Hey hey

AM earworm - Both “The Porpoise Song” and “Going Down” - The Monkees
No surprise here as we watched “Head” on TCM cult/underground movies last night.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much it amused Oliver. He laughed all the way through or at least until I fell asleep. Why do they have to start them at 2 AM? Why not midnight?
Anyway this is actually a pretty cool flick. Cameos by pretty much everybody. My favourite being Frank Zappa. Who encourages Davey Jones to stop focusing so much on his dancing, concentrate more on his music, because “ the kids of America are counting on you to show them the way”. Yes, please David Jones, I relied on you and where did that get me? I love Terri Garr and she shows up to be kicked repeatedly by Mickey Dolenz. Good stuff.
I love the Monkees. There I said it and I don’t care who knows it. They had the masters of the pop song craft writing for them and that’s that. Carole King, Don Kirshner, Neil Diamond, and of course, my absolute favourites, Boyce and Hart (among others). Songs like Valeri, Pleasant Valley Sunday, Words, Shades of Grey, lie snuggled at the bottom of my song writing soul oozing their schmoozy influence into my writing on a regular basis. I wish I could write such brilliantly crafted pop. I hear nothing comparable going on in the pop scene today.
I also have a fondness for Mike Nesmith and his writing. I would love to get my hands on a bunch of the stuff he did after “The Monkees”. So far I haven’t run across it casually. Someday I’ll have to make a concentrated effort to gather it unto me.