Colgems 104
Producer: Chip Douglas
Track listing: Salesman / She Hangs Out / The Door into Summer / Love Is Only Sleeping / Cuddly Toy / Words to Believe / Peter Percival / Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky / Pleasant Valley Sunday / Daily Nightly / Don’t Call on Me / Star Collector
December 2, 1967
5 weeks
By the summer of 1967, the Monkees had gone full circle. “After we gained the creative control from the powers that be, we decided that rather than continue to record as a group as we had on Headquarters, we all wanted to become independent,” recalls Micky Dolenz. “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. was the beginning of that, with each of us performing and singing on our own tracks.”
With the individual band members taking charge of specific tracks, more outside players were once again called in, including synthesizer player Paul Beaver. “We had the first Moog synthesizer on the West Coast,” says Dolenz, who also dabbled with the Moog. In keeping with the times, the use of the synthesizer on “Daily Nightly” and “Star Collector” helped make Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. the Monkees’ most psychedelic to date. Dolenz had mastered the instrument enough to play on Mike Nesmith’s “Daily Nightly,” but for the more complex parts on the Carole King-Gerry Goffin track “Star Collector,” Beaver was brought in.
“I got pretty good at playing it eventually,” says Dolenz. “I had it set up in my little studio at my house. One night John Lennon sat on the thing for five hours making flying saucer sounds.”
The Monkees were also pushing the limits of TV by slipping messages into the TV show and their music. Just as “Last Train to Clarksville” from The Monkees had a subtle anti-war message, “Salesman,” written by Nesmith’s friend Craig Vincent Smith, had a sly reference in it, which made NBC executives uneasy. “We were censored a lot, because we were under the massive corporate banner of NBC and since we had the TV show, there was a lot about influencing the young,” Donlenz says.
“Pleasant Valley Sunday,” written by Goffin and King, was recorded while the group was in Los Angeles to headline two nights at the Hollywood Bowl on June 9 and 10, 1967. “That was one of the best tunes we ever did and one of the best tunes that Carole King ever wrote,” says Dolenz, who sang lead vocals on the track. “It’s a real classic.” The single climbed to number three in August, setting the stage for Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.
The album’s title, conceived by Dolenz, referred to the band’s Zodiac signs. Davy Jones and Nesmith were born on December 30, 1945 and 1943, respectively, making them both Capricorns, so the former’s surname was used to complete the album’s title.
On November 25, 1967, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd entered the Top LP’s chart at number 29. A week later it became the fourth and final Monkees album to ride atop the album chart. Its five-week run at the top was ended by Magical Mystery Tour, as the Beatles knocked their American counterparts from Number One for the second consecutive time. But for the two-year span between 1966 and 1967, the Monkees spent 37 at the top of the album chart, beating the Beatles’ 27.
The 59th and final original episode of The Monkees aired on August 19, 1968. By that time the Monkees had evolved from a TV show cast into one most successful rock acts of their day.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 2, 1967
1. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., The Monkees
2. Greatest Hits, Diana Ross and the Supremes
3. Strange Days, The Doors
4. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
5. The Doors, The Doors