Usually, The Monkees‘ songs were used in certain scenes on the group’s tv present. For instance, an early Prefab 4 track was meant for a scene that depicted The Monkees’ Davy Jones unhappy on a seashore. Notably, the observe appeared on the album The Monkees, which grew to become a world smash.
The identical two songwriters wrote a number of hit songs by the Prefab 4
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote songs collectively beneath the identify Boyce & Hart. They wrote Monkees songs resembling “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Valleri,” and “Words.” In his 2015 guide (*1*), Hart recalled studying that the Prefab 4 could be the “American Beatles on television.”
“The concept struck a chord with us right away, and when we learned that the music used in the show would also be released on records, Tommy lead the verbal whirlwind to convince [television producer Bert] Schneider that we were his guys,” Hart recalled. “Tommy and I were excited about the sales potential of combining phonograph records with weekly television.”
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Boyce & Hart instantly felt 1 of their songs would work for a scene starring The Monkees’ Davy Jones
Schneider gave Boyce & Hart some necessities. “Bert told us that the pilot episode would require three original songs, a romantic ballad, a dance number called ‘The Chase,’ and a theme song called ‘The Monkees’ that would open and close every show,” Hart wrote. “The next few days were spent enthusiastically planning and coming up with material for our latest assignment.”
Boyce & Hart determined a track they already wrote would work for the present. “We immediately thought of a song we had recently written called ‘I Wanna Be Free,’ perfect for the Davy Jones walking-along-the-beach-after-breaking-with-his-girlfriend friend scene,” Hart recalled. “Then we quickly came up with a song you could dance to for the party scene.”
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How The Monkees’ ‘I Wanna Be Free’ carried out on the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
The Monkees by no means launched “I Wanna Be Free” as a single in the United States, so it didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The observe appeared on the group’s self-titled album. The album topped the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks, staying on the chart for 102 weeks in complete. None of the group’s different albums stayed longer on the chart, though Extra of the Monkees spent longer at No. 1.
The Official Charts Company experiences “I Wanna Be Free” didn’t chart in the United Kingdom both. In the meantime, The Monkees grew to become widespread in the U.Okay. The album hit No. 1 for seven weeks, staying on the chart for 37 weeks altogether.
Boyce & Hart didn’t write “I Wanna Be Free” for the Prefab 4 — however the group introduced the track to the plenty.
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