More of The Monkees Archives

Album: More of the Monkees
Year: 1966

Definitely the only song to ever have been covered by The Monkees and The Sex Pistols — though it woulda been fun to hear the Monkees take on “No Fun” or “Substitute” — the garage-y rave-up “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” was actually given by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart to proto-Monkees Paul Revere & The Raiders first.

But for some reason — probably because they were too busy churning out classics like “Just Like Me” and “Kicks” — The Raiders never released it as a single, so The Monkees recorded it, stuck it on the b-side of “I’m a Believer” and it became a hit on its own recognizance, making #20 on the U.S. charts and #1 in Canada, where the Monkees were even more popular than they were here in the States. Though not popular enough, I guess, for Rush to include any Monkees song on their all-1960s-covers album, Feedback.

Album: More of the Monkees
Year: 1966

Written by Neil Diamond — you know, the guy who wrote “Kentucky Woman” for Deep Purple and “Red Red Wine” for UB40 — the first thing I need to report about “I’m A Believer” was that it kept future Certain Song “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” from hitting #1 at the end of 1966, something which young Jim might have been pissed off about had he cared about anything but singing “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” over and over and over again.

That’s Diamond on the acoustic rhythm guitar — it’s a good performance, I wonder whatever happened to that dude? — probably his way of making sure that his song-for-hire was in the right hands.

More of The Monkees

Certain Songs #1192: The Monkees – “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”

Certain Songs #1191: The Monkees – “I’m A Believer”