Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone (1966)
Prefabricated pop groups are doing big business these days, but they're nothing new. As long as there's been money to be made, there have been fake bands. Bob Rafelson, at the time looking to become a filmmaker, came up with the idea for the Monkees in 1962 but was unable to sell it.
After seeing the Beatles have success with the movies A Hard Day's Night and Help!, Rafelson and Bert Schneider revisited the idea of building a TV show around a band. They originally wanted to cast the Lovin' Spoonful, a New York band that was still relatively unknown at the time, but it didn't work out. They then found singer Davy Jones, who had signed a deal to appear in TV shows for Screen Gems, make movies for Columbia Pictures and record for the Colpix label. With Jones on board, they put out a casting call for the other three Monkees. From 437 applicants, Rafelson and Schneider chose Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz; all three were musicians but only Dolenz was also an actor.
Don Kirshner, the head of music for Screen Gems (who would years later have the late night show Don Kirshner's Rock Concert), was in charge of finding music for the show, which made its debut in September 1966 on NBC and was a big hit.
Most of the songwriting for the group was done by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, two young songwriters who were breaking into the business. Although the cover of their 1966 self-titled debut album lists the group members as playing on the record, the Monkees were actually not allowed to be a band for this release. Their actual contributions were limited to vocals while sessions musicians play all the music. Still, both the album and the lead single, "Last Train to Clarksville," went to #1.
The studio quickly jumped on the Monkees' popularity and put together More of the Monkees, recorded in late 1966 and released in January 1967. It bumped the group's debut from the top spot on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for 18 weeks. The band was surprised about the second album's release; the songs were chosen from the initial 34 that had been recorded. After the album came out, Nesmith convinced Rafelson and Schneider to allow the Monkees to play their own instruments on future records, with Kirshner pushed out.
The group's second single, "I'm a Believer," written by a young Neil Diamond, went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while its B-side "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone," went to #20. "Steppin' Stone" had been around for a little while, originally written by Boyce and Hart and recorded by the English band the Liverpool Five in early 1966. Paul Revere & the Raiders released a version on their album Midnight Ride, which came out in May 1966. But it was the Monkees version, released in late '66, that got the most attention, with Dolenz providing the sneering vocal.
"You're tryin' to make your mark in society/You're usin' all the tricks that you used on me/You're readin' all them high fashion magazines/The clothes you're wearin', girl, they're causin' public scenes/I said I-I-I-I-I'm not your steppin' stone/I'm not your steppin' stone!"
In addition to Dolenz, the song features Boyce on backing vocals, Louis Shelton on lead guitar, Wayne Erwin and Gerry McGee on rhythm guitar, Hart on organ, Larry Taylor on bass, Billy Lewis on drums and Henry Lewy on percussion.
"When I first met you, girl, you didn't have no shoes/But now you're walkin' around like you're front page news/You've been awful careful 'bout the friends you choose/But you won't find my name in your book of who's who/I said I-I-I-I-I'm not your steppin' stone/No girl, not me!/I-I-I-I-I'm not your steppin' stone/No!"
The Monkees, who were touring at the time, caught some heat in the U.K. for having session musicians play on their albums. Nesmith hired former Turtles bassist Chip Douglas to produce the group's next album, which was the first where the Monkees played most of the instruments. The album, Headquarters, got decent reviews but for their fourth album (Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.), they used a mixture of themselves and session musicians (including the Wrecking Crew, Glen Campbell, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Lowell George and Stephen Stills). "Pleasant Valley Sunday" went to #3 on the charts, and later in 1967, "Daydream Believer" (from the group's fifth album) went to #1.
After the second season of the Monkees TV show, the group wanted to move away from the sitcom format, but NBC disagreed and cancelled the show in February 1968. That same month, the Monkees began filming a movie called Head, directed by Rafelson and co-written and co-produced by a newcomer named Jack Nicholson. The movie was steeped in counterculture references and very different from the clean-cut TV show and it totally bombed. It has since gained a cult following.
Band tensions were increasing and Tork quit in 1968. The band continued without him, releasing music and making appearances on other shows. Nesmith left in 1970, opting to go solo with his country-rock band Michael Nesmith & the First National Band. Dolenz and Jones released one more album as the Monkees before losing the rights to the name in 1970. Dolenz and Jones toured together throughout the '70s and teamed up with Boyce and Hart to do a U.S. tour and release an album. Meanwhile, Monkees reruns became popular in the mid-'70s (that's how I first heard of them) and a greatest hits album was released in 1976.
A decade later, MTV sparked another resurgence in Monkees popularity with a marathon of the show, which was followed by daily reruns of the show on Nickelodeon. Dolenz, Tork and Jones teamed up to do a 20th anniversary tour and the original Monkees albums began selling again. Nesmith, who by this point was a video production executive, appeared at a few shows. In 1987, a New Monkees show aired for 13 episodes, with a new group of unknowns, but it came and went quickly.
The four original Monkees teamed up to make 1996's Justus, their first album together since 1968. They did a tour and a TV special directed by Nesmith, but he left after the U.K. tour. There were more tours with various configurations of the group in the early 2000s. A 45th anniversary tour was held in 2011, but Jones died soon afterward of a heart attack in 2012. The surviving trio did a tour in the fall of 2012 and two more after that. After more touring, including one with Nesmith and Dolenz because Tork was ill, the group released a Christmas album in 2018. Tork died of cancer in 2019. Dolenz and Nesmith did a Monkees farewell tour in 2021; Nesmith died less than a month after the tour ended.
As for "Steppin' Stone," it became popular with punk bands, having been covered by the Sex Pistols, the Trashmen, the Queers and Minor Threat. A group called Modern Rocketry had a dance hit with the song in 1983. And the Monkees' version has been heard in shows like The Queen's Gambit and Zoo. It just goes to show how a great song can live on, even if it was written for a sitcom about a fake band.
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