We’re focusing on TV theme songs this week and when it comes to TV theme songs, there is one that arguably ranks above the rest. I’m talking about “(Theme From) The Monkees,” and it’s today’s classic song of the day.
If you watched The Monkees back in the day, or since then in reruns, you heard “(Theme From) The Monkees” at the start of each show. The song was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and it was surprisingly never released as a single (except in Japan). In spite of that, it’s one of those Monkees tunes that everybody knows and it actually got a lot of (unofficial) radio play.
Boyce and Hart producd the track and enlisted members of their band, the Candy Store Prophets, to play backup. Tommy Boyce and Ron Hicklin provided the backup vocals and Micky Dolenz sang lead; Dolenz was the only Monkee to appear on the track.
The Monkees, as most of you know, were a manufactured band designed to cash in on the popularity of the Beatles and other hip young groups of the time. Producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider advertised for four young actors and/or musicians to play the parts of the boys in the band for the proposed television show and more than 400 hopefuls applied (including such notables as Stephen Stills, Harry Nillson, Paul Williams, Danny Hutton, and Van Dyke Parks). They ended up choosing Davy Jones as the pretty one, Micky Dolenz as the funny one, Michael Nesmith as the serious one, and Peter Tork as… I don’t, know, the quiet one?
The Monkees debuted on the NBC network on September 12, 1966, and was an immediate hit. The producers enlisted legendary music producer Don Kirshner to handles the music for the series; Kirshner enlisted a bevy of well-known songwriters (including Boyce and Hart, Neil Diamond, and Carole King and Gerry Goffin) to craft the group’s songs, at least one of which appeared in every episode. Due in no small part to the popularity of the television show, many of the songs became huge hits. (It didn’t hurt that they were uniformly terrific songs by professional songwriters who knew their stuff.)
The television series continued through March of 1968 and then in reruns for many years after that. The songs live on to this day, thanks to their popularity on oldies stations and playlists.
Davy Jones passed away in 2012, age 66. Peter Tork passed away in 2019, age 77. Michael Nesmith passed in 2021, age 78. Micky Dolenz is still with us and still performing; he’s 81 years old.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the season one opening titles for The Monkees. Hey, hey, they’re the Monkees!
