"Porpoise Song" has always been one of my favorite songs by the Monkees. This album opens with Mickey's sleepy delivery capturing a mind-expanding moment and a longing for real adventure and emotion. (The album also includes an additional 30 seconds of music that's usually trimmed from this song when it's included in "Greatest Hits" packages.)

But this is the only Monkees album where you'll hear the band issue a denunication of their own commercialism.

("Hey hey we are the Monkees," they chant, "you know we love to please. A manufactured image with no philosophies!") After years of struggling against entertainment industry overlords, the Monkees hoped this movie could finally deconstruct their plastic image and give them real credibility with the emerging counterculture.

"The money's in, we're made of tin, we're here to give you more!"

In the film each individual band member received a segment to push against their popular image. This means the album ultimately features songs by each of the group's three major singers - everyone except Peter Tork. Harry Nilsson wrote the remarkably angst-y "Daddy's Song" for teen idol Davy Jones. And Michael Nesmith contributes a stirring rendition of his own song, "Circle Sky," with its zen-like message complemented by driving guitars a great rhythm of maracas. A lot of 60s songs suffered from an overdose of tamborines and bongo drums. But the song "Can You Dig It" offers a surprisingly effective use of both, matching a diatonic scale to fast percussion.

Throughout the album the songs are divided by pleasantly surprising sound samples - screams, jet engines, and cryptic dialogue. There's either wisdom or sharp satire in the line "No one every lends money to a man with a sense of humor." But it earns new significance when it appears almost at random towards the end of the album.

Long-time fans might be disappointed that there aren't more songs on the album. But the six songs, mixed with snippets of movie dialogue, making this one of the most original of all the Monkees album. (It opens a one-minute track offering only a weird mix of sounds, like "Head, Head...soon, soon...") And it contains one of the most beautiful songs that Mickey Dolenz ever recorded. With lyrics by Carole King, "As We Go Along" offers a frank and honest assessment of transforming power of love.

I can tell by your face
That you're looking to find a place
To settle your mind
and reveal who you are.

Give up your secrets,
And let down your hair,
And sit with me here by the firelight....

Yes, the album is a startling hodgepodge of songs and sounds.

But fortunately, each one of the songs is fantastic.

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
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