Head

I imagine most young teenagers of the late 1960s—the ones too young to appreciate Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the ones who really dug the zany, Marx Brothers-style comedy of the two seasons of The Monkees—probably were confused out of their mind after watching Head, the 1968 counterculture cult film co-written by Jack Nicholson.

Head is probably the strangest movie I have ever seen. And it's not just strange—it's bad. It would have been bad for the young fans of the Monkees, it would have been bad (or good, I suppose) for music lovers who readily dismissed the group as frauds who couldn't play instruments. It would have been bad for older folks who were utterly confused by young Baby Boomers and their values. And it would have been bad for Baby Boomers who had no idea how to articulate what they stood for.

It's not uncommon for a reviewer to transition at about this point in the review to the plot of the movie. Three paragraphs in—surely that would make sense to do so at least now. That would be pointless here, for I have no idea what the plot is. I know that the movie starts on a bridge and the Prefab Four—Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Michael Nesmith—madly race by. Then we go to a war scene, because remember, this was the 60s. Then they're in the desert. It actually hurts a little trying to remember all the arbitrary scenes. They don't amount to anything. Supposedly, the four and the writers were high at the genesis of creating the story, but no amount of LSD would give any meaning to Head. Why is it called Head? Is it naughty? Philosophical? I have no idea. Maybe "that's the point." How hackneyed.

There are a variety of cameos—Terri Garr, Nicholson, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston, to name a few–but none of them do anything to make the film any more enjoyable. Instead, the movie almost immediately becomes an exercise in trying to sustain oneself until the next song, most of which are pretty good. Chief among them is "Circle Sky," written by Nesmith, and his second best overall after "Listen to the Band." The four of them, in maybe one of the few scenes that tries to make an iota of sense, rush to the stage dressed uniformly in white, and Nesmith begins belting out the lyrics. One gets a good sense of Monkeemania through this scene, as it was filmed as a live concert. The second best song is probably "Porpoise Song," one of the several Gerry Goffin and Carole King compositions for the group during their run. (King and Toni Stern also contribute the lovely "As We Go Along" to the album.) But the next best musical scene is Jones' "Daddy Song," written by Harry Nilsson (another writer of Monkees music). Jones channels his theater experience in a high-energy dance with crisp choreography as the camera consistently switches between him in his black suit and him in his white suit.

As you can see, while the movie itself might be a bit of a mess, what gives it any bit of goodness is its soundtrack, one of the group's best, an album that is so appreciated that it was ranked 25 in Rolling Stone's greatest soundtracks of all time list. But the album is roughly half-an-hour long, leaving about another hour of the film to suffer through.

Nicholson and co-writer and director Bob Rafelson (one of the creators of the show) had better success with movies like Five Easy Pieces two years later. But for many, Head was the end of the Monkees, "career suicide" as some have called it. But as Nesmith explained, by that point the Monkees were a pariah, and the film, according to him, was a "swan song." The group soon broke up, going on to varying degrees of success. Jones, for example, was the big heart throb of the group, but other than appearing on a famous episode of The Brady Bunch, his solo career never really took off. Nesmith arguably had the greatest success: executive producing Repo Man, winning a Grammy for "Elephant Parts," being instrumental in the creation of MTV, inheriting his mother's huge fortune from inventing Liquid Paper.

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For the band as a whole, though, reruns in the 1980s brought the group to new fame with new fans. They occasionally reunited and they released an album in the 80s and another in the 90s, neither of which were much good. Fortunately, though, this year the band turned 50 years old, and they recently released an album called "Good Times!" that is their best in decades. Featuring songs by their old collaborators Neil Diamond, Nilsson, Goffin and King, and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, it also includes songs by younger musicians who grew up on the Monkees, like Rivers Cuomo and Ben Gibbard. It's really a treat to listen to. The album is appropriately named; many likely think of the good times they have had listening to the Monkees over the years. Watching Head, though, probably isn't one of them.


The Best Monkees Songs, According to Me

50. The Monkees (Theme Song)
49. This Just Doesn't Seem to Be Day
48. Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day
47. Your Auntie Grizelda
46. It's Nice to Be With You
45. Love to Love
44. Salesman
43. Good Times
42. A Man Without a Dream
41. All of Your Toys
40. Me and Magdalena
39. Mommy and Daddy
38. Someday Man
37. Tear Drop City
36. The Kind of Girl I Could Love
35. Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again
34. Daddy's Song
33. As We Go Along
32. I'll Be Back Up On My Feet
31. Star Collector
30. P.O. Box 9847
29. D.W. Washburne
28. She Hangs Out
27. Daily Nightly
26. Take a Giant Step
25. Goin' Downy
24. No Time
23. Mary, Mary
22. You Told Me
21. Porpoise Song
20. Tapioca Tundra
19. What Am I Doing Hangin' Round?
18. You May Just Be the One
17. Cuddly Toy
16. She Makes Me Laugh
15. Circle Sky
14. Words
13. Papa Gene's Blues
12. Pleasant Valley Sunday
11. Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
10. Listen to the Band
9. Randy Scouse Git
8. Saturday's Child
7. She
6. Valleri
5. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
4. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone
3. Daydream Believer
2. Last Train to Clarksville
1. I'm a Believer

Honorable Mention: Sweet Young Thing