Song of the Week

The Monkees probably won't be on most serious music fans' top ten list of greatest rock bands ... and no, they're not on my top ten list either. As far as musicianship goes, they can't really even be classified as a "true" rock band. First, they weren't "formed" in the traditional "band" sense - a company held auditions for to create a "pop" band. So, these guys don't even have a "story" on how the band was created. Second, they didn't even write their own songs ... well, at least not initially. No, they had musicians like Neil Diamond write most of their "original" hits.

But, a funny thing happened during (and after) the TV show filming. The band began to gel and actually became kind of good. The band even began to write its own music. One particular song that probably only "true" Monkees fans have heard about is a song called "Goin' Down."

This is not your typical Monkees song. It's not all "happy" and "poppy," and employes a very fast beat ... has a sort of New Orleans "jazzy" sound, with fast and darker lyrics hinting at suicide because of a lost love, however, the attempted "drowning" in a river takes the singer into New Orleans, where the singer longs to live again, thanks to that catchy New Orleans music. The song is accentuated with "crazy" horns. I urge you to take a listen - I think you'd be surprised.