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Cover to Cover: The Monkees v Robert Wyatt - I'm a Believer

To mark the release of their seminal album Sgt Pepper 50 years ago here's a Monkees cover to cover

Listen to both versions without prejudice and say which you prefer and why.

No other versions matter and yes it was in Shrek.

Is it the 1966 Monkees pure pop version (the writer Neil Diamond did the original) or the 1974 rockier cover by Robert Wyatt produced by Pink Floyd's Nick Mason. Mason also played drums on the record and Andy Summers (later of the Police) played guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2MLlZKarM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ivg0cDBgo
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Comments

  • Love the pop version, very catchy.

    But from the first time I heard the cover by Robert Wyatt, I preferred this, more laconic, version.

    Seem to recall seeing this on TOTP.
  • Monkees for me

    The pop style just suits the song more
  • Neil Diamond first sang that song in the same beat as The Monkees, but in latter years (I cant remember which album), slowed it right down to a beautiful ballad.
  • Monkees for me, catchy and more upbeat, fits the lyrics better in my eyes
  • The Monkees.
  • With Richard Sinclair on bass, it has to be the Bobby Wyatt version. I saw him do this at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, when it came out in 1974, and his band were like a massive list of prog rock/jazz-fusion gods of the time. Even Mike Oldfield did a short guitar solo!
  • Greenie said:

    The Monkees.

    is that it? disappointing ; - )
  • The Robert Wyatt version feels like naff karaoke song .

    The easiest one yet - The Monkees.
  • Monkees for me

    The pop style just suits the song more

    seconded
  • Robert Wyatt has recorded some excellent tracks, shipbuilding for one. I could never understand what drove him to cover this. It sounds like a studio jam by the band.

    The Monkees were never more than a less talented American copy of The Beatles (Sorry for mentioning the 'B' word Heny). The Neil Diamond song, however, was given the perfect pop production and delivered by the nearly perfect plastic pop band.

    Unfortunately we've been dragged back to the same popidolxfactorthevoice manufactured for radio/download music that the Monkees epitomised in the 1960s.

    Rant over

    I have to choose, so I choose, reluctantly, the Monkees
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  • CHGCHG
    edited May 2017
    Both ordinary versions of a very ordinary song, Monkees by nose.
  • Robert Wyatt, born in Bristol, part of the Canterbury scene (my youth) and one of my favourite musical puns ever - Matching Mole.

    So it has to be - The Monkees. Sorry Mr Wyatt.
  • The Monkees for me, am a big fan of them. Had tickets to see them in 2002 but they cancelled the tour on the back of 9/11, I was gutted.
  • Robert Wyatt
  • The Monkees for me. Lucky enough to see them live three times, would have been four as also had tickets for 2002.
  • Monkees.
    The pace of the song with them is just right.
    I also think the vocals are better.
    I get that the Wyatt is coloured with semi prog rock motifs and such like, but this is a pretty classic and iconic song, and to be better than the Monkees version is going to take something more startling than Wyatt manages.
  • Can't choose between them.

    Loved the Monkees in my young days and also really in to Wyatt a few years after.

    Score draw.
  • To mark the release of their seminal album Sgt Pepper 50 years ago here's a Monkees cover to cover

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2MLlZKarM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ivg0cDBgo

    Can you explain the joke, the whoosh. I don't get it ?


    The Monkees 10 brilliant pop song.

    Robert Wyatt 0 and that's being generous, another dirge making Joy Division sound upbeat.
  • I like Robert Wyatt but his voice doesn't suit the song, so Monkees for me.
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  • edited May 2017

    The Monkees were the best selling band of 1967,outselling the Beatles and the Stones.

    Mickey Dolenz was in the studio when the Beatles recorded Sgt Pepper and many people now realise that it was he and the other Monkees who inspired the Beatles.

    They were also all very good musicians and could switch instruments ie Davey Jones played drums when Dolenz sang lead, Peter Tork was a keyboard player and guitarist.

    Unfortunately the Beatles myth means that the true 60s geniuses ie the Monkees are deliberately overlooked or run down. For instance John Lennon is given credit for his anti-war songs in the 1970s but the first Monkees single in 1966, Last Train to Clarksville, was an anti-Vietnam song.

    The Monkees also lead the way in many other ways. Mike Nesmith's country rock and they were also the first video band.

    Some old hippies will now try to run down the Monkees and stick up for the manufactured Beatles with their fake scouse accents (an attempt to copy Davey Jones northern accent) but real music fans know.

    Well played Henners.
  • edited May 2017
    Disposable song needs a disposable band to do it justice, so The Monkees.
  • Haters are gonna hate Henry

    image
  • The Monkees were the best selling band of 1967,outselling the Beatles and the Stones.

    Mickey Dolenz was in the studio when the Beatles recorded Sgt Pepper and many people now realise that it was he and the other Monkees who inspired the Beatles.

    They were also all very good musicians and could switch instruments ie Davey Jones played drums when Dolenz sang lead, Peter Tork was a keyboard player and guitarist.

    Unfortunately the Beatles myth means that the true 60s geniuses ie the Monkees are deliberately overlooked or run down. For instance John Lennon is given credit for his anti-war songs in the 1970s but the first Monkees single in 1966, Last Train to Clarksville, was an anti-Vietnam song.

    The Monkees also lead the way in many other ways. Mike Nesmith's country rock and they were also the first video band.

    Some old hippies will now try to run down the Monkees and stick up for the manufactured Beatles with their fake scouse accents (an attempt to copy Davey Jones northern accent) but real music fans know.

    Ha, I bet you had that typed & saved in eager anticipation of the first person querying the OP.

    Mind you, your response is about as clear as a politician on Question Time. :smiley:
  • edited May 2017
    I see Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote Last Train to Clarksville.

    Hart got the idea for the lyrics when he turned on the radio and heard the end of The Beatles "Paperback Writer." He thought Paul McCartney was singing "Take the last train," and decided to use the line when he found out McCartney was actually singing "Paperback Writer." Hart knew that The Monkees TV series was pitched as a music/comedy series in the spirit of The Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, so he knew emulating The Beatles would be a winner. To do that, he made sure to put a distinctive guitar riff in this song, and wrote in the "Oh No-No-No, Oh No-No-No" lyrics as a response to the Beatles famous "Yeah Yeah Yeah."

    http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2840

    One would be hard pressed to know Last Train to Clarksville was about a soldier going to Vietnam, even after reading these lyrics.

    http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/monkees/lasttraintoclarksville.html
  • edited May 2017
    While we're on the subject of trains, (shivery excited sigh) and last trains especially, then this is the only one worth discussing.
    Wicked little guitar solo, and a possible alternative song for the team to run out to if we ever ditched Red Red Robin :smile:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8DhjQOtzM
  • Monkees
  • The Monkees for me.

    I idolised them and went to see them at Wembley when I was about 10. At that age I was in love with Davy Jones.
  • As a Soft Machine nutter, it's got to be The Monkees. Would have loved to hear The Monkees perform The Moon in June!
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