the worst monkees song

It's a testament to how well the Monkees were put together that you can find endless lists of their best songs. Here's one! And here's another! And, Oh my God, here's yet another one! The lists aren't all the same -- hell, if they were, then there would be no reason for them -- but there are some songs that you'll see over and over again.

So I'm not interested in presenting my list of best Monkees songs.

But I don't see a lot of lists of the worst Monkees songs. Better yet, what's the worst Monkees song? That's my topic for tonight.

First, however, a couple ground rules:

• I'm only considering songs from the nine classic Monkees albums. No nonalbum tracks or live recordings. And nothing from any of the reunion albums.
• To be considered, a song has to be a song. That eliminates all those quick vocal snippets from the Head soundtrack and such gems as "Zilch" and "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky.
• I keep saying "song," but in fact I mean "recording." As in, I'm judging the recordings of the songs rather than the songs themselves.

There are a lot of different ways of approaching this. I've decided to go through the nine albums and pick the worst from each. That will give me nine candidates, from which I will choose the worst. The reason I'm approaching it that way? Because I want to.

So, let's go through the albums and consider the candidates.

The Monkees

The debut album isn't exactly full of prime candidates for the worst Monkees song. Don Kirshner, as musical director, had an incredible knack for picking solid material. He got top notch musicians to record, and the Monkees themselves provided good vocals. Most of the material is at least good, and some is actually great. If there are any weak links, they would be the sappy "I'll Be True to You" and the novelty song, "Gonna Buy Me a Dog."

But "Gonna Buy Me a Dog" is actually kind of infectiously fun. And "I'll Be True to You" may not be particularly good, but it's not really awful either. It's kind of nebbishy. And it is the worst thing on the record. Since this is the first album, we don't have a previous candidate to compare it to. So, considering the Monkees career through the first record, the worst song so far is "I'll Be True to You."

More of the Monkees

Like it's predecessor, More... had lots of great material. In fact, it arguably had more high points. But the weak spots are weaker. There are three candidates here for worst song.

"Your Auntie Grizelda" (which happens to be the first song to feature Peter Tork on lead vocals) seemed to be an attempt at recreating the humorous magic of "Gonna Buy Me a Dog" from the first album. It doesn't succeed nearly as well, but it's not without charm.

"The Day We Fall in Love" is a load of sugary crap. Davey Jones speaks his way though a romantic vision while appropriately syrupy strings play in the background. What were they thinking? "Laugh" was an attempt at -- well, I don't really know what it was an attempt at. Davy's doing his musical theatre voice, and it just sounds awful.

"Laugh" and "The Day..." are both worthy choices.. I'll go with "The Day..." simply because of the diabetic factor.

Headquarters

The third album marked a change for the Monkees. Don Kirshner was out, and the group had artistic control over their material. This was also the first time that they were truly a recording group.

They didn't have the same kind of monster hit material, though for my money, "No Time," "Sunny Girlfriend" and "You Just May Be the One" are up there with the best material ever to be released. 

I'm not considering either "Zilch" (an acapella spoken word piece) or "Band 6," which is an abortive instrumental. Neither should have been included on the album, but it's hard to hear either as an actual song.

While this album didn't have any monster hits on it, it did have some really solid good songs -- notably "You Just May Be the One" and "No Time." At the other extreme, there are some weak songs, but nothing truly awful. If I have to choose one, and I do, I'll go with "Mr. Webster" for the sheer melodrama.

Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.
By now, the Monkees were getting creative and this, the fourth album, shows some real musical maturity. With the four Monkees controlling the musical output, they've largely left behind the snappy hits and bubble-gum sensibility that marked the earlier records.

There's only one track that could legitimately be considered a candidate for worst. That's "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky" by Peter. Problem? Precisely! I indicated above that I'm not going to consider non-song songs such as this. But, following the rules I've set for myself, I need to pick a candidate from PAC&JL.

By default, and with great reluctance, I nominate "Don't Call On Me" for its lounge lizard aesthetic. This exercise -- rather, performing this exercise in the way I've decided to perform it -- is proving difficult.

The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees
The albums continue to get more and more interesting. And more incoherent as well. There are some really great high points on here -- "Daydream Believer" and "Tapioca Tundra" come to mind. And some of the more-experimental stuff is also really good. "Writing Wrongs" and "Auntie's Municipal Court," I'm talking to you.

So, where are the weaknesses? "We Were Made for Each Other" is annoying for its trite nature, and I really hate that line "No other love have I" for its clumsiness. But things like that make it a bad song -- not a truly awful one. "The Poster," a song about a circus ad, is also really bad. It would have been the worst on the prior album. But that was then and this is now. Worse than that is the closing track, "Zor and Zam." "Z&Z" is a third rate war protest song that sounds like an inferior imitation of the Jefferson Airplane. That's our candidate.

As an aside, I'll note that Birds, Bees, Monkees is the first album since the debut not to show that iconic guitar logo on its cover. And that iconic guitar logo wouldn;t appear on any more covers. It's not an important point, but it's my blog so I get to say it.

Head
The soundtrack to the Monkees' movie has fourteen tracks, but it's quite thin, musically. Only half of those tracks are songs, and that's making the questionable call that "Ditty Diego War Chant" counts. I was very torn about whether it counts, but finally decided that it does -- in consideration of the existence of rap music. Yeah, "DDWC" sounds like an early, innocent rap song.

Also, I really need it in order to come up with a candidate from this album. Seriously. What else is there that can possibly be heard as the worst Monkees song? "Daddy's Song"? "Porpoise Song"? No way. I have to go with "Ditty Diego..."

Instant Replay
Now we're firmly into the end game as far as the group goes. Their TV show had been cancelled. Their movie had come out and flopped. Peter Tork had bought his way out of the contract. At this point they seemed to be going through the motions, and IR was an album composed largely of castoff songs from earlier in the group's life.

And despite that, it's not as bad as one might think. There are some quite good tracks. But that's not the point. There are two reasonable worst-song candidates -- both Dolenz numbers. "Just a Game" and "Shorty Blackwell" are the worst things here. And it's not even close. "Just a Game is kind of annoying. But "Shorty Blackwell" is a meandering, painful piece of garbage with stupid echos and falsettos. On the surface, it seems to be a song about a cat, though I've read some commentary that it was really about depression. I'm not sure if that interpretation makes it better or worse. But either way, it's the worst thing on the record.

The Monkees Present
The second album by the Monkees as a trio differs markedly from the prior. This one has fresh material, and also had each of the three nominal group members working separately from the others. Each created his own tracks with his own chosen studio musicians.

As a result, it doesn't sound like a unified album. And it doesn't have a particularly commercial sound. But I love it. I could start listing the songs I love, but that would be more than half the album. But I suppose that's not particularly helpful, since this post is about the worst song.

There are three songs which could plausibly be considered the worst. "Ladies Aid Society" harkens back to the attempted novelty songs from the group's first two records. But this one is way more annoying than theothers -- mostly because of the falsetto vocals. "French Song," annoyed me when I first heard it decades ago (on a Japanese compilation whose name escapes me). It still doesn't interest me much. But it's not an egregiously bad song. And neither is "Pillow Time," a lullaby that was cowritten by Micky's mother. So I'm going with "Ladies Aid Society."


Changes
We reach the end of the road with the much-maligned Changes.

At this point, Michael Nesmith had quit the group, so they were now a duo. If you care enough about the Monkees to have read this far, then you've heard about the joke that eventually Micky or Davy would quit and the other would record as "The Monkee."

Anyway, Changes is generally regarded as the worst of the nine albums, but I disagree. There's some solid pop here.But, fortunately for this post, there are a few really ba songs. There are two opiated songs in "Ticket on a Ferry Ride" and "Tell Me Love," and the third rate samba of "Acapulco Sun." But for my money, the worst thing here is the fake funk of "Lady Jane," which was a sad way to close out the last of the classic albums by the group.

Let's review the candidates:
There are, by plan, nine candidates for the title of worst Monkees song.

• "I'll Be True to You" from The Monkees
  This is only a candidate because it's the weakest track on a strong album.
• "The Day We Fall in Love" from More of the Monkees
  By far worse than the first candidate. It's more of a narration with backing music. And it sucks.
• "Mr. Webster" from Headquarters
  This is a bad song. Awful, in fact, but not unlistenable.
• "Don't Call On Me" from Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.
  Like the first candidate, this isn't so bad. It just suffers by comparison to the rest of the material on its album
• "Zor and Zam" from The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees
  Another bad song. And maybe unlistenable. But not truly painful.
• "Ditty Diego War Chant" from Head
  Another track that makes the list of finalists only because of the record it was on. This is the least bad of the nine candidates.
• "Shorty Blackwell" from Instant Replay
  It hurts to listen to this. Damn this song. Damn it to hell.
• "Ladies Aid Society" from The Monkees Present
  This is really bad. I cringe when I hear it. But it's not damnable.
• "Lady Jane" from Changes
  This is pretty bad. Kind of awful. But not truly really awful.

And the winner is...

In case you haven't guessed, the worst Monkees song is "Shorty Blackwell." Here it is -- in all its ignominy: