Davy

He was the cute one. In the show, the girls usually fell for him, except for that time someone fell for Peter and the other time Julie Newmar fell for all of them. He was Davy Jones and he passed away today.

I watched the Monkees a bit as a kid and sort of enjoyed their music but after their initial popularity died out I only admitted it after their MTV comeback in the 80s. I dressed as Davy for a Halloween party Fat Billy had back then. I missed the concert that Billy and Dina attended but was there in spirit. I obtained a few Monkees albums which became Monkees CDs which became songs on my iPod and will become directly implanted into my brain or whatever the next music media is.

Even though he was the cute one it seemed that the girls I was interested in liked a different Monkee, sometimes Micky (my favorite) sometimes Peter. Not sure what that says about them or me.

Today I was struck by how many of the obituaries of Davy featured a link to "I'm A Believer" which is a song sung by Micky not Davy. Since early Monkees songs weren't performed by all the Monkees, just the vocals, its somewhat safe to assume Davy doesn't even appear in the original recording of "I'm a Believer." Believe it or not, Facebook friends came through with actual Davy songs. Man of Coal linked to "I Wanna Be Free" (which is a good Davy vocal) while Christine and Guh posted links to a few different versions of "Valleri." Some other less popular Davy songs not linked to on FB are "She Hangs Out", "Star Collector", "Cuddly Toy" (where he does the Axl dance) and the vastly overlooked, "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)."

However Cathy linked to the most ubiquitous Davy song, "Daydream Believer.""Daydream Believer" is one of my karaoke mainstays such that when Luis, the KJ at Four Farthings, heard the original over the bar's speakers he said, "Hey, that's the song you sing." To me, that's Davy's song, the one he should be known for. Even more than his appearance on the Brady Bunch singing at Marcia's dance. Why they had a fan club for him 3 years after the Monkees were canceled is still a bit of a mystery.

Here are two links, one the MTV video associated with the greatest hits release in the mid 80s...

...and the "Literal Video" version. BTW, Warner Music Group is pretty picky about posting unlicensed videos so some of the links above will break. These last two likely won't because they're modified versions of the originals:

Finally, I have to say it's really hard to find someone named Jean who's drowsy and unhappy. I haven't been able to do this yet but all my life I've wanted to look at someone and say, "Cheer up, sleepy Jean." Instead I've been left saying it to random denim.