“It’s about a guy going off to war. Frankly, it’s an anti-war song. It’s about a guy going to Clarksville, Tennessee, which is an army base if I’m not mistaken. He’s obviously been drafted and he says to his girlfriend, “I don’t know if I’m ever coming home”.”Micky Dolenz (824)

“I wrote “Randy Scouse Git” when we went to England on tour. The Beatles threw us a party at a very famous nightclub, and the Stones were there and all sorts of other people. The morning after I was sitting in my room with a guitar and I wrote the song stream-of-conscious. The “four kings of EMI” are the Beatles, of course. I was watching an English television show called Till Death Us Do Part, which became All In The Family over here years later. The father figure calls the young song a “randy scouse git.” I didn’t know what it meant, but in my frame of mind I just thought, “Whoa, that’s really cool, man. I’m gonna call my song that”.”Micky Dolenz (824)

“Then there’s the line, “What can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.” It doesn’t go right in your face, but when you think about it you figure it out. You’re like, “Okay, the guy is in a workaday world and he’s got his head in the clouds. His girlfriend was a homecoming queen, but they’re still scratching.” You don’t get all that until you think about it for a long time.”Peter Tork (824)

“The Monkees were playing live by this time, and the lyric to this was inspired by that. These were big concerts, like 20,000 people. It was just the three of us playing, me, Micky and Peter. Davy played tambourine or maracas. Every time we played an extraordinary thing happened. The performance turned us into something we weren’t offstage, which was the Monkees. Peter calls it the “fifth thing.” It was the audience. They were there to bring this thing into reality, to make actual what the television show had portrayed. It was really about them. The lyrics come from a post-concert realization of the reality that had just occurred, the Monkees coming to life as the audience. Maybe that’s a little metaphysical.”Mike Nesmith (824)

“I was writing about the great unknown source of all. It was perfect for the Head soundtrack.”Peter Tork (824)

“The lyrics are about television and the corporate man.”Peter Tork (824)

“It’s about fantasists. It’s sarcastic as all hell, really pretty nasty.”Peter Tork (824)

“I wrote “Admiral Mike” after reading an article about an admiral that had killed himself because the press had alleged that he had done something dishonorable, but there was no proof. It was never adjudicated. He wasn’t found guilty of any wrongdoing, but the press just excoriated him instead of being careful and neutral in their reporting. It made me angry and I just thought, “I need to write something about journalists needing to have some sense of responsibility to the truth.” It’s never more salient and relevant than it is right now.”Mike Nesmith (824)