The Monkees: Then and Now

Tork: I had no reservations. It was just a straight-ahead "we're making this record" thing. The most interesting thing for me is that it's pretty early Davy, when he was singing in this high, Herman's Hermit singing style. His singing on the song has an eager teenager feel. But there was nothing spooky about the sessions featuring Davy.

In your estimation, what is the greatest contribution of the Monkees on American pop culture?

Tork: In those days, it was pretty well known among the kids — as we thought of ourselves in those days — that the established political hierarchy had completely lost it moral compass. It had no sense of what it was doing in terms of its job, which was to take care of the country. It had no sense of whom its children were, so we were left on our own. Before The Monkees, every TV show involving young adults or kids had a senior adult. Sometimes it was a buffoon; sometimes it was a wise doctor or something — like Father Knows Best or My Three Sons. The Monkees TV show had no senior adult figure. It was just us, except for the landlord who was a very minor figure. The Monkees demonstrated that it was possible for us to take care of ourselves without senior adult figures and be cheerful about it. The show was revolutionary in that sense.

Dolenz: Timothy Leary wrote a book called The Politics of Ecstasy, which contained half a chapter about the Monkees. He argued that we brought the longhaired kids into the living room. It's true. At the time, the only time you saw longhaired kids wearing bell-bottoms on television was when they were being arrested for one reason or another. So it was quite an accomplishment to just get this show on the air — a show about these four longhaired weirdos that were the masters of their destiny. It was debatable at the time if the networks would even put it on the air. Nevertheless, the show got on the air, and the kids related to us.