The Monkees: The Made-for-TV Band That Became a Real Band
When we think about the 1960s, it’s easy to divide musicians into two groups: the “real” bands who wrote and played their own music, and the manufactured pop acts assembled by record companies and television producers.
The Monkees make that distinction rather difficult.
They began as a television concept — four young actors cast to play members of a fictional rock band. The idea came from Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, inspired partly by the success of The Beatles and their films.
The Beatles had already demonstrated that a band could be more than a group of musicians making records. They could become characters, personalities and film stars. The Monkees took that idea and turned it into a sitcom.
The four members — Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork — were cast for their personalities and musical abilities, then thrown together as a fictional band whose adventures formed the basis of the TV show.
There was a significant difference between The Monkees and The Beatles. The Monkees weren’t initially expected to write and record their own material. And that is where the story gets interesting.
Don Kirshner and the Brill Building Hit Machine
Music supervisor Don Kirshner was brought in to oversee the recordings, and he knew exactly where to look for songs. New York’s Brill Building songwriting scene was producing an extraordinary number of pop hits, giving Kirshner access to some of the best writers around.
Among them were:
- Carole King — Pleasant Valley Sunday
- Neil Diamond — I’m a Believer
- Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart — Last Train to Clarksville and (Theme from) The Monkees
- John Stewart — Daydream Believer
The formula worked. Very well.
The Monkees’ debut single, Last Train to Clarksville, became a huge hit in 1966, followed later that year by the song that would define the group for generations. I’m a Believer.
I’m a Believer: The Monkees Become a Pop Phenomenon
Written by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees, I’m a Believer was released in late 1966. It quickly reached #1 in the United States, where it remained for seven weeks, and it topped the charts in numerous other countries.
It became one of the biggest-selling singles of the 1960s. And here’s the funny thing about the song: The fact that The Monkees were a television band didn’t make the song any less effective. Quite the opposite.
The TV show gave the music an enormous built-in audience, while the quality of the songwriting gave that audience something worth listening to.
That’s an important distinction. A great marketing idea can get people to hear a song. It can’t make them keep listening to a bad one.
I’m a Believer has also become one of those songs that seems to exist independently of its original artist.
For decades, it’s been a staple of cover-band repertoires, sitting comfortably alongside songs such as I Saw Her Standing There, Honky Tonk Women and Brown Eyed Girl.
If you’re putting together a late-’60s setlist, there’s a very good chance I’m a Believer will eventually appear on it. And for a guitarist, it’s a great example of a song where the rhythm part is simple, but the feel has to be right.
The Monkees Didn’t Want to Be Puppets
There was one problem with all this success. The four Monkees themselves wanted more control.
Micky Dolenz could sing and play drums. Peter Tork was a capable multi-instrumentalist. Michael Nesmith was a songwriter and guitarist with his own musical identity. Davy Jones was an experienced performer with a strong pop voice. They weren’t simply four actors pretending to be musicians.
As the show and records became more successful, they increasingly wanted to play on their own records, write songs and make their own musical decisions. This created friction with the people running the project.
The whole point of the original concept had been that the songs could be written and produced by professional songwriters and session musicians while the four stars concentrated on the television show and performing.
But The Monkees were becoming musicians in their own right. Eventually, they pushed much harder for creative control.
Pleasant Valley Sunday: A Different Side of The Monkees
Pleasant Valley Sunday was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and released in 1967. It’s one of the songs that shows The Monkees moving beyond simple pop.
The lyric is a satirical look at suburban life — perfect material for a group whose television show was already playing with the idea of an artificial version of everyday life.
Musically, it’s also an interesting guitar song. The arrangement has plenty going on, but the guitar doesn’t need to fight for attention. It’s about rhythm, accents and fitting into the arrangement.
That’s a recurring lesson with The Monkees. You can learn a lot by listening to what the guitar doesn’t play.
Daydream Believer: Davy Jones Takes the Lead
Daydream Believer was written by John Stewart and became another defining Monkees hit, with Davy Jones taking the lead vocal.
It has a very different character from I’m a Believer. Where I’m a Believer is bright, driving pop, Daydream Believer has a more relaxed, almost wistful quality.
That’s another reason The Monkees are useful repertoire material. You get rock ‘n’ roll, pop, folk influences, jangly guitars, vocal harmonies and ballads — all within a relatively small catalogue.
And if you’re playing in a function or cover band, versatility like that is exactly what you need.
Michael Nesmith: The Monkee Who Was Already a Songwriter
Michael Nesmith deserves special attention. Before The Monkees, he was already writing songs and developing his own musical style. He would eventually become one of the group’s most important creative forces.
His songwriting helped pull The Monkees towards a more sophisticated country-rock and folk-rock sound. Songs such as Mary, Mary and The Girl I Knew Somewhere showed that the group could do more than simply perform material handed to them by professional songwriters.
Nesmith would later become particularly important in the development of country rock, but his time with The Monkees is an essential part of that story.
And there’s a useful lesson here for guitarists: Your influences don’t have to stay in separate boxes. Rock, Country, Folk and Pop can all live inside the same band, even the same tune!
Peter Tork: More Than Just the Funny One
Peter Tork was also far more musically capable than the television show sometimes suggested. He played several instruments and brought a strong folk and acoustic influence to the group.
That matters because The Monkees were often presented as a comedy band — four slightly chaotic characters running around while their records played in the background.
Behind the comedy, however, were serious musicians. The contrast is part of what makes their story so unusual.
They started as fictional characters. Then the characters became celebrities. The celebrities wanted to become musicians. And eventually, the musicians helped redefine the band.
The Monkees and the Session Musicians
There’s another side to the story that’s particularly interesting for guitarists. Many of The Monkees’ early recordings featured some of Los Angeles’s finest session musicians.
These were players who could walk into a studio, hear an arrangement, and deliver exactly what was required. That included some of the musicians who would become associated with the famous Wrecking Crew.
This is worth remembering whenever someone dismisses a recording because “the band didn’t play everything themselves”. The musicianship on those records was often exceptional.
For a working guitarist, there’s a huge lesson here. Being the most technically impressive player in the room isn’t necessarily the job.
Sometimes your job is to hear the arrangement, understand the producer’s idea, find the right sound and play the part that makes the record work. That’s musicianship too.
From TV Creation to Genuine Musical Identity
By the late 1960s, The Monkees had moved a long way from the original television concept. They had released multiple hit albums, toured, written songs and fought for greater control over their recordings.
Their music also became more adventurous. Albums such as Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. showed a group increasingly interested in making records on its own terms.
The television show eventually ended, but the music survived. And that’s perhaps the ultimate test. Once the TV cameras were gone, the songs still worked.
The Monkees and the Birth of Manufactured Pop
It’s tempting to look back at The Monkees and see them as a strange one-off. But their basic formula became hugely influential.
A group could have strong personalities, a recognisable visual identity, professional songwriting and carefully produced records — and television could be used to turn the musicians into characters the audience felt they knew.
Later pop groups would use different versions of this formula, including acts such as New Kids on the Block, Take That, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Spice Girls, Girls Aloud and One Direction.
That doesn’t mean The Monkees invented every aspect of manufactured pop. They didn’t. But they demonstrated something important very early: Pop music and entertainment could be designed as one complete package.
And, perhaps unexpectedly, the musicians inside that package could eventually demand to be taken seriously on their own terms.
The Monkees for Guitarists
If you’re learning guitar and want songs that work in a real band, The Monkees are a fantastic place to look. Listen carefully to the recordings. Don’t just look for the chords.
Listen for:
- How the guitar locks with the bass and drums
- Where the rhythm guitar drops out
- How the acoustic and electric guitars interact
- How vocal harmonies change the arrangement
- How simple parts can create a huge-sounding record
- How different guitar styles can work within the same band
And if you’re playing in a cover band, I’m a Believer is one of those songs that earns its place through sheer recognisability. You can play it at a wedding, a pub, a festival, a theatre show or a private function and people will know what it is almost immediately.
The Monkees Tunes | Related Pages
I’m A Believer | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play I’m a Believer by The Monkees using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| G | D | G | G |
I thought love was only true in fairy tales…
The Monkees on the web
