate, and all secretly unhappy and unfulfilled. There are no characters who really like their jobs, no husbands and fathers who truly love their wives and children, no wives who are genuinely happy to be raising their kids because they love them and love motherhood, etc. I have always had little patience for those who find it so fashionable, not to mention so self-flattering, to sneer so condescendingly at the American dream. To me, this attitude drips with arrogance, smugness, sanctimony, and above all, ingratitude. The people who present this moral pose were lucky enough to win life’s lottery, growing up in a wealthy, prosperous era where they had the _luxury_ of such self-righteous moral preening. They weren’t slaving away in the fields from sunup to sundown six days of the week trying to scratch out a bare subsistence, never more one bad harvest away from starving, or one infected scratch away from dying of fever - in other words, living like the vast majority people throughout history had to do. I grew up in a middle-class suburb just like the one described in the song, and I had a _great_ childhood. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My parents got divorced (nobody’s life is perfect), but my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, all stayed together in happy marriages, raising kids who went on to lead successful, productive, and genuinely happy lives. I for one am grateful for what I had: a better, safer, happier, freer, and far more comfortable life than most people who have ever existed; and while life has never been perfect, I have an appreciation for what it was like for all but a tiny ruling elite in every civilization on earth throughout history - and even there, our modern technology gives ordinary people, even poor people, a chance to experience luxuries that were unavailable to kings and emperors in past eras. So while I enjoy the song, my response to its writers, Carole King and Gerry Goffin is: go boil your heads you ungrateful twerps. Maybe pick up a history book some time and stop for a moment to think how great you actually have it.
Pleasant Valley Sunday wasn't the Monkees' Suburban Dystopia. They never recorded their own music in the studio, and their songs were written by someone else. And the songs they sang over were picked for them by someone else. They were hired to be Beatles knock-offs so the producers could make some $$$.
Chip was a top member of Gene Clarks post byrds band.... If you listen to the lost gene clark album, " gene clark sings for you", theres no proof its them, but who else could it be? Its awesome, and they look young and energetic enough at the time to have pulled it off. If its them, kudos! 👍😁❤️
IDK man, compared to the dystopia we have now, the world of Pleasant Valley Sunday is looking better and better.
Agreed. My youth in the 60's and 70's was within this world. And it was blissfully happy. No phones, no crime, happy blu-collar family days and nights, long summer days with friends exploring, bike riding, fort making...people are always chasing an imaginary ring, we had the ring.
I have to agree. Being a young kid in late 60s and early 70s suburbia wasn’t bad at all.
Thanks to Carol King and Gerry Goffin for coming up with some incredible songs.
In my opinion, Micky Dolenz had one of the best voices of the 1960s some of the notes he could hit were incredible. Just listen to him at the end of this song.
He's my favorite Monkee.
Oh, this riff sounds like that riff…?
Are you begging for another lawsuit?
That fact is so overlooked; Micky had incredible range. Listen to the end of 'Daily Nightly'.
Couldn’t agree more, he really was a bit special.
Yep. Definitely one of my favorite voices of all time. It's so uniquely beautiful and instantly identifiable.
Had the amazing pleasure of meeting & working with Micky Dolenz a few months ago. He is still an extremely sweet, funny and creative man. I did get to tell him Pleasant Valley Sunday is my favorite song of theirs and he was grateful for it. Also considering I'm from suburban NJ (the same area King wrote the song about) is surreal.
Love it! I was born in Jersey but haven't lived there in decades. Still miss it.
How fortunate you were! As a young teenager, I had a serious crush on Mickey.
DH&I are from Hunterdon County. We moved our family to Kentucky in 1988 before the county became heavily suburban.
@@amethystanne4586 One of the benefits of working in radio is meeting these legends!
I'm 45, and when I was a kid, I discovered the Monkees through reruns of the show. And I fell in love with the band and their music. I don't care if they were just actors. They always made me smile. And the music still is on my playlists. ❤
My thoughts on the Monkees in general: they are remembered as a sort of '60s version of Milli Vanilli. That's false, the voices on those records were theirs. But they didn't play the instruments? True, early on. That was mostly the famed session team the wrecking crew. But who played all the instruments on the Beach Boys 'Pet Sounds'? It was recorded by Brian Wilson and - surprise! - the wrecking crew. So was it a fake album? Were the Beach Boys a fraud because they didn't play the instruments? But they didn't write their own songs! Hah, Lennon and McCartney were an anomaly, most groups didn't. Nobody says Motown is a sham because they sang songs written bu other people over music performed by the wrecking crew. So because the Monkees pretended to be playing they were inauthentic in that regard but in reality they were like a ton of bands in the 60s except for the visual of them pretending to play on TV. Let's just look at the music for what it is, not some canned presumption that it's somehow fake.
I completely agree. The Wrecking Crew, the Muscle Shoals guys, Motown, the entire Nashville session scene-all essential to the music of the times. I think the Monkees' story is one of four ambitious, talented guys who ended up as a product of the music industry, in a way that was, unfairly, considered "wrong" by critics. It might even be the beginning of snooty music critics' contempt for anything they considered not "authentic." That same year, the leading authority in the "critics vs. fans" war was launched: Rolling Stone. My guess is that all four Monkees, together or alone, would've achieve success even without the industry packaging them. Nesmith, after all, wrote Linda Ronstadt's first hit (with the Stone Poneys), "Different Drum."
I agree. Session musicians were the music industry standard. Then add the songwriters which for the most part were split into composers and lyricists. The bring in the vocalist and it all comes together. The Beatles broke the mold in the mainstream, but the music scene in Nashville and Memphis also the folkies were doing it for a long while before.
Exactly right. They werent as fake as many prefab music acts since then
They were filming a TV show and making records. They didn't have the time to play the instruments on their records as well.
You're correct in that they didn't play on the early records. However, let's not forget they all knew how to play their instruments but were forbidden by the musical producers from doing so. It was only under threat of quitting the show did the musical producers finally give in and let them play. And let's also consider that at the time these records came out, it was common practice to have studio musicians play on records and have the band play live in concert. That's why you had guys like "The Wrecking Crew" and others like them who were solely studio musicians. This should not take away from the four members of The Monkeys who were great musicians in their own right.
Say what you will about the songs message, the recording is brilliant! Energy, passion, sincerity, not to mention a bevy of talent from the boys (Mike's lead guitar work is stellar and Mickey's best vocal) and the contributing musicians (especially Eddie Hoh) this song kicks ass. It's their pinnacle of work. Thanks for covering this masterpiece.
Completely agree. It's absolutely a masterpiece. Thanks for watching!
@Inside the Song I agree completely, but I've spent the last 55 years thinking this song was about the San Fernando Valley...you know, Valley Girl...because it fits so perfectly as I can attest from personal experience.
I'm 65 and I have Pleasant Valley Sunday on my MP3. I always turn it up when it plays. Great song.
Remember Monkees records on the back of Cereal boxes? Pleasant Valley Sunday was one of them and it sounded pretty good Mickey is a seriously underrated singer
I had Valerie
Right you never what song you'd get They also had the Archie's and Bobby Sherman..Ugh!
They reached a fan base far beyond 12 year olds.
Much to the chagrin of many, hehe
Yes, I was 17 and watched their show. I have a couple LPs and 6 45s. I don't recall solo work by the others, but Mike Nesmith had several albums that are quite good.
Yes. My friends and were only 7. We were some of the most fortunate kids ever. Our entire childhoods were filled with the best R & B, Soul and Rock and Roll. I heard my older sisters' records, the 50's and 60's. Wouldn't trade that for anything.
The same can't be said for Hanna Montana or the Johnas Brothers.
"Pleasant Valley Sunday" is possibly the best song among albums full of amazing songs!!! The Monkees proved credible artists and it is a travesty that they are not in the RRHOF!!!! RIP DAVY, MIKE AND PETER!!
When you dig into their catalog you really find some great stuff.
...some of the lyrical content was very dark/mature. "Cuddly Toy", anyone?
Lets not forget Mickeys vocal range, right up there with the best.
Written by Goffin and King
@@InsideTheSong - some of the best songs of the era, because they had some of the best popular songwriters and session musicians of all time. Not to take anything away from the vocals and later efforts of their own, but their early hits were as good as anything else out there.
Chip Douglas said that he based the Monkees' riff on George Harrison's opening riff on "I Want To Tell You" from Revolver.
This is really a superb analysis. Congratulations.
The echo and reverb at the end were to give the song a psychedelic accent which definitely helped sell records in 1967. Also implied that they could see the things referred to in the song because they were "turned on," "cool" not "square." Excellent video.
So many "bands" were just vocalist in the studio, often backed by a house style band on tour and singing songs their producer choose, The Monkees didn't deserve the derision they received, notably they were accepted by other musicians and I don't think the fans ever cared
Agree 100%! There have been much worse examples of the industry manufacturing artists. All four Monkees were variously talented guys.
I have always wondered why (still) The Monkees caught some much BS for, obviously, using The Wrecking Crew when most Sunshine Pop groups did the same. Was it their TV Show?
@@jazzpunk it may have been that some people felt that they had an unfair advantage with their TV show getting their music played on the radio. Other than that they weren't doing anything that other artist hadn't done in the same era, using outside writers using outside musicians it was commonplace
People don’t like phony stuff
@@daveyvane The Monkees were no more "phoney" than the vast majority of other bands of that era. They eventually were able to gain control of their music, riding many of their own songs and playing their own instruments. Pretty much the Beach boys only sang on their albums, and this was true of more groups than you can imagine. Studio time is very expensive and they don't have time to do take after take because the drummer can't keep proper time or the bass player can't get the rhythm right. You bring in studio musicians they cut the tracks the album goes out and then the band goes on tour. Much of the music recorded today isn't even played by human beings. It's pretty easy to program a lot of the beats and rhythms, then somebody just comes in and sings over it with a machine behind them to correct their vocal pitch. I was listening to a song the other day and it was nothing more than a drum machine and about five notes played on a synthesizer that were then sequenced then varied repetitively. I'll take that phony band the monkees any day
Their songs were written by some choice song writers.
Carol King ( Pleasant Valley Sunday) Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart( Last Train To Clarksville)
And they DID sing on their recordings.
The Monkees were making some quality music that stacks up better than anything written in the last 20 years
I still watch the TV show ( I'm 62, now) I still think it's hilarious, & the music's ( mostly) Great.
I found the chords patterns of the two Beatles songs and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" to be really happy riffs! All three of those songs put me in a good mood every time I hear them! Really upbeat and positive sounding chords!
"What if Tool were to cover this song?"
Love that
I'm a singer songwriter, and I can tell that every songwriter builds from and is influenced by other songwriters and performances. It's a natural progression and there's nothing wrong with it. Not copying of course, but thinking, "That's a cool riff" or lyric, and it can send you on your own exploration and evolution. Plus add in what the current trends might be and what will help you make your mark, and you get "augmented creativity"!
Same here. I don't how many times I've heard something in a tune I wrote years ago and realized that I inadvertently lifted a little motif. But even so, you're right about the building, exploration, and innovation. We all start by consciously ripping something off (Sabbath and Tull in my case) and then trying to make our own statement.
Thanks for this. My first big time concert was the Monkees at the Denver Coliseum when I was in 6th grade. I lived in NW Kansas and our family always went to Denver at least once each summer. My brother and I convinced our parents to take us to the Monkees concert. It blew me away and was hooked on live music. Recently, Mickey and Mike were also the last big-ish show I went to, this time in KC shortly before Mike died. It was during Covid, but after vaccines, and it was a terrific show. Near me in the audience were grandmothers who brought their granddaughters, who already know all the songs! Mickey’s performance was strong and the stories and songs were warm, but it was clear that Mike was fading. I’m super glad I went.
Yea, the signature riff was yet another Beatles tune, I want to Tell You, which was more recent to when the sing was cut... in fact, it was this use of a major scale with a minor 7 that has made it a R&R trope... starting with What'd I Say, in 1959, then lifted by Bobby Parker in his R&B hit Watch your Step, which although it wasn't a hit in the white market, it lit up the discotheques all over Europe, and even here in the states, despite not charting nationally... it was then lifted by the Beatles for I Feel Fine, in which the Beatles, recognizing its origins, gave Ringo a chance to show off his chops playing that famous drum part to What'd I Say... one of the songs he was known for playing flawlessly, when none of the other Liverpuddlian drummers could TOUCH it... and the Beatles from this point on were constantly using that flat 7 from then on, because it sounded cool, and put that one cool minor note to make the major key more bearable.
Exactly. I cant believe that the uploader overlooked that basic fact. Riff was based totally on I Want To Tell You
Same here. I don't know how I missed it, and I thank everyone who's brought it up. For God's sake, "I Want to Tell You" is also in A! I think I was too distracted by the silly fake Tool song, frankly.
@Inside the Song well, it became their trope. And by extension, everyone elses!
Ringo….”chops”…..funny
I "adapted" this song to refer a suburb in Simi Valley, California where my brother lives ( excerpt: 🎶"Another Simi Valley Sunday,brush fires burning everywhere. The nearest mini-mall is miles away,but no one seem to care " 🎶
Love it!
I had guessed the original was based on The (San Fernando) Valley, but north Jersey isn't a surprise. Had to be just outside LA or just outside NYC.
Nice rewrite. I also write additional lyrics to songs I like. My goal is to write something so true to the original song that unless you already know the song by heart, you won't know which verse is original or which ones I added.
Extremely well done! Interesting and compelling. Loved the music theory!
(Had the lunch box.)
Love Pleasant Valley Sunday and so did my mom and dad! Always a Monkees fan!
There used to be a radio show back in the mid eighties called Kids America. I remember I wrote a letter to the show requesting this song. A couple weeks later, I was live on the show requesting it over the phone. This was 1986 when they had their big comeback and MTV and a local TV station in Detroit, Channel 50, used to show their old episodes. Good times!
This is all history now. The Monkees never" lost their public," which was pre teen and teenage girls primarily, and little kids in general. The reruns of the show began immediately on Saturday mornings and new young fans emerged. It's incredibly obvious and was that the Monkees were designed for that market, designed after the Beatles and their Hard Days Night film image and not the underground FM radio station playlist club. And they were band trying to make it big...and irony in itself. They stepped up rehearsed hard and became a band, going on gigantic tours with large crowds. they had to fight Din Kirschner and th e producers to play on their own records too, they took up the challenge and did it. the pressures of filming a TV show and recording at night NO OTHER band was doing. Those that criticized them, ignoring the fact that they were a TV show and NOT a real band, never were intended to be, which was up front. The naysayers were idiot critics and piranhas looking for something to kill, and they still are...many other artists basically never played their own instruments on records and used the Wrecking Crew on their records, and song writers for all or some songs, such as Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Pappas [except John Phillips] and nobody bitched about that. There are many in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fickle Fame that did not write their own stuff most of the time. the real culprits are the ones that invented the show and Don Kirchner, not the band members.
Couldn't agree more. All four were talented guys with different strengths, and it's great for them that their fame did last. (I was one of those little kids watching the reruns in the '70s.) I don't find any fault with the guys themselves, or frankly even the idea of a manufactured rock band. If it works, it works. Music industry sleazeballs are another matter.
Most definitely. Well said. The Beatles liked them and offered words of encouragement to The Monkees when they visited London. The Beatles were in the process of completing a little album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Groovy times! 😎👍
Very understandable, especially given the times. Nesmith was a songwriter ("Different Drum" by The Stone Ponies put Linda Rondstadt on the public map; Jones was an actor with a good voice ("Oliver!"); Tork was a smart but so-so folk singer from the New York cafes; Dolenz was a Hollywood TV actor since childhood who also had a good singing voice. They each responded to a trade newspaper ad and were hired (A TV series - 13 episodes - at SAG scale pay, music, low-demand comedic acting, silliness and "chicks!" What's not to like?) When challenged as a pre-fab music group, Davey Jones once quipped "THE BEATLES were the FIRST pre-fab music group." Meanwhile, Dolenz and Tork hung out in Laurel Canyon, smoking pot with "legitimate" musicians Crosby Stills and Nash, The Byrds, The Mamas and Papas, Joni Mitchel, a few of The Eagles, etc, etc.
Love "Different Drum"! And anyone who played a role in getting Linda Ronstadt more famous was a helpful guy. What a voice.
@@InsideTheSong Totally agree. Linda did proper justice to Nesmith's impressive tune. He appreciated her rendition, of course. She's amazing!
When I was a kid, I was TRULY, MADLY, RABIDLY in love with the Monkees. So much so that if I missed one of their shows (Saturday mornings at 11 AM!), I was nearly inconsolable--THE WORLD WAS ENDING! I remember racing to a friend's house down the block in time for both of us to watch the show, and was in love with each of them individually at different times. In fact I was even Davey Jones for Halloween one year! So when they sang "we'll maybe come to your town" I took that as a PROMISE that they would in fact do so. Alas, twas never to be. Years later as an adult, I watched a few episodes and thought, _what the hell was I thinking?!"_ It was all so cheesy and slapstick...but the music was AMAZING. They really were 4 very talented young men, especially Mike, who had a true musical background. Of course, back then I thought bands performed live at the radio station when I heard favorite songs come on, so what did I know. Can't believe only Mickey is left....
I’m actually review on one of my most favorite songs ever. Thank you so much very well done for a major TV band. They played admirably out of all the work that they done on their own and played on their own.
The Monkees were actual musicians before the 1966 TV show. Mickey and Davy were childhood actors who sang. Mickey played guitar and sang in a band and Davy was a real drummer. Peter was a folky and muti-instrumentalist and everybody knows and Mike Naismith was a real singer songwriter.
Yeah, they were all talented guys. Music industry packaging is mostly the reason they ended up with a bad rep for so long. But they got respect from the big names at the time.
Micky had to learn the drums, is passable at them, but he is a terrific vocalist and guitar player
@@InsideTheSong At their worst the Monkees were a competent 60’s pop group, unambitious but appealing. At their best, on any number of singles or album tracks they could rival ANY of their contemporaries. And that, for a group of people put together by TV executives to pretend to be a musicians is quite a compliment.
Nesmith was also a solid rhythm guitar player. Listen to the live recording "Cosmic Partners" it's just him, Red Rhodes a bass player and drummer. Nesmith holds it down and fills it as solidly as any rhythm guitarist I've ever heard.
Pleasant Valley Way, runs through West Orange and Verona New Jersey. My dentist is on that road and I have had root canal there. It was not a Pleasant Valley Monday.
Get grumpy about the suburbs, write a song, get a pop band to record it, make millions in royalties. That is the American Dream.
It's what I would've done. You know, if the thought had occurred to me....
I'm thinking, this is a pretty good video. Then the Tool bit! Awesome touch. Really. Thanks!
I have a happy memory of 3 pals Diane, Linda, Pat and I, at school. We enjoyed their music and Tv show...We even acted as the Monkeys in Drama class at school.Those were happy days.🥰🇬🇧☮️
I always loved that guitar intro, and yes it is indeed very 'Beatles' sounding, as well as the song, ever since I was a kid in the 1970's.
I think Pleasant Valley Sunday is the Monkee's best single. The music, singing and lyrics are my favorite from them.
My favorite is "Daily Nightly"
Hey sunfish, how about Tapioca Tundra, Shades Of Gray, Words, Just A Game … how can we choose? Arg!
The Monkees were my favorite first band when I was a kid and all I cared about was singing the songs and not about the bullshit behind it and well maybe that’s the point… Now some years later, I still play my guitar every day and try and recapture that feeling of being a kid and it works every time… Keep on rockin
Several viewers have correctly pointed out that the Monkees' riff was created by producer/session man Chip Douglas, inspired by a different Beatles song than the two mentioned in the video: "I Want to Tell You," from Revolver (1966). And that song is actually in A major (and its riff in A Mixolydian). What an omission! I appreciate the correction.
Chip was also the guy who made the change to the lyrics in the bridge.
Nice nod to Rush ya did there.
Thanks for this. The A on the “and” of beat four next sounds on the downbeat of four…. A nice displacement that makes you turn your head a little.
Chip's bass playing (I assume) on "PVS" is pretty damn cool.
I have never understood what is being criticized? Everything described makes perfect sense: the rock band does practice, people do mow their lawns, and who wouldn't be happy if their roses bloomed? The only ones who would sneer at this would be wealthy elites looking down on average people as peasants.
Conform or be cast out. It's not a Pleasant Valley Sunday for everyone. Only for the status symbol seekers. No diversity there, only sameness. No sickness, disability, neurodiversity, or mental problems allowed. Only barbequing on green lawns. It's the American Dream. It's a happy cocoon that shields the residents and destroys their empathy for other people's problems outside of their bubble. Those who can't or won't conform to the perfection Pleasant Valley demands are completely alien and are not to be discussed in polite society.
I think it's just the idea that to the person singing the song, everything and everyone is always the same every day (Sunday in particular), and the people all around are increasingly content with seemingly mundane "creature comforts" and little or no adventure in their lives. It's not a terribly harsh criticism, and as another poster pointed out, in the 1950's and early 60's the country was still coming off the upheaval of the Great Depression and World War II, so for adults the chance to feel settled and comfortable again was probably very welcome. Teenagers at the time were feeling stifled and rebellious though, which is why to me the song takes on a whole other feel when I hear Carole King's demo of it. Although she was over 20 when she recorded it, she sounds like a teenage girl singing it, and the lyrics make much more sense being sung from that POV.
They were my first love. I'm still not over Davy. I saw them 4 times and it was amazing!
I'm too young, but they did play reruns in the 70's when I was little and made me a believer.
Love this song and Carol King's demo. You can also listen to I'm Your Captain (Grand Funk), I Want To Tell You (Beatles, Ted Nugent) and Time Out (Joe Walsh). All variations on a theme.
I always noticed that Grand Funk similarity.
"Time Out"? Wow! Love that album..."County Fair" & "Welcome To The Club", too!
All of times have come, here but now their gone... Thanks for the chord touch, that is just awesome.
Well.....now I do need the version from TOOL.
Thanks for putting that into my head.
A lot of girls, (My sister too) got a crush on at least one of these guys....yeah. But they were fun. I knew they were kind of put together but they were FUN! And the show was our generations 3 Stooges with music. It was a lot of fun. Goofy fun. Good memories. And a lot of their songs were good and written by folks who wrote a lot of hits of that time. Great memories.
Loved them. I watched that show on Saturdays as a kid. Fond memories of them.
Great breakdown of a great song, looking forward to seeing more of your breakdowns soon...
According to Chip Douglas, the opening riff was borrowed from The Beatles' "I Want To Tell You" from their Revolver album.
Aha! Yep, I can absolutely hear that. And that one is actually also in A. Good call, thanks for pointing it out!
Paperback Writer is in G and Day Tripper is in E.
The riff is a variation of the Harrison song I Want To Tell You.
There's also a hint of George's If I Needed Someone in the chord changes in the verse
Agreed it’s the same notes and almost in the same order just faster
Inside The Song - Cool analysis.
Many thanks.
I'm so glad the people are beginning to treat The Monkees seriously. Some of their music was bubble gum pop, but other songs (this and "Daily Nightly") were thoughtful and deserve close analysis.
DN was also experimental, with the Moog synthesizer track really hitting the spot. The early recording (a bonus track on one of the re-release albums) lacks the Moog and it's a radically flatter sound that it's hard to believe
@@ShamrockParticle Thank you for the information. I've never heard the early recording of DN. The first time I remember hearing the Moog after this song came out was Walter/Wendy Carlos' score of the film, "A Clockwork Orange." That was close to 5 years after DN. There were probably other Moog recordings in between, but the soundtrack is the one I remember. Very cold and chilling.
I always thought that "Randy Scouse Git" reflected an experimental attitude. It's like the Monkees combined 3 or 4 songs into one. And it's still very listenable.
As far as some of their music being bubble gum/pop, they were an extremely successful commercial gold mine intentionally targeting a certain audience, and twelve year olds were not into music like In A Godda DeVitta.
Nicely done. A few nights ago I was working on this one, about a month after I had started practicing George's riff. I was running through it and it occurred to me that these two would work well together. Cool.
I still enjoy listening to this number .
I’m very glad I got to see Davy Jones in concert, doing all the songs and sounding just as good as he did back in the day.
My favorite Monkees song! Just discovered your channel, got subscribed, liked the video, and will pass on this channel to other music fans. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!
To be honest, I do not know the difference between an A Major or a C Major. I loved the Monkees then and (an almost 68yr old) I still love the Monkees today. BTW I'm a big Led Zeppelin, then and now. Big difference in music. Semper Fi from an old Marine Sergeant.
Thanks for watching! My uncle was in the Corps in the early '60s. I never served, but thank you for your service, Sergeant. And I love Zeppelin!
@Inside the Song thank you. I always tell people the same thing, it was an honor to serve our great Nation and our beloved Marine Corps, I served 1973 to 1977. Tell your uncle Semper Fi
Thank you for your service!
I'm almost 68, as well, and I've been a fan of the Monkees and Led Zeppelin since forever....
@@GoGreen1977 we grew up with some great music. I turn 68, next week May 9th.
I grew up in Verona New Jersey. From Bloomfield Avenue (main street through Verona), when you turned onto Lakeside Avenue, on the right side it is all residential track homes and on the left side was the park, that ran all the way to the West Orange border. Once you cross over the Verona/West Orange border it becomes the local business district. Pleasant Valley Sunday described life exactly as it was in the 60s along Lakeside Avenue. As for the song, it is one of the great classics of the 60s.
Charles, what a brilliant piece of analysis on an excellent Monkees song. It never occurred to me that the opening riff could borrow from Paperback Writer and Day Tripper, but you do make a compelling case. Pieces like yours are TH-cam at it's very best. Count me in as a subscriber. Thank you!
Top ten tune of the 60’s and maybe more. Thanks to all for the great tune.
Hope to see more of your song analyses!
“Pleasant Valley Sunday” was written by Carol King
You must have slept thru the first half of this video.
Thanks for posting, most excellent! I think the coda with all its echo and effects, is reminiscent of the coda of “Traffic ‘s Hole in My Shoe”
Some of the greatest pop melodies of the 60s.
Love the monkees music great band and remember watching their series
Hola. Retired music therapy prof in Baja. cool vid...mixolydian
I love this technical/cultural breakdown! And the inside jokes. More please - when you have the time! 😉
Carole King and Gerry Goffin's Suburban Dystopia, that is.
Many years later, The Police did a thing called Synchronicity II which reminded me of Pleasant Valley Sunday
I was in a garage when the Monkees show aired. Everyone in the band was a fan. We all wore those big floppy caps they wore. I think I was 12.
The Monkees did several music videos on every show. That's what impressed me most.
Later I read that Stephen Stills had auditioned to be a Monkee but was not cast. That turned out rather well for Stephen.
Great breakdown of a great song! I enjoyed the music theory portion of the video (nice PRS guitar). I'm a bass player primarily. I have my own Allman Brothers tribute band, Idlewild West. here in the Bay Area. I just went to Macon, Georgia a few weeks ago to do the Allman Brothers pilgrimage. I also play guitar, just enough to get in trouble. lol Looking forward to more videos.
Thank you, and that's cool re the Allman tribute band! I'm at work on the next one. I can't devote myself to TH-cam full-time yet, so I won't be as quick as I'd like to be.
I didn't know there is an Allman Brothers tribute band in the Bay Area Rob, I'll have to check them out.
Can't even listen to the Beatles anymore, but still love my Monkees.
Great breakdown of a stone cold classic pop song! Have subscribed in the hope of more song breakdowns in the future. Cheers from Aotearoa, New Zealand. 👍✌🖖
Great pop song and an entertaining analysis of it! I wasn't aware that urbanites Gerry and Carole had a front row seat of the suburbs, having just moved into one. Lyrically it does seem to be critical of suburbs, paricularly "rows of houses that are all the same," built and sold inexpensively allowing veterans to start family life now that they were back from WWII. If not exactly a paean to tract housing, the lyrics nevertheless seem to celebrate that sort life to a degree as well. Rose gardens, TVs, garage bands, barbecues may have numbed outsiders Gerry and Carole's souls but allowed them to observe and encapsulate an American way of life that millions lived inside. Great post !
Nice work, man. I had always tied Mike’s licks to I Want To Tell You, Last Train To Clakesville, and felt you could play it with Paperback Writer, but you snagged me on Day Tripper. Right on. I get off on everything from Loretta Thorpe to Mozart to The Allman Brothers to Rick Nelson to Al di Meola to The Association to Bob Marley and The Monkees. And Jones was right. They weren’t the first “prefab” band. Who was the first drummer of The Beatles? And are The Byrds fake because they used studio musicians? Dolenz … “the four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor, … “ when he was falling for Samantha and Lennon told the Monkees - or Nez - they were doing good. Thanks for reminding us that they and the this song made us feel like dancing.
Peter is playing an electric piano on that one, possibly a Wurlitzer. Also, the Pleasant Valley guitar riff is also echoing "Last Train to Clarksville". Also, there are different mixes of Pleasant Valley that have different endings.
Ah, thank you for the update on the electric piano. I couldn't seem to find that when I was researching it.
Pleasant Valley Sunday is about Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange, NJ. At the time it was written, Carole King was living in West Orange.
Oof. This is the kind of conversations i have with myself. So glad youtube recommended and happy to subscribe
Thanks! I used to watch the video for Black Hole Sun with the sound off but listening to this song instead. This came about as the first time I saw Black Hole Sun the sound was off and I found it amusing trying to figure out what THAT song was about!
That opening riff shows up later (1970) on Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm Your Captain". It's a great riff.
The similarities of "Day Tripper" & "Paperback Writer" to "Pleasant Valley Sunday" are undeniable.
However:
I heard a long time ago that the opening riff was inspired by "I Want To Tell You":
Chip Douglas, a former member of The Turtles who produced the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd album, played bass and came up with the guitar part, which was based on The Beatles "I Want to Tell You." He taught it to Nesmith, who overdubbed it twice. You can see him play the line during a close-up for the "video."
Perhaps there's a way to verify...?
Wow! Wow! Wow!
That was really well done. I'm subscribing in the hopes that there is more high quality content to come!
Thank you much! I am working on the next one. If only there wasn't other work to be done too!
Ok... You got me with the tool. That was spot on! And I subscribed because I have to hear the story of Ode to Billy Joe!
brilliant song, perfect for the times, the graduate movie in one song
Futility and dreariness, I love it!
Fortunately the vast majority of us wanted and still want to live the Pleasant Valley Sunday life. A decent house in a decent neighborhood and the career to pay for it. As an 11 year old I couldn't understand what the song was about and discussed it with my mom. She explained that the lyrics were whiny and complainy about a comfortable and pleasant middle claas American life. At that early age I came to understand that the lyrics of many, many songs were just plain dumb. As I got older I came to understand that some people - artists in particular - simply cannot be satisfied or content with the normal that most of us actually seek. Normal bores them. They are addicted to excitement - functionally they are adrenaline junkies and sometimes outright hedonists.
How was the squeaky guitar effect created on Black Sabbath "The Thrill Of It All" from the Sabotage album? It starts after intro at 1:02 and continues until bridge at 2:40.
Or maybe the "pleasant valley Sunday" really is a soulless pastiche of what we "think" we should want while all the time, yearning to get off the middle class suburban treadmill, working to afford the car, the house, the pool, the country club memberships, that we can't enjoy because we're too busy working, other than as "performance art" on "pleasant valley Sundays"
@@catzkeet4860 That comment sounds like something a progressive true believer would write. True believers are required to infer they are an authority even on matters that they have no first hand knowledge of. There is and never has been any guarantee that happiness comes from status even though that is a common fictional character personality defect. I may be misremembering this quote: 'money cannot buy happiness but it can buy off unhappiness'. Isn't that the basis of welfare, guaranteed income and raising the minimum wage? An attempt by big government to create middle class citizens by legislative fiat and deficit spending?
I was 12 in 1967, growing up in a very lovely, wooded suburban subdivision outside of a Midwestern city. I immediately understood and agreed with the more subtle message of the lyrics. But there was nothing I could or particularly wanted to do about it, and I loved the melody, the arrangement, and Mickey's voice. Ironically, the song still reflects the lives and lifestyles of the residents in many suburbs today. Not much has changed, including that it is still my favorite song recorded by Monkees.
Peter Tork was also a member of the Laurel Canyon club and was good friends with Steven Stills. Stills also tried out for the monkees and Tork introduced Buffalo Springfield at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967.
Wow, what's next? Give me more, that was fun 😊
Thank you so much! Working on the next one as we speak. If only I didn't have a real job too....
@@InsideTheSong That's just fine, I am subscribed and will get a notification when you post it till then take care
Great video 👏🏼
Thank you much!
Thank you for the John Cheever references, The Swimmer is a great but weird movie. This song is definitely Cheeveresque.
this was fascinating. great comparison to the paperback writer - one of the few unheralded beatles tunes. and love the tool version. i'd pay for that. and of course the rush nod is wildly appropriate.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. I like the thought that a quartet of legendary rock groups could be the Beatles, Rush, Tool, and the Monkees.
Paperback Writer "unheralded"? By who? Martians?
Great video, I appreciate all your efforts.
13:08 - Why the photo of Neil Peart on the line, "Conform, or be cast out?" If anything, he represents an approach that draws on the greats that preceded him...giving proper credit to his influences in the process...while continuing to innovate at a level that makes _others_ try (and generally fail) to be like _him._ Having said that, Stewart Copeland is my favorite drummer, _despite_ the fact that...when I first started playing drums, back in the late '80s...I set up my kit in front of the TV and practiced along to (1) VH1 and (2) The Monkees reruns.
Great video! Considering how many of _today's_ stars got their start in pre-fab teen pop bands...that don't write their own material or play instruments...The Monkees deserve a break.
P.S. If I'm correctly informed, the main reason _Head_ was so bizarre was that The Monkees wrote it while holed up in a hotel, getting high with Jack Nicholson.
I would have liked to hear more music in this.
Yep, agreed. It was my first one and I was worried about a copyright strike. Going forward I'll try to incorporate more.
Very nice review, enjoyed that another. Cheers.
Thank you much!
One of my very first albums was a double album collection of theirs, "A Barrel Full of Monkeys".
The story of the intro sounding like paperback writer has been told so many times over the song's lifetime but my favorite version is this one I heard it went something like this ;
The intro to pleasant valley Sunday sounds like it was borrowed from John Lennon and Paul McCartney version of paperback writer .
That could be a compliment to Lennon/ McCartney from King/ Goffin being that Lennon/McCartney Said that they wanted to be the next Goffin/King.
And as the beatles, Lennon/McCartney often copied Goffin/ King on a lot of early beatles music.
So now with pleasant valley Sunday sounding like the beatles' paperback writer is this idea .
Pleasant valley Sunday is Goffin/King trying to sound like the beatles with paperback writer while what we have with the beatles' paperback writer is Lennon/McCartney trying to sound like Goffin/King.
So pleasant valley Sunday just completes the musical circle because it sounds like Goffin/ King trying to sound like the beatles who in turn started out trying to write like Goffin /King .
So basically pleasant valley Sunday is just Goffin / King trying to sound like Goffin/King via through Lennon /McCartney.
It happens everyday in pop music.
Actually, there’s a good deal of paper back writer in Clarksville. They needed a “B” side for the monkees theme. Bobby Hart hopped in his car back then turns on the radio and catches the ending of paperback writer. And Clarksville was immediately born then.
Good point. And the electric guitar fills in "I'm a Believer" are evocative of various Beatles riffs too. At some point I guess you just say "Late '60s pop music had cool but similar guitar riffs"!
@@InsideTheSong Thanks! Up until the Pepper album, many a band/song writer(s) were doing their best to capture the Beatle sound from the previous 3 1/2 years.
A few years back i was listening to Snoopy’s Christmas(Royal Guardsmen) my daughter asked if it was the Beatles. I said i always thought the same thing when i was a kid. She was about 14 then.
Anti-Vietnam song:
"Last Train to Clarksville" (1966) was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.
In an interview, Hart explained, "Yes, it was a Vietnam War protest song about a young man who gets drafted. The train is taking him to an Army post, and he knows that he may die in Vietnam."
About the last line, "And I don't know if I'm ever coming home,"
"We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it - we kind of snuck it in."
In a 2016 interview, Dolenz said, "Considering that it was a Monkees song, I was always surprised that the record company even released it unless it just went right over their head."
Clarksville, Tennessee is near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne Division.
I grew up watching the Monkees in reruns in the ‘70s, and I loved the show. I love this song too. It’s got a really catchy tune and it’s very well done. That said, I have always been more than a little irritated by the song’s message. It clearly presents a picture of mid-century American suburban life as being somehow “empty” or “meaningless,” a soulless scramble for material prosperity and consumerist comfort.
It reminds me of the much later TV series Mad Men, which showed stylish, beautiful people living during the peak of America’s material prosperity, but where _every_ male character is a despicable, philandering, sexist pig who leads a pathetically empty life devoid of real meaning. _Every_ suburban scene positively drips with the implication that these people all live utterly superficial, meaningless, shallow, phony lives, wearing polite smiles that they show each other, even as they connive and gossip maliciously behind each other’s backs. And no one, but _no one_ is actually _happy._ Every man and woman walks through life like a robot, doing what's expected and appropriate, and all secretly unhappy and unfulfilled. There are no characters who really like their jobs, no husbands and fathers who truly love their wives and children, no wives who are genuinely happy to be raising their kids because they love them and love motherhood, etc.
I have always had little patience for those who find it so fashionable, not to mention so self-flattering, to sneer so condescendingly at the American dream. To me, this attitude drips with arrogance, smugness, sanctimony, and above all, ingratitude. The people who present this moral pose were lucky enough to win life’s lottery, growing up in a wealthy, prosperous era where they had the _luxury_ of such self-righteous moral preening. They weren’t slaving away in the fields from sunup to sundown six days of the week trying to scratch out a bare subsistence, never more one bad harvest away from starving, or one infected scratch away from dying of fever - in other words, living like the vast majority people throughout history had to do.
I grew up in a middle-class suburb just like the one described in the song, and I had a _great_ childhood. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My parents got divorced (nobody’s life is perfect), but my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, all stayed together in happy marriages, raising kids who went on to lead successful, productive, and genuinely happy lives. I for one am grateful for what I had: a better, safer, happier, freer, and far more comfortable life than most people who have ever existed; and while life has never been perfect, I have an appreciation for what it was like for all but a tiny ruling elite in every civilization on earth throughout history - and even there, our modern technology gives ordinary people, even poor people, a chance to experience luxuries that were unavailable to kings and emperors in past eras.
So while I enjoy the song, my response to its writers, Carole King and Gerry Goffin is: go boil your heads you ungrateful twerps. Maybe pick up a history book some time and stop for a moment to think how great you actually have it.
5:28 The reason the title was “& Jones Ltd.” is that Davy Jones and Michael Nesmith had the same sign - and the same birthday, actually.
Pleasant Valley Sunday wasn't the Monkees' Suburban Dystopia. They never recorded their own music in the studio, and their songs were written by someone else. And the songs they sang over were picked for them by someone else. They were hired to be Beatles knock-offs so the producers could make some $$$.
Chip Douglas came up with the opening riff Nesmith learned it from him
Many thanks!
Chip was a top member of Gene Clarks post byrds band.... If you listen to the lost gene clark album, " gene clark sings for you", theres no proof its them, but who else could it be? Its awesome, and they look young and energetic enough at the time to have pulled it off. If its them, kudos! 👍😁❤️
Wow, that's an interesting find! Thanks, and thanks for watching!
@@HarborLockRoad I thought he was referring to Chip from My Three Sons! 🤦♂
DOH!!!
Love this 😊
Thank you so much!!