A catchy guitar riff can make a good song a great song. Some hits are written around a catchy guitar figure, while other songs rely on a riff for only the intro. Riffs can be a repetitive sequence of notes or chords. A song like “Iron Man” utilizes power chords, while “Day Tripper” uses single notes. Melodic lines the listener can grab onto get stuck in our heads and make us return for more. Blues music from the turn of the 20th century featured guitar riffs, leading to many other styles of music adopting them. Rock ‘n’ roll from the ’50s onward has leaned heavily on the guitar riff.
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The Monkees had their first big hit with “Last Train to Clarksville,” which spotlighted Louie Shelton’s guitar work. The Monkees’ formula relied on rich harmonies, guitar riffs, and catchy arrangements. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Pleasant Valley Sunday” by The Monkees.
The Guitar Riff
Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote the song but not the guitar riff. Producer Chip Douglas (formerly of The Turtles) came up with the introduction and showed it to Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith. Douglas remembered in Andrew Sandoval’s book The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the ’60s TV Pop Sensation, “Mike played the lead guitar. That was my riff that I threw in there and taught to Mike. Not many guitar players can play it the right way. I’ve seen them all try on the various stage bands, you know, they don’t quite have it right. It’s kind of an offshoot of The Beatles’ song ‘I Want To Tell You,’ but in a different tempo and with different notes.”
The local rock group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song
They serenade the weekend squire
Who just came out to mow his lawn
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Rows of houses that are all the same
And no one seems to care
A Little Carried Away
Nesmith talked about the riff, “I remember that we went after the guitar sound. Everybody was trying to get that great big present guitar sound—nobody knew quite how to do it. I think I used, like, three Vox Super Beatle amplifiers in the studio playing really loud trying to get the sound, and it just ended up sounding kind of, you know, like it does, kind of wooden. There was a type of limiter/compressor called a Urei 1176, and it was a tube-type compressor/limiter, and boy, you could really suck stuff out of the track. That was the first time that we really could do it. I think everybody got a little carried away with the 1176 on that record.”
See Mrs. Gray, she’s proud today
Because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green, he’s so serene
He’s got a TV in every room
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol, land
Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just don’t understand
The Recording
Peter Tork played piano, Micky Dolenz and Nesmith played guitar, session drummer Eddie Hoh played drums, and Douglas played bass. Bill Chadwick added guitar, and Eddie Hoh overdubbed shaker and conga. Tork and Davy Jones added background vocals. The band recorded the song during the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. sessions. It was released as a single in July 1967 and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was featured in six episodes of The Monkees’ weekly television show.
Creature comfort goals, they only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
(Ah ah ah) ah, thoughts all seem to stray to places far away
I need a change of scenery
The Vocals
Nesmith and Dolenz sang the song in unison. In 1982, Tork told author Bruce Pollack, “A notion of mine that I was real pleased with took over at one point, and that was having two guys sing in unison rather than one guy doubling his own voice. So you’ve got Mike, who was really a hard-nosed character, and Micky, who’s a real baby face, and these two voices singing together, it’s really a melding of the two voices. Listening to that record later on was a joy.”
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol, land
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
The Ending
Douglas and engineer Hank Cicalo came up with the psychedelic ending. Douglas remembered, “Hank said, ‘Well, how about we crank on some reverb and make this big psychedelic ending?’ I said, ‘OK. Fine.’ ‘Cause it just went on and on and on, and it was either a matter of fading out or doing something more. He just started to add the echo and boost the pre-echo or something like that, and that’s the way it turned out. We just kept that tag and thought, ‘Wow, far out. Let’s use this one.'”
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol, land
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
The Reunion
In February 1986, MTV featured episodes of The Monkees television show in a marathon called Pleasant Valley Sunday. This sparked new interest in the band. Dolenz, Tork, and Jones had reunited and were on tour. The boost from MTV pushed their concerts from theaters to stadiums. In July of that year, a greatest hits album with three new songs was released and sold a million copies. Monkeemania had returned. Nesmith would join in a later reunion for the 1996 album Justus and a new television special was aired. After the death of Jones in 2012 and Tork in 2019, Dolenz and Nesmith toured as a duo with a backing band performing Monkee hits. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was included on the 2020 album The Monkees Live: The Mike and Micky Show.
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Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
