Rant #1,679: The Singles: Masterpieces In Their Own Right

Some outlets have "Shark Week," but at Ranting and Raving, we go up another path, and deal with a totally different animal altogether.

We have "Monkees Week," leading up to the release of their new album, their first new LP in 20 years, on Friday, May 27.

Today, I thought we would look at the singles that they released during their heyday, from 1966 to 1970.

I wanted to look at them in a different light than normal, forgetting about their chart positions, how wonderful these little slabs of vinyl that you played at 45 RPM on your record players were, and how the songs bring a whole generation to another place and another time.

So I thought I would discuss them in a totally different light, leading into a point that Peter Tork made about the influence of the Monkees on our culture.

Making his point during the Town Hall that was taped last week and broadcast on Sirius satellite radio yesterday and several times more through the week, Tork said that the Monkees were among the counter culture's first forays into the mainstream.

To paraphrase what he said, "We were fighting a war that nobody wanted. Both Nixon and Johnson didn't care about young people. We weren't in their plans. The Monkees represented the younger generation, and what with the long hair, the lack of authority, and the music, the Monkees represented the emerging counter culture, that kids had to be listened to."

And he was right. Dead on right.

"We're the young generation, and we've got something to say."

That wasn't his exact quote, but it was very close to what he said, and one of the ways that the Monkees got into the mainstream was through their TV show, the first instance of long-hairs being welcomed into living rooms across America each and every week.

The music was integral to the message back then, and the show had some incredible music. Certainly, the popularity of the Monkees' albums--the first multi-platinum rock and roll albums, even outselling the Beatles in several instances--showed that young kids were a force to be reckoned with, that they had buying power, and once you have buying power, you have power--power to say what you want and be listened to.

But the singles were the most important part of the equation, because these 45s--priced at 69 cents or less--were more accessible to the youngest of the young generation, the kids who were between seven and 10 years old in 1966, and those kids went on to have the most thrust as Baby Boomers in the 1970s and even into today.

So, the show's producers--Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson--had some incredible tools at their disposal. They had the show, of course, a 30-minuted commercial for everything the Monkees stood for. They had the albums, which showcased some excellent music. And they had the singles, which were pushed to the masses, in particular younger folk who spent their allowances on these supposedly slighter pieces of the Monkees counter culture program.

But those singles were a bit more than that. In generally less than three minutes a side, those A and B sides pretty much encapsulated the exact message that the machines behind the Monkees wanted to get out to the world, that suits and ties were out, and that love beads and Nehru jackets were in.

Peace and love and harmony and flower power were now becoming mainstream, and a lot of that had to do with the appeal of the Monkees to the masses. Sure, the groundwork was laid by the Beatles--who became so incredibly popular, a tonic to the troops, so to speak, after JFK was assassinated--but the Monkees had one thing that the Beatles didn't have--a weekly half hour to represent the emerging younger generation, and having 30 minutes of air time each week was and is a powerful tool to get across what you want to say.

And they said what they wanted to say in those singles.

No, they didn't come out directly and say, "Make love, not war," but they did it in sort of lesser textures. "Last Train to Clarksville," their first hit, has a very mild, anti-war theme, centered around a soon-to-be soldier comforting his love over the phone, saying "I'll meet you at the station, be here by 4:30 ... " using that whole song as an under three minute anti-war treatise.

"Pleasant Valley Sunday" seems pretty tame, but it actually was a tonic for another type of troop--those addicted to drugs, a sad by-product of those times, and today's times too. The song was written by Carole King to soothe her then-husband, Gerry Goffin, who had stepped into the mire, so to speak, and the couple was looking for their own "Pleasant Valley Sunday" into some type of normalcy.

Other tunes were certainly simply pop masterpieces without any real underlying themes, like "Valleri" and "I'm a Believer," but there were others that had some latent themes. Even "Daydream Believer" had to have its original lyrics by John Stewart slightly changed so as to make its meaning to the masses less convoluted.

So these little slabs of vinyl, however innocent they might have seemed, were still a bit innocent, but they were getting their point across to even the youngest of the Baby Boomers that the mind is something that one should not waste, and that personal thought was incredibly important ... this was one of the backbones of the counter culture back then, that you didn't have to conform, you didn't have to think, or dress or wear your hair like your parents and previous generations did.

And these 45s made that message to the masses, and with the songs being played each and every week on the show, that message was literally pounded into the heads of the TV audience, whether they realized it or not (at nine years old, I certainly didn't, realizing it much later).

And it was a very, very potent tool, indeed.

So there you have it, a different perspective on those 45s.

If you haven't listened to these singles recently, go into your dusty vaults of records and play them again ... as an adult, you might be quite surprised at what you hear, and the message these tunes have buried in some of the best music of its generation.

More tomorrow ... .