| Headquarters |
"Headquarters was by far the best album in the sense that it was us. It was honest,
it was pure, and we had a great time. "
-- Micky Dolenz
| Track Listing (CD) 1. You Told Me 2. I'll Spend My Life With You 3. Forget That Girl 4. Band 6 5. You Just May Be The One 6. Shades Of Gray 7. I Can't Get Her Off My Mind 8. For Pete's Sake 9. Mr. Webster 10. Sunny Girlfriend 11. Zilch 12. No Time 13. Early Morning Blues And Greens 14. Randy Scouse Git 15. All Of Your Toys 16. The Girl I Knew Somewhere 17. Peter Gunn's Gun 18. Jericho 19. Nine Times Blue 20. Pillow Time |
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Early Track Listing (not released) 1. For Pete's Sake 2. I'll Spend My Life With You 3. Forget That Girl 4. You Just May Be The One 5. Shades Of Gray 6. Band 6 7. Sunny Girlfriend 8. Mr. Webster 9. You Told Me 10. All Of Your Toys 11. Zilch 12. Early Morning Blues And Greens 13. Randy Scouse Git 14. I Can't Get Her Off My Mind 15. No Time Note...if you want to listen to the CD in this early order, it goes like this: 8, 2, 3, 5, 6, 4, 10, 9, 1, 15, 11, 13, 14, 7, 12. It's quite interesting. |
AMG Review
For their third album, the Monkees were determined to wrest control of the creative process, and with producer Chip Douglas functioning as frequent bassist and auxiliary member, they were indeed able to play most of the instruments and write much of the material. It would be nice to report that the result far exceeded previous efforts and established the group as visionary artists, but in fact this was, again, pleasantly inoffensive pop/rock. There was more of a country flavor and a sense of personal involvement, though the group still tapped songwriting pros like Boyce/Hart and Mann/Weil for about half the songs. Standouts included Nesmith's "You Just May Be the One," one of his best Monkee tunes, and Tork's "For Pete's Sake," which became the show's closing theme. The CD reissue includes six unreleased tracks and alternate takes, a couple of which (Nilsson's "All of Your Toys" and Nesmith's "The Girl I Knew Somewhere") rank among their finest. — Richie Unterberger
This was the Monkees coming of age album and what a fine album it is. There isn't a song one it that I don't like. Honestly though, Mike's writing makes this album cooler than it would have been without it. His songs (You Told Me, You Just May Be The One, Sunny Girlfriend, and the bonuses The Girl I Knew Somewhere and the untra-chill Nine Times Blue) are all little nuggets of inspired writing and are all played and sung beautifully. What a triumph for Mike, finally able to really use his music abilities and have his songs be awesome and admired.
Micky Dolenz...that voice! That voice makes the song I'll Spend My Life With You not sound incredibly cheesy as you would think it would. And don't forget the Dolenz-penned Randy Scouse Git, one of the Monkees most interesting and creative songs ever.
Davy Jones never ceases to sound like a total heart throb on every Monkees recording. Shades of Gray and Early Morning Blues and Greens are both marvelous songs, two of his best. Davy's voice really was strong on this album, perhaps from all the practice that came from the concerts.
Peter wrote the song For Pete's Sake, an anthem of love and understanding, sung wonderfully by Micky. He also played the keyboard, 12-string guitar, bass, and banjo on Headquarters.
"I remewhen we were playing that (Sunny Girlfriend) in Osaka. I would play the boogie-woogie guitar line on base, because basically we were just a trio live -- Davy didn't play much. We just locked into something that was remarkable. Davy came over to me banging on his
tambourine, screaming above the din of the crowd 'We're going to form a group!'
It was really good, it's what you live for as a musician."
-- Michael Nesmith
Now I would like to take a moment to pay homage to the song All of Your Toys, which was recorded during the Headquarters sessions, though not released. All of Your Toys is my very favorite Monkees song. This is what it says in the booklet for Missing Links Volume 1:
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All of Your Toys is the one song in this collection to achieve a certain "legendary" status. This was the first record to feature the Monkees singing and playing everything! The session tapes reveal a truly startling amount of fun and enthusiasm. This song was written by their friend Bill Martin, and was planned as the Monkee's third single (after "I'm A Believer") but was denied release because it was not published by Screen Gems -- the original publisher refused to sell the copyright. Now, one can only imagine what life would have been like had it become a hit. | |
and now here is what AMG says about it...
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One of the most historically significant Monkees songs, "All of Your Toys" was the first track cut with the group members playing their own instruments. Although shelved at the time due to contractual problems with musical director Don Kirshner, it's interesting to note that while the group was rebelling against Kirshner's iron-fisted control, the song isn't that much different from many of the obvious commercially oriented songs that he was forcing the group to record. A whimsical ballad with some dark undertones, it fit the early 1967 pop milieu quite well, and the recording (with some excellent multiple keyboard overdubs by Peter Tork) would quite possibly have charted at the time, had it seen the light of day. — Matthew Greenwald | |
"That whole take from beginning to end is right as it happened -- that's live. I think Band 6 was really a peak moment. It displays one of the reasons why we wanted to make the records ourselves."
-- Peter Tork
Other Stuff That Might Be of Interest...
Though credited to recording engineer Hank Cicalo as a "thank you" for all his hard work on the album, No Time was really written by the Monkees collectively in impromptu jam sessions.
Randy Scouse Git is slang in England for "lecherous Liverpudlian idiot" or "horney Liverpudlian jerk." Therefore outside of the U.S. the song was called "Alternate Title".
Mr. Webster was a reject from the More of the Monkees sessions.
"Peter says that the reason he quit was because after we did this album, we decided we weren't going to be a group anymore. It broke his heart, because Headquarters was the whole reason why
he'd become one of the Monkees."
-- Micky Dolenz