Davy Jones may have sold truckloads of teen magazines, but the real star of The Monkees was the music. The television show about a fictitious group who would go on to become a real band never tried to hide the fact it was trying to be an American version of The Beatles. The debut single was already a hit when NBC premiered the half-hour comedy on Monday, September 12, 1966, at 7:30 p.m. Let’s take a look at the meaning of “Last Train to Clarksville” by The Monkees.
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The Premise
The plea throughout the song is to reunite for one night before the singer is scheduled to leave from the very same train station the following morning. At no point in the lyrics is there any mention of the military or the elevating situation in Southeast Asia. Yet, at the time the song was blasting out of transistor radios across the nation, that was a very real situation facing so much of America’s youth.
Take the last train to Clarksville
And I’ll meet you at the station
You can be here by 4:30
‘Cause I’ve made your reservation
Don’t be slow
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
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The Origin
Songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were hired to write and produce music for the new Screen Gems television project. They composed “(Theme from) The Monkees,” “Let’s Dance On,” and pulled out an earlier song called “I Wanna Be Free” for the pilot episode. When the project got the green light, an album was planned. Don Kirshner was called in to be the music director, and he had complete control of what music was selected.
In 2012, Hart spoke in the documentary We Love The Monkees, “We’d cut, I think, 10 songs or so for the first album, and we needed another song. I heard just the fadeout of the Beatles’ new record. ‘Paperback,’ and I heard, ‘Take the last…’ I don’t know why, but that’s what I thought they were saying. And I said to myself, ‘It’s gotta be about a train. Take the last train.”
‘Cause I’m leavin’ in the morning
And I must see you again
We’ll have one more night together
‘Til the morning brings my train
And I must go
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
And I don’t know if I’m ever comin’ home
Further Beatle Connections
“She Loves You” by The Beatles used Yeah Yeah Yeah to great effect. Boyce and Hart using No No No was not a coincidence.
“Last Train to Clarksville” was released 10 days after the Beatles’ Revolver. The Monkees offered something to fill the void for the young Beatles fans who weren’t ready to evolve with the heavier concepts Lennon and McCartney were beginning to explore. Pre-teens weren’t quite ready for sitars and songs about turning your mind off and floating downstream. The Monkees were offering songs closer to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “A Hard Day’s Night.”
Take the last train to Clarksville
I’ll be waiting at the station
We’ll have time for coffee-flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
The Recording
Boyce and Hart gathered their backing band, The Candy Store Prophets. Bassist Larry Taylor (who would later join Canned Heat), guitarist Gerry McGee (who later joined The Ventures), and drummer Billy Lewis were joined by guitarists Louie Shelton and Wayne Irwin.
In 2009, Shelton shared the story with Musicians Hall of Fame founder Joe Chambers, “We were in a rehearsal for the first Monkees session with the producers, Boyce and Hart, and they gave us a verbal description of what kind of song they needed for the first single for The Monkees. And somehow, that idea just came to my head, so I said, ‘What about this?’ Shelton played the opening riff, “and they said, ‘Yeah, that’s great. Let’s work around that.’ So, we sat there and sort of created that whole song, including the instrumental and the breaks and all of that. That was at a rehearsal hall. Then, a couple of days later, we went to RCA Studios and recorded it, along with “Hey, Hey,We’re The Monkees” and “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” and a few of those others.”
Hart told Chambers in 2005, “It was probably one of the major reasons they selected it as the first single. It was just such an infectious guitar riff.”
Wayne Irwin was playing the chords, Gerry McGee played the high-picked part over the solo, and Shelton played the solo and the main riff.
Out of Nowhere
The vocals of Micky Dolenz were added to complete the ingredients of this classic hit song. The Monkees would later be vilified for not playing the instruments on their own records. This was a common practice of the day, but The Monkees got called out for it.
Dolenz spoke about it in the 2008 documentary The Wrecking Crew, “I think there was a lot of resentment in the recording industry that we’d come out of nowhere, left field, and sort of just shot right to the top without having to kind of go through the ropes.”
Take the last train to Clarksville
Now I must hang up the phone
I can’t hear you in this noisy railroad station, all alone
I’m feelin’ low
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home
Where Is Clarksville?
Boyce and Hart were inspired by a town in Northern Arizona called Clarkdale. They were writing the song and discovered Clarksville fits the lyrics better. It just happens that Clarksville, Tennessee, is next to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the U.S. Army base that is home to the 101st Airborne Division, which was then serving in Vietnam. It’s all a perfect coincidence.
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home
Photo by Mike McLaren/Central Press/Getty Images
