Friday, January 4, 2019

Hey Hey It's The Monkees

I write a lot about being on the treadmill with my headphones on. Well that's where I was today and The Monkees came on.
Michael Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork.

"Last Train to Clarksville."

It took me way back to when I was a young teenager.

People talk all the time about The Beatles but forget how big The Monkees were. They were on teevee Monday nights (why do I remember that?) and around my house the streets were teeming with life at 7p.m.

It was a ghost town at 7:30. We all had to see the latest adventures of our Fab Four.

How big were they?

I'll bet if you're of a certain age you can remember at least one of their hits. They were all over the radio. "Daydream Believer," or  "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and on and on. My brother says he used to sing, "My dog's a retriever" to "I'm a Believer."

How big were they?"

This is an old story but David Bowie's real name was David Jones. There was just one thing, the lead singer of The Monkees was David Jones and they were so big he didn't want to be confused with him and changed his name. Just think, if there had been no Monkees, he would have been David Jones instead of David Bowie.

I met David years after The Monkees took the world by storm.

And he couldn't have been nicer.

He was like they were on their show, funny, smart, irreverent. I had a ball.

After I met Davy, as he was known, we became pen pals. I would write him and he would write me. You better believe I thought it was so cool that I was corresponding with the Davy Jones.

Davy Jones passed away February of 2012. A sad day for me.

It's kinda rare that you hear The Monkees on the radio these days and I don't know why. As Pee Wee Herman used to say on Pee Wee's Playhouse, "It's a mystery."

I say find a place.

As they were on my headphones I found myself knowing the words and singing along.

Like I always do.

#MarkMcEwen
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