Last Train to Clarksville

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"Last Train to Clarksville"
The Monkees single 01 Last Train to Clarksville.jpg
US single cover
Single by The Monkees
from the album The Monkees
B-side"Take a Giant Step"
ReleasedAugust 16, 1966
RecordedJuly 25, 1966
RCA Victor Studios, Studio A
Hollywood, CA
GenreRock
Length2:46
LabelColgems 1001
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
  • Tommy Boyce
  • Bobby Hart
The Monkees singles chronology
"Last Train to Clarksville"
(1966) 		"I'm a Believer"
(1966)
Music video
Listen to "Last Train to Clarksville" (Official Music Video) on YouTube

"Last Train to Clarksville" is a song by American pop rock band the Monkees. It was released as the band's debut single on August 16, 1966 and was later included on the group's self-titled album, which was released on October 10, 1966.[1] The song, written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, was recorded at RCA Victor Studio B in Hollywood on July 25, 1966,[1] and was already on the Boss Radio "Hit Bounds" playlist on August 17, 1966.[2] The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 on November 5, 1966.[3] Lead vocals were performed by the Monkees' drummer, Micky Dolenz.[4] "Last Train to Clarksville" was featured in seven episodes of the band's television series, the most for any Monkees song.

Composition[]

The song, written by the songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart,[5] has been compared to the Beatles' "Paperback Writer",[by whom?] particularly in its "jangly" guitar sound, chord structure, and vocal harmonies. The Beatles' song had been number one in the U.S. charts three months earlier.

Hart got the idea for the lyrics when he turned on the radio and heard the end of "Paperback Writer". Thinking Paul McCartney was singing "take the last train", he decided to use the line himself after he found out that McCartney was actually singing "paperback writer".[6] Hart knew that the Monkees TV series was being pitched as a music/comedy series in the spirit of the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night, so he was hoping that by emulating the Beatles the song might lead to a successful single, which it did. To help ensure that, he decided to include a distinctively rhythmic lyric and wrote in the "Oh No-No-No, Oh No-No-No" lyrics as a response to the Beatles' famous "Yeah Yeah Yeah", looking for a guitar riff to match that in the studio.

The lyrics tell of a man phoning the woman he loves, urging her to meet him at a train station in Clarksville before he must leave, possibly forever. There was no explicit reference to war in the song, but its last line, "And I don't know if I'm ever coming home", was an indirect reference to a soldier leaving for the Vietnam War.[7]

There is a controversial possibility that the song refers to Clarksville, Tennessee, which is near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne Division, which was then serving in Vietnam. However, according to songwriter Bobby Hart, that was not the case. Instead, according to Hart, "We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There's a little town in northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarkdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarkdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn't know it at the time, [but] there is an Army base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee — which would have fit the bill fine for the storyline.[citation needed] We couldn't be too direct with the Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it—we kind of snuck it in."[8]

Although "Clarksville", a common location name in the U.S., is in the song's title, the video accompanying the song on the Monkees' TV show depicted a sign pointing to "Clarkesville", which is a much more rare spelling, now used only for a town in Georgia.[citation needed]

Recording[]

Boyce and Hart's band, Candy Store Prophets, performed the instrumental session work on the recording.[9] Their lineup included Boyce, Wayne Erwin and the Ventures' Gerry McGee on guitar, Hart on keyboards, Larry Taylor on bass guitar, Billy Lewis on drums and Gene Estes on percussion.

The song was written in the key of G, one which is aligned to the electric guitar, and there were three guitarists on the recording: Erwin played chords; McGee assisted with lead guitar flourishes; and the lead guitar part was written on the spot and played by session musician Louie Shelton on a Fender Telecaster and Fender Super Reverb amp. Shelton, then new to Los Angeles, was hired specifically by Boyce and Hart to participate in the NBC Monkees television project. Hart had drafted a lead middle riff to match his lyrics, but it was Shelton who created the lead-in section on the spot. Shelton become a mainstay on Monkees recordings, and became a highly sought-after session musician afterwards.[4][10]

B-side[]

The single's B-side, "Take a Giant Step", later appeared as the closing track on side 1 of their debut album.[11] Micky Dolenz performed lead vocals.[11]

The song is presented as a plea to a heartbroken girl to move on from her past romantic disappointments, and to "learn to live again at last", by "taking a giant step outside your mind". Critic Eric Lefcowitz describes the song as "proto-psychedelic."[12]

Reception[]

Of "Last Train to Clarksville", Billboard remarked that "all the excitement generated by the promotion campaign for the new group...is justified by this debut disk loaded with exciting teen dance beat sounds."[13]

Chart performance[]

Covers[]

  • Ed Bruce covered the song on a March 1967 single for RCA Records.
  • Four Tops covered the song on their album Reach Out, issued in July 1967.
  • Jerry Reed covered the song on his 1968 album Alabama Wild Man.
  • Bluegrass artists Jim & Jesse McReynolds recorded an instrumental version for their 1972 Hilltop Records album Mandolin Workshop.
  • A cover by Plastics appears on their 1979 album Welcome Plastics. A rerecorded version was released on a flexi-disc coupled with the 1981 album Welcome Back.
  • A cover by crossover metal band Ludichrist appears on their 1986 debut album, Immaculate Deception.
  • "Zadnji voz za Čačak" (trans. "Last train to Čačak") is a song by Serbian and former Yugoslav rock band Riblja Čorba, from their 1987 album Ujed za dušu.
  • A cover by Cassandra Wilson appears on her 1995 album New Moon Daughter.
  • In 1998, Dolenz sung a modified version of the song to promote the series finale of Seinfeld.[19]
  • On January 15, 2008, a cover of the song was made available as downloadable content for the music video game series Rock Band.
  • The January 2009 issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine lists the Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville" as fourth on its list of Rock Band's "Five Most Unexpectedly Rockin' Downloadable Songs".[20]
  • The 2016 reissue of Arjen Anthony Lucassen's 1996 covers album Strange Hobby includes a cover of the song.

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b The Monkees Greatest Hits Rhino Entertainment R2 75785 Liner notes
  2. ^ "KHJ's 'Boss 30' Records In Southern California! Issue No. 59 - Previewed August 17, 1966". August 17, 1966. Archived from the original on June 24, 2010. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
  3. ^ Ashley Brown, ed. (1990). Marshall Cavendish Illustrated History of Popular Music. Six (Reference ed.). Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 1-85435-021-8.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Last Train To Clarksville by The Monkees Songfacts".
  5. ^ Kotal, Kent. "The Music of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart". Forgotten hits. Retrieved February 5, 2015.
  6. ^ Brown, Craig (April 2, 2020). "Chapter 91". One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time (hardback ed.). 4th Estate. p. 363. ISBN 978-0-00-834000-1.
  7. ^ Smith, Chris (February 21, 2019). "Is 'Last Train to Clarksville' about Clarksville, Tennessee?". The Leaf-Chronicle. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
  8. ^ "After 50 Years, The Monkees Reveal The Surprising Truth Behind "Last Train To Clarksville"". Society of Rock. n.d. Songwriter Bobby Hart admits to sneaking in the controversial subject matter under the radar,
  9. ^ Sandoval, Andrew (2005). The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 1960s TV Pop Sensation. Thunder Bay Press. p. 46.
  10. ^ Arax, Mark; Feldman, Paul (June 24, 1988). "OBITUARIES : Backed Up Major Artists : Jesse Ed Davis, 43; Noted Rock Guitarist". The Los Angeles Times.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Planer, L. "Take a Giant Step". Allmusic. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  12. ^ Lefcowitz, E. (2011). Monkee Business. Retrofuture. pp. 43, 52. ISBN 9780943249018.
  13. ^ "Spotlight Singles" (PDF). Billboard. August 27, 1966. p. 16. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  14. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Last Train to Clarksville". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  15. ^ Flavour of New Zealand, 25 November 1966
  16. ^ "SA Charts 1965–March 1989". Retrieved September 5, 2018.
  17. ^ "Top 100 Hits of 1966/Top 100 Songs of 1966".
  18. ^ "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Archived from the original on August 12, 2016. Retrieved November 20, 2016.
  19. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NUs_vZre7o&feature=youtu.be
  20. ^ "Rock Band' Five Most Unexpectedly Rockin' Downloadable Songs", PlayStation: The Official Magazine (January 2009): 58.

External links[]

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