The Monkees – Porpoise Song
‘Porpoise Song’ was a single released by The Monkees in 1968 and taken from the soundtrack album to their psychedelic film, HEAD.
The very mention of The Monkees may bring to mind the ugly spectre of manufactured bubblegum pop, nowadays typified by the sub-lounge-room crooner boyband circuit or whatever annual horror X-Factor sees fit to vomit upon us. But although they were indeed assembled solely for the sake of a chirpy TV series – and thus ‘musical snobbery’ decrees they’d normally have no place on these here pages – the band lost the plot spectacularly during their self-destructive final years and managed to bang out a few memorable and inventive tunes. The sort of stuff Head Full of Snow likes.
This change in direction came with the desire to be taken seriously as musicians (both the critics and their peers were disparaging of the ‘Prefab Four’s’ musical credentials) and manifested itself in the teenybopper fanbase-alienating, cinematic excursion, HEAD.
Those turning up expecting to see the clean-cut, cheeky chappy personas immortalised in their popular TV series and fronting worldwide hits such as ‘Daydream Believer’ and ‘I’m a Believer’ were in for quite the shock. For this attempt at a psychedelic headfuck made little sense to their core audience (or anybody else for that matter) and was dismissed by the audience whose acceptance they so craved as a cynical stab at ingratiation. The fact of the matter was – whoever the audience – the faux, crowbarred-in acid trip imagery ensured it would be a box office failure. Throw into this bizarre mix cameos by the likes of Victor Mature, Sonny Liston, Frank Zappa (whose influence was evident in the direction The Monkees wished to take) and Toni Basil, perhaps more famous for the 80′s standard and MTV favourite ‘Mickey’, and you have all the ingredients in place for a musical disaster of Heaven’s Gate proportions – although it didn’t cause the collapse of any film studios.
However, if one good thing came out of the resulting mess then it’s this four minute psychedelic nugget, ‘Porpoise Song’.
Written by the then husband and wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Porpoise Song’s abstract lyrics revolve around an unexplained laughing porpoise, as well as throwing in such random lines as “Riding the backs of Giraffes for laughs” and assorted other psychedelic shenanigans. But it is the beautiful string arrangement by a certain Jack Nitzsche – the architect of the early Rolling Stones sound, producer of two of the finest tracks on Neil Young’s Harvest album, and Oscar-winning film composer – that really puts ‘Porpoise Song’ up there with the cream of the late 60′s acid/hippy musical sojourns.
Coupled with the haunting vocals of Mickey Dolenz it evokes images of something mysterious and wonderful – the far off, magical lands that lie just beyond the horizons of our imaginations. And so long as you refrain from doing anything as daft as attempting to analyse the lyrics, or perhaps even listen to them (let the musical landscape envelope you instead) those far-off lands remain for the taking with each and every listen.
‘Porpoise Song (Theme from Head)’ was released as a single and backed by ‘As We Go Along’. Both are available on the Head soundtrack by The Monkees, reissued on Rhino records.
Don’t just read and applaud. Subscribe to the rather splendid RSS Feed
Recent Comments