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Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees and Not Wagner!
Last week a 77-year-old man named Peter Dork died. 77-year-old men have been known to die from time to time, but this man was quite famous in his youth as a member of the musical group The Monkees (sic) and continued to work until his death.
The Monkees were cobbled together in the 1960s by television producers as a weekly series to profit from the popularity of The Beatles (sic). A popular nickname for The Beatles was the fab four, and so a snarky nickname for The Monkees was the pre-fab four. And that was true enough, but the scheme became more popular than anyone imagined it would be, and The Monkees, through their popular television series, records, screaming-teenie tours, movies, and reunions, made themselves a significant cultural artifact.
Through a series of casting calls and tryouts four young men - Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Davy Jones - were hired to grow bowl haircuts and play the monkees in the weekly series broadcast from 1965 - 1968. The producers employed the quick cuts, jerky movements, and minimal plotting of the Beatles’ movies with great success. The WannaBeatles were harmless good fun with the assembly-line teenie-bop music put upon them, and for a while the world sang along to “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees!”
Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener remembers an occasion in the middle of the night when the jolly Viet-Cong treated us to their own special music, and among the racket (as with Wagner, the V.C. liked it LOUD), a friend’s voice sang in a somewhat quavering but decidedly defiant counterpoint: “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees…”
Back in the U.S.A. the sometimes Fractious Four were musically ambitious and wanted to make more serious music that the programmatic tinkerty-tonk promoted for the show. They often did not get along with each other and they certainly did not get along with the men who made them stars. Apparently none of their songs at that time featured gratitude as a topic.
Due to squabbles the show was canceled in 1968, and the lads continue to squabble as a group until 1971 when they pulled the metaphorical plug and pursued their own musical interests.
In the 1990s re-runs of the show on cable and satellite channels made The Monkees popular again, and for decades they made a number of reunion shows and fresh albums.
Y’r ‘umble scrivener was vaguely aware of popular music only because he couldn’t escape it in the a.m. radio subculture of the times, but could not distinguish The Monkees from The Beatles from The Eagles (let the reader react with shock and then disdain). Indeed, in his declining and / or golden years he has developed a fondness for German opera, and is happy to drive along to the tune of bellowing Wagnerians. His family is not happy about that, but his dachshunds, being good Germans, are cool with all the sturm und drang.
However, success must be applauded, and musical people advise me that The Monkees aren’t bad at all, and occasionally pretty good.
In sum, The Monkees were fun, and in a world where there is too much sadness, a bit of fun is good enough.
It is a truism that for those of a certain generation “I’m a Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees!” are essentials for the American road trip. For their grandchildren, nah, that’s MeeMaw and PawPaw music, and they retreat behind the cultural safety of their ear buds listening to God alone knows what beatnik-hippie stuff, eh?
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