"Monkees a la Mode"

This morning, I watched "Monkees a la Mode" and noticed a detail in the set dressing.  In a few shots in Madame Quagmeyer's studio, there's a painting in the background.

The style is reminiscent of Piet Mondrian, who is perhaps best known for his painting "Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow":

[source]

"No Time"

I was thinking about "No Time" yester-day, and I realized that since the line "Andy, you're a dandy; you don't seem to make no sense" contains a double negative, the line itself doesn't make sense (from a strict grammatical point of view, at least), so the semantics of the line match the intended meaning.

"99 Pounds"

A number of years ago, I noticed that the phrase "powder and paint" in the line "There's a little devil livin' under all that powder and paint" in "99 Pounds" alliterates and that this feature helps portray that artifice.  A couple weeks ago, I realized that there's more to it than that:  the words "little devil livin'" also exhibit assonance (the short i) and consonance (the repeated l).  In the same way that these rhetorical features make the line sound good although it's describing a "devil," the girl in the song looks nice when she's adorned in her makeup, but really, "she's a heartbreaker."

"You Told Me"

When I listened to the super deluxe edition of Headquarters a couple months ago, I felt that there was something ambiguous in the line "All these things you said you said sincerely" in "You Told Me."  I finally sorted out what it is.

The major difference is whether the first "you said" is part of a relative clause or not.  Rephrased in different ways, the line could mean either "All these things, which you said, you said sincerely" or "All these things you claimed that you said sincerely" (uninverted:  "You claimed that you said all these things sincerely").  In the first, the narrator affirms that the things were said sincerely; in the second, he seems dubious of the sincerity.

"I'll Spend My Life with You"

Yester-day, I was thinking about "I'll Spend My Life with You," and I realized that the structure of the verses highlights the meaning of some of the lines.  The verses have an AABCCB rhyme scheme (although there's a slant rhyme between "alone" and "home" in the first verse), so every third line stands apart from the two that come before it, and this distinction mirrors the lyrics in various ways.

Here's the first verse:

People come, and people go

Movin' fast and movin' slow

I'm in a crowd, yet I'm all alone

The road is long, the road is rough

I do believe I've had enough

I'm gonna turn around, head for home

The first two lines rhyme, but the third doesn't continue this; just like being "alone," it stands apart from the other two.  Similarly, the fourth and fifth lines rhyme, but the sixth doesn't follow suit, and this diversion matches the "turn[ing] around" in the lyrics there.

There's an-other instance of this significant structure in the second half of the second verse:

I've played a game that couldn't last

And now some mem'ries from the past

Have turned my thoughts around a different way

The first two lines establish a pattern that the third breaks from, and this matches the meaning of "turn[ing] my thoughts around a different way."

"Salesman"

I listened to the deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. recently, and yester-day, I noticed a small feature in "Salesman."  I'm not completely sure of my transcription, but the second line of the second verse is something like "It's salesman, well, you real hard till every part is sold."  "Every" is sung with three syllables, and this provides a sense of number.

"Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)"

When I watched "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)" a few months ago, one of the musical cues sounded familiar, but I couldn't identify it.  Yester-day, I watched an episode of The Addams Family ("Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family") in which the same piece was quoted.  I referenced the IMDb page for that episode and discovered that the piece is Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5.  In "Too Many Girls (Davy and Fern)," it's background music as the Monkees are getting their tea leaves read.

"What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?"

Recently, I listened to a two-disc set of four Johnny Cash albums, one of which is Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar, which includes "Folsom Prison Blues."  I'm more familiar with a live version that's on both of the Johnny Cash compilation albums I have, but while listening to the studio version, I noticed that there are some similarities between it and the Monkees' "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?"

The first verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" ends with the line "But that train keeps a-rollin' on down to San Antone," and the choruses of "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" include the line "I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone."  The second verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" ends with the line "When I hear that whistle blowin', I hang my head and cry," and "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" also mentions a train whistle and the effect that it has on the narrator:  "And still I can't stop thinkin' when I hear some whistle cryin' // What am I doin' hangin' 'round?"

I don't know if these similarities are intentional or coincidental, but there is a resemblance between the two songs.  For what it's worth, "Folsom Prison Blues" was written by Johnny Cash and recorded on 30 July 1955 (the live version was recorded at Folsom Prison on 13 January 1968), and "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" was written by Michael Martin Murphey and Owen Castleman and, according to the liner notes of the deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., was recorded on 20 June, 5 September, "& other dates" in 1967.

"Love to Love"

Recently, I listened to the super deluxe edition of Headquarters and noticed a small feature in "Love to Love."  In the lines "And I've heard if warm lips don't touch you / Love won't grow no matter how much you try," "try" is sung with a melisma (G F Eb), giving a sense of degree (for "much").

"One Man Shy"

Yester-day, I read in The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story that "One Man Shy" was broadcast on BBC-1 at 6:15 p.m. on 28 January 1967, and I realized that the title of the episode is a play on words.  By itself, the phrase means "lacking one man" or "missing one man," but in light of the episode's plot (Peter's difficulties in talking to Miss Cartwright), "shy" takes on the meaning of bashful or reserved and functions as a post-positive adjective.

"Zor and Zam"

This is just a minor point, but the phrase "to one and to all" in the line "Out went the call to one and to all" at the beginning of the second verse of "Zor and Zam" contains a merism.

"Magnolia Simms"

In the line "After rain has fallen" in "Magnolia Simms," "fallen" is sung to a descending pair of notes spanning a fourth (C G), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning.

In the line "When she's walking so close by my side," "close" is sung with a melisma (C G), musically giving a sense of degree (for "so").

"P.O. Box 9847"

In the line "I'm not liking what I'm typing; throw it all away," in "P.O. Box 9847," "away" is sung with a melisma (Bb G), musically giving something of a sense of movement.

I think the song is in G major (for the most part, the chord progression just alternates between G major and C major), but under the lines "I've described me very poorly, better try again," "I've been writing advertising; that's not really me," and "I'm not liking what I'm typing; throw it all away," there's an Eb major.  This foreign tonality mirrors the narrator's dissatisfaction with what he's writing.

It's also significant that after the second verse, the narrator refers to what he's "been writing" (as if with pen and paper) but after the third verse, he talks about what he's "typing."  In the same way that each verse accentuates different aspects of his personality, he uses different methods of composition.

"The Poster"

I'm finally getting around to writing about some features I noticed in songs on The Birds, The Bees, & the Monkees.

In the line "A dancing bear and a circus clown; it's so funny" in "The Poster," the word "funny" is held for more than a full measure (five beats), and this length provides a sense of degree (for "so").

In the line "Oh, I can't wait to see ev'rything there," the three syllables of "ev'rything" are each sung to a different pitch (C# D E), musically giving a sense of breadth.

"Hold on Girl"

When I listened to the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees recently, I also noticed a couple features in "Hold on Girl."

In the line "He took your love and then just walked away" in the first verse, the phrase "walked away" is sung to a group of conjunct notes (A B C#).  To some degree, this gives the impression of footsteps.

There's a grammatical ambiguity in the lines "I promise you the sun is gonna shine again / And help is on its way" at the end of the second verse.  The clause "help is on its way" could be part of what is "promise[d]," or it could be its own statement (as it is in the lines "I know that you have got a reason to be sad / But help is on its way" at the end of the first verse).

"Of You"

I recently listened to the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees and noticed an interesting structural feature in "Of You," which is included as a bonus track.

The third verse is:

And when the skies are once more blue

I get that old longing to

To be held in the arms of you

The first two lines complement each other since they're the same number of syllables ("old" is sung with two syllables, so each line has eight) and they rhyme, but the placement of the second line break creates an interruption in the meaning.  The "to" of the infinitive "to be held" must be completed, and this need for semantic resolution mirrors the "longing" that the lyrics themselves describe.

"I've Got a Little Song Here"

I watched "I've Got a Little Song Here" this morning and noticed what might be a reference to the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night movie.  Mike thinks that Joannie Jans is going to sing the song he wrote in her new movie and goes to visit her on set.  She doesn't know what he's talking about, however, and when he asks her, "Does the name Mike Nesmith mean anything to you?" she replies, "No, it's only a rumor; we're just good friends."  In a scene with the press in A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney also uses this as a stock response, saying three times, "No, actually, we're just good friends."

"All the King's Horses"

Recently, I listened to the deluxe edition of The Monkees.  When I listened to the second disc yester-day, I noticed something about "All the King's Horses."  Except for the first instance and the repetitions in the coda, the chorus is sung so that as one voice finishes singing "All the king's horses and all the king's men," an-other starts singing it, and as that second voices finishes, the first starts singing "They couldn't put my broken heart back together again," and then the second likewise echoes this.  (Note that I'm using "voice" in a more generic sense here; there are actually multiple voices singing each part.)  I'm not sure if the term quite applies here, but this is at least similar to stretti in classical music.  The parts are something like this:

I think one of the voices sings, "Now all the king's horses and all the king's men," with the "now" as an eighth note pick-up (G#) in the preceding measure, but this "now" isn't consistently included.  Sometimes it's there, and sometimes it's not, so I left it out of my notation.

This may be making too much of it, but because the lines are sung like this, with one echoing the other, there's a musical sense of the fragmentation that's in the lyrics ("my broken heart").

"Success Story"

I watched "Success Story" a couple days ago.  I've been thinking about the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night quite a bit recently, so I may be making too much of this, but I think the film's influence on The Monkees could be evident in that it's Davy's grandfather who's one of the main characters in this episode, just as Paul's grandfather is one of the main characters in the Beatles' movie.

This may have been noted before, but it also occurred to me that the ending credits of The Monkees use the same style as those of A Hard Day's Night; both show a sequence of still photos of the band members in various poses and with various expressions.

"Your Auntie Grizelda"

Recently, I read the entry for 14 October 1966 in the 2021 version of The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story.  The backing track for "Your Auntie Grizelda" was recorded on this day, and Jack Keller, who co-wrote the song with Diane Hildebrand*, comments:  "The truth of the matter is that it was inspired by the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger singing '19th Nervous Breakdown.'"  I hadn't know about the connection between these two songs, but in thinking about them and figuring out some parts for both, I discovered that they do have a number of musical similarities.

The first line of each verse of "Your Auntie Grizelda" is sung to a phrase something like this:

(The first half of each of the next three lines is the same, although one is a fourth higher.)

The title line of "19th Nervous Breakdown" ("Here comes your 19th nervous breakdown") is sung to a phrase something like this:

Both phrases begin in the same way:  with a pick-up on the fourth beat of the bar and two pairs of notes of the same pitch.  Generally, both phrases descend but end with a small ascent (a half-step in "Your Auntie Grizelda" but a whole step in "19th Nervous Breakdown").  Additionally, both phrases have a flatted seventh, although they occur in different places.

I figured out the chords for both songs, and although they're in different keys ("Your Auntie Grizelda" is in D major, and "19th Nervous Breakdown" is in [a slightly flat] E major), the verses have the same structure:  eight measures of the tonic, four measures of the sub-dominant, four measures of the tonic, two measures of the dominant, two measures of the sub-dominant, and then back to the tonic (which lasts for six measures in "Your Auntie Grizelda" but which merges into the chorus in "19th Nervous Breakdown").

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*In the book, it's spelt "Hildebrand," but in the credits of the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees, it's spelt as "Hilderbrand."  I'm not sure which is correct.

"Monkee Vs. Machine"

I recently started re-watching The Monkees series.  When I started reading the re-written version of Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story, I decided to watch the shows and listen to the albums after I read about their broadcast or release.  I'm also using this as an opportunity to watch the series on Bluray.  I got The Monkees: The Complete Series on Bluray years ago, but I've watched only select episodes, not all of them.

Last week, I watched "Monkee Vs. Machine" and noticed a subtle reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.  Near the end of the episode, when Mike leans out the window to throw what is essentially a boomerang, one of the buildings in the background seems to bear the name "Hotel Bates":

(This is a screenclipping from the DVD.)

The famous location in Psycho is the similarly named Bates Motel.

"Kicking Stones"

Recently, I read about "Kicking Stones" in The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story (I'm currently in September 1966).  I know it only as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of More of the Monkees.  Last night, I figured out the chords, and while doing so, I noticed the phrase "all alone" in the line "Feelin' dejected and all alone."  I wrote about this before with "I'll Spend My Life with You," but it's applicable here, too:  because both words in "all alone" start with the same sound, there's a sense of the singularity of being alone.