The Head-era Monkees
Listen – The Monkees – Porpoise Song – MP3
Greetings all.
I’ve decided to close out the week with something that might be a little bit obvious for some, but so good, that even jaded record collector types will take the time to listen.
Though the Monkees were a big part of my childhood – albeit a few years after their peak, when the TV show was being rerun on Saturday mornings after CBS ran out of cartoons (but just before Kukla, Fran and Ollie) – I probably didn’t see their movie ‘Head’, or hear any of the music from the soundtrack until I was deep into the garage/psyche revival thing in the mid-80s.
By then, ‘Head’ was a regular feature of the bootleg video underground, and the Monkees TV show was being rerun (I think) on MTV.
‘Head’ was – pun fully intended – a trip, with the Monkees on the far side of their anti-Kirshner rebellion, pumping up their underground cred with Frank Zappa, explicit anti-war messages and unapologetic psychedelic overtures to an audience still packed solidly with 13 year old girls.
Naturally, the movie – though a well-intentioned artifact of the psychedelic era – was a failure. It was disjointed, self-indulgent (though that pejorative could be used to describe about 80% of all music and film of the era), and while not with out charm or a surplus of good intentions, far too boring to sustain the interest of a drug addled audience.
Fortunately for all involved, the best song on the soundtrack, and one of the trippiest parts of the movie comes very close to the beginning.
‘Porpoise Song’, written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin comes right after the Monkees charge through a bridge dedication, eventually jumping over the railing and diving into the water. The tune is an absolutely remarkable example of west coast psychedelia, dreamy (yet not diffuse), trippy (yet coherent) and arranged to perfection by one of the great unsung heroes of that particular time and place, Jack Nitzsche (who also worked on the Buffalo Springfield’s* ‘Expecting To Fly’.
Though the film has several interesting sections (and some other excellent music, i.e. ‘Circle Sky’), had they just edited it down to the ‘Porpoise Song’ sequence, I doubt anyone would have missed the rest.
It’s a fantastic record and I hope you dig it.
Peace
Larry
*Both Neil Young and the recently deceased Dewey Martin of the Buffalo Springfield played on the ‘Head’ soundtrack
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for something from the early days of George Clinton!
PSS Check out Paperback Rider which has actually been updated!
6 Comments
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A great trippy tune – Listen To The Band’s a killer too -with great horns
Larry I love this, Are the Monkess a guilty pleasure? Cause I do Love em’ – I suppose for me its a childhood thing too.
I didnt know the Neil Young Fact ~ Im gonna have to seek this Out
Thanks!
Hope your Well
Jen
I guess it depends on who you ask. I remember a time when it was unthinkable to ride for the Monkees around people who took their music seriously.
On the other hand, those albums are filled with good music, from basic bubblegum pop, to early country rock, and psychedelia.
Only a hardcore snob would be able to overlook good tunes.
L
Yes, the Monkees TV show was repeated on MTV. They were buoyed by the surprise success of the “That Was Then, This is Now” song and accompanying video. Head was best summed up by a person who said, “The hippies wanted a head movie and the teeny-boppers wanted a Monkees movie and the movie wanted to please both”.
If you think this is odd, wait ’til you see “33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee”, their one TV special. It is a bit more coherent, but so odd and cynical and badly scheduled, it was destined to failure. They felt that TRPM was going to be their ultimate expression. To it’s credit, it makes a lot more sense than “Head” does.
“Porpoise Song” is great, but the whole soundrack album is surprisingly good; the album is the better way to “see” the movie.
finding songs like this one is why i stay up late reading blogs, like this one…
thanks much for the chance to hear this…
dugg
I actually remember the Monkess when they they first hit in the mid 60s. I was 3 or 4 and they were the first TV entity I ever got into though I only vaguely remember their music. But from the mid 70s when BBC 1 (in England) re-ran the series, I really got to hear some of the songs and when I was 14, I bought an LP of their ‘hits’ for my little brother but it was me that constantly listened to it. Many bloggers and reviewers tend to think of the Monkees as their ‘guilty pleasure’, a group you can’t openly admit to liking. Well, I have no such qualms. For most of my life I’ve loved their music and I still do. The media creates living mythologies and the Monkees unfortunately have been subject to these. But history does not support the myths and in actuality, three of the band wrote great songs and three of them were competent instrumentalists and all of them were singers.
But I digress!! ‘Head’ is one weird film but I find it really watchable. It’s better than anything the TV series threw up (and for it’s time, it was pretty good and gutsy). It’s also quite funny and rather trippy but in a way that’s accessible. The songs in the film are outstanding and had they been done by the Beatles or the Stones or the Pretty Things or the Kinks, they’d be lauded as major works. The version of ‘Porpoise’ that you have posted is the superior version. Most compilations and even ‘Head’ itself have the version that comes to a full stop after the drum beat. It was a long time before I realized that there was that superb little extra instrumental bit at the end. Thanks for posting it !!