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The comments that Francis Schaeffer makes below on SHE’s LEAVING HOME could have been made about this Monkey song below. Wikipedia notes: Cowriter Carole King stated in her autobiography that after she and her husband Gerry Goffin had earned enough money from songwriting royalties, they moved from New York City to West Orange, New Jersey. Goffin disliked their suburban life and wrote lyrics to document the feeling that became “Pleasant Valley Sunday”.[7] The lyrics are a social commentary on status symbols, creature comforts, life in suburbia and “keeping up with the Joneses“.
The Monkees – “Pleasant Valley Sunday” – ORIGINAL VIDEO – HQ
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Pleasant Valley Sunday
“Pleasant Valley Sunday” is a song by the Monkees, released in 1967. It was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Inspired by a street named Pleasant Valley Way and their move to suburban West Orange, New Jersey, Goffin and King wrote the song about dissatisfaction with the life in the suburbs.[3]
| “Pleasant Valley Sunday” | |
|---|---|
| US single cover | |
| Single by the Monkees | |
| from the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. | |
| B-side | “Words“ |
| Released | July 1967 |
| Recorded | 10, 11 & 13 June 1967 |
| Studio | RCA Victor, Hollywood |
| Genre | Pop rock[1]psychedelic rock[2] |
| Length | 3:10 |
| Label | Colgems No. 1007 |
| Songwriter(s) | Gerry GoffinCarole King |
| Producer(s) | Chip Douglas |
| The Monkees singles chronology | |
| “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You” (1967)”Pleasant Valley Sunday” (1967)”Daydream Believer” (1967) | |
The Monkees’ version differs somewhat from Goffin and King’s demo, and their recording features a well-known guitar intro played by Michael Nesmithand a reverb ending.[4] Micky Dolenz sang the lead. It became one of the Monkees’ most successful singles, peaking at No. 3 and continuing their string of top 10 hits.[5] The song was included on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.[6]
WritingEdit
Cowriter Carole King stated in her autobiography that after she and her husband Gerry Goffin had earned enough money from songwriting royalties, they moved from New York City to West Orange, New Jersey. Goffin disliked their suburban life and wrote lyrics to document the feeling that became “Pleasant Valley Sunday”.[7] The lyrics are a social commentary on status symbols, creature comforts, life in suburbia and “keeping up with the Joneses“.
Many alternative interpretations exist regarding the lyrics. In the book SuburbiaNation, Robert Beuka described the lyrics as “a wry commentary on the materialistic and anesthetized sensibilities of the adult generation in suburbia…”[8] Brian Ward wrote in The 1960s: A Documentary Reader that the song was more associated with the New Left and the counterculture.[9] Michael Nesmith jokingly stated in a 1978 interview with Blitz magazine that the song was written about “a mental institution.”[10][11]Deanna D. Sellnow, author of The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture, commented that, despite so many definitions about the song’s meaning, its rhetorical message is actually “bleak.”[12]
RecordingEdit
King recorded a demo of “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, later included in the 2012 compilation album The Legendary Demos,[13] but the Monkees‘ version has a faster tempo and some alterations to the bridgelyrics (“Creature comfort goals/Can only numb my soul/I need a change of scenery/My thoughts all seem to stray/To places far away/I don’t ever want to see/Another Pleasant Valley Sunday….” was changed to “Creature comfort goals/They only numb my soul/And make it hard for me to see/My thoughts all seem to stray/To places far away/I need a change of scenery.”). The Monkees’ producer Chip Douglas, who was responsible for these changes, stated that King disapproved of them.[14]
“Pleasant Valley Sunday” was recorded during the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. sessions. The Monkees, who had been fighting to exert more control over their records, and who had recorded an album, Headquarters, on which more of the instruments were played by themselves, used more session musicians for the album tracks. The basic track for “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was recorded on June 10, 1967 with Michael Nesmith on electric guitar, Peter Tork on piano, Douglas on bass guitar and session musician Eddie Hoh on drums.[15] Micky Dolenz was present at the session and may have played acoustic guitar.[4] The next day, Nesmith overdubbed another electric guitar part, while Hoh recorded percussion (shaker and conga) overdubs and Bill Chadwick, a friend of the Monkees, performed a second acoustic guitar portion.[4] The Monkees (including Davy Jones) recorded their vocals, with the possible participation of Douglas, on June 13. Nesmith played another guitar part, while Hoh overdubbed more percussion. Dolenz sang lead, with Nesmith harmonizing.[4]
The distinctive guitar intro (and the main riff) was played by Nesmith on a black Gibson Les Paul guitar through three Vox Super Beatle amplifiers.[16]Douglas wrote the intro based on the riff of the Beatles‘ “I Want to Tell You.”[17]
For the song’s ending, Douglas and engineer Hank Cicalo tried to “keep pushing everything up,” increasingly adding reverberation and echo until the sound became unrecognizable before fading out.[6]Separate mono and stereo versions were mixed for single and album records.
Release and receptionEdit
Billboard described the single as a “strong, easy rocker” that is “excitingly performed.”[18] Cash Boxsaid that it’s “an up-tempo happy-flavored ditty celebrating summertime activities that are regarded as All-American and quaint.”[19] Tork praised the vocal performances of both Dolenz and Nesmith.[20]The single peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 and was repeatedly featured in the second season of their television series. The song also appeared on the fourth Monkees album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., in November 1967. While mono copies of the album included the same version heard on the single, stereo copies featured a version with a different take of the first verse and an additional backing vocal during the break. A different stereo mix, more closely replicating the single version, appeared on the 1991 Monkees box set Listen to the Band.
In February 1986, MTV aired a marathon of episodes of The Monkees titled Pleasant Valley Sunday, which sparked a second wave of interest in the band. Dolenz, Tork and Jones, already on tour, went from playing small venues to arenas and stadiums in the following weeks.
The B-side of the “Pleasant Valley Sunday” single, “Words“, was written by Boyce and Hart. On the Pisces album, the song is introduced by Tork’s brief spoken-word track “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky.”
PersonnelEdit
Credits from Andrew Sandoval.[4]
- Micky Dolenz – lead vocals, possible acoustic guitar
- Michael Nesmith – harmony vocals, electric guitar
- Peter Tork – piano, backing vocals
- Davy Jones – backing vocals
Session musicians and production staffEdit
- Bill Chadwick – acoustic guitar
- Chip Douglas – possible vocals, bass guitar, producer
- “Fast” Eddie Hoh – drums,[21] percussion
- Hank Cicalo – engineer
Chart performanceEdit
| Weekly chartsEditChart (1967)Peak positionAustralia Kent Music Report10Canada RPM1Germany18Ireland11New Zealand[22]2Norway4UK Singles Chart[23]11US Billboard Hot 100[24]3US Cash Box Top 1003 | Year-end chartsEditChart (1967)RankCanada24US Billboard Hot 100[25]74US Cash Box62 |
In popular cultureEdit
- Grand Funk Railroad‘s 1970 song “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)” opens with a guitar intro played by Mark Farner that borrows directly from “Pleasant Valley Sunday’s” guitar hook.
- The pop punk band The Mr. T Experience covered the song on their 1986 debut album Everybody’s Entitled to Their Own Opinion.
- The Wedding Present covered the song on their 1992 album Hit Parade 1.
- The Christian band Code of Ethics covered the song on their 1995 album Arms Around the World.
- Mark Mothersbaugh covered the song for the theme song of the 2002 TV series Hidden Hills.
- In the 2005 Gilmore Girls season 5 episode “To Live and Let Diorama”, the song is heard playing at the music store owned by Sophie Bloom (a character played by Carole King, who co-wrote the song).
- Neal Morse, lead singer of Transatlantic, and former lead singer of Spock’s Beard, covered the song on his 2006 album Cover to Cover.
- In the 2008 Family Guy season 6 episode “McStroke“, this song plays in the background during a classic hallway chase scene.
- Jazz singer Kurt Elling covered the song on his 2012 album 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project.
- The song is performed in Act II of the 2013 jukebox musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
References
Further reading
External links
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I have read over 40 autobiographies by ROCKERS and it seems to me that almost every one of those books can be reduced to 4 points. Once fame hit me then I became hooked on drugs. Next I became an alcoholic (or may have been hooked on both at same time). Thirdly, I chased the skirts and thought happiness would be found through more sex with more women. Finally, in my old age I have found being faithful to my wife and getting over addictions has led to happiness like I never knew before. (Almost every autobiography I have read from rockers has these points in it although Steven Tyler is still chasing the skirts!!). Paul was a playboy early on when with the Beatles but he settled down when he met Linda. Paul has not written an autobiography but I highly recommend the book PAUL MCCARTNEY: THE LIFE by Philip Norman.
_
August 13, 2022
Paul McCartney
Dear Paul,
I was so pumped up to attend your fine concert in Little Rock in 2016. I got a big kick out of taking my family to see Ringo at Orange Beach, Alabama on July 4th, 2012. It was a great show. In fact, I have been so focused on the Beatles in recent years that I have done over a year worth of weekly posts on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org ever Thursday entitled FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE and posts 49 to 101 have been about the Beatles with more to come. In fact, if you google the words FRANCIS SCHAEFFER BEATLES you the first 10 items that pop up will be links to my blog posts on Thursdays about the Beatles and what Francis Schaeffer had to say about them.
Let me give you a taste of post #67 FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 64 THE BEATLES (Part P The Meaning of Stg. Pepper’s song SHE’S LEAVING HOME according to Schaeffer!!!!) (Featured artist Stuart Sutcliffe)
Melanie Coe ran away from home in 1967 when she was 15. Paul McCartney read about her in the papers and wrote ‘She’s Leaving Home’ for Sgt.Pepper’s. Melanie didn’t know Paul’s song was about her, but actually, the two did meet earlier, when Paul was the judge and Melanie a contestant in Ready Steady Go!
The subtitles are produced live for The One Show, so some seconds late and with a few mistakes.
Melanie at 17 in the picture that made the front pages in 1967 and inspired the Beatles.
Melanie’s first moment of fame, receiving a prize from Paul McCartney for miming to Brenda Lee on Ready Steady Go! in 1963
Melanie in 2008
She’s Leaving Home
The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper’s
Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her hankerchief
Quietly turing the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacraficed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby’s gone.
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.
She (We never though of ourselves)
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.
She What did we do that was wrong
Is having We didn’t know it was wrong
Fun Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, Bye
She’s leaving home bye bye
Why is she leaving home? Francis Schaeffer noted on pages 15-17 in volume 4 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FRANCIS SCHAEFFER from the original book “The Church at the end of the 20th Century” the reason she left and it was because of the bankruptcy of the materialistic views of her parents. Schaeffer points that for many years there was one message that the media was promoting and that was since we now believe in the “UNIFORMITY OF NATURAL CAUSES IN A CLOSED SYSTEM we are left with only the impersonal plus time plus chance.” Schaeffer continued:What is taught is that there is no final truth, no meaning, no absolutes, that it is only that we have not found truth and meaning, but that they do not exist. The student and the common man may not be able to analyze it, but day after day, day after day, they are being battered by this concept. We have now had several generations exposed to this and we must not be blind to the fact that it is being excepted increasingly.In contrast, this way of thinking has not had as much influence on the middle class. Many of these keep thinking in the old way as a memory of the time before the Christian base was lost in this post-Christian world. However, the majority in the middle-class have no real basis for their values since so many have given up the Christian viewpoint. They just function on the “memory.” This is why so many young people have felt that the middle class is ugly. They feel middle-class people are plastic, ugly and plastic because they try to tell others what to do on the basis of their own values but with no ground for those values.They have no base and they have no clear categories for their choices of right and wrong. Their choices tend to turn on what is for their material benefit. Take for example the fact faculty members who cheered when the student revolt struck against the administration and who immediately began to howl when the students started to burn up faculty manuscripts. They have no categories to say this is right and that is wrong. Many such people still hang on to their old values by memory but they have no base for them at all. A few years ago John Gardner head of the urban coalition spoke in Washington to a group of student leaders. His topic was on restoring values in our culture. When he finished there was a dead silence then finally one man from Harvard stood up and in a moment of brilliance asked, “Sir upon what base do you build your values?” I have never felt more sorry for anybody in my life. He simply looked down and said, “I do not know.” I had spoken that same day about what I was writing in the first part of this book. It was almost too good an illustration of my lecture. Here was a man appealing to the young people for a return to values but he is offering nothing to build on. man who was trying to tell his hearers not to drop out and yet giving no reason why they should not. Functioning only on a dim memory, these are the parents who have turned off their children when their children ask why and how. When their children crying out, “Yours is a plastic culture.” They are silent. We had the response so beautifully stated in the 1960s in the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s song “She is leaving home.” “We gave her everything money could buy.” This is the only answer many parents can give.They are bothered about what they read in the newspapers concerning the way the country and the culture are going. When they read of the pornographic plays, see pornographic films on TV, they are distressed. They have a vague unhappiness about it, feel threatened by all of it and yet have no base upon which to found their judgments. And tragically such people are everywhere. They constitute the largest body in our culture-northern Europe, Britain, and also in America and other countries as well. They are a majority-what is called for a time the “silent majority”–but they are weak as water. They are people who like the old ways because they are pleasant memories, because they give what to them is a comfortable way to live but they have no basis for their values. Education for example is excepted and pressed upon their children as the only thinkable thing to pursue. Success is starting the child at the earliest possible age and then within the least possible years he is obtaining a Masters or PhD degree. Yet if the child asks why?, the only answers are first because it gives social status and then because statistics show that if you have a university or college education you will make more money. There is no base for real values are even the why of a real education. ________ When you think about the song SHE’S LEAVING HOME, you must come to the conclusion that the Beatles knew exactly what was going through the young person’s mind in the 1960’s. No wonder in the video THE AGE OF NON-REASON (which is on You Tube under the title HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? EPISODE 7) Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.”
Billy Graham had a similar message to the young people in 1969 that they like the girl in SHE’S LEAVING HOME was right to Re just her parents materialism!!!
Billy Graham, hippies, and the rock concert
Posted on March 5, 2018 by Steve-O
The 1969 Miami Rock Music Festival featured the Grateful Dead, Santana, Canned Heat, Johnny Winter, Vanilla Fudge and, interestingly enough, Billy Graham.
What follows is Billy Graham’s description of his countercultural gospel message at the Miami Rock Music Festival found in his autobiography Just As I Am.
It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning, but I was most definitely not in church. Instead, to the horror of some, I was attending the 1969 Miami Rock Music Festival.
America in 1969 was in the midst of cataclysmic social upheaval. Stories of violent student protests against the Vietnam War filled the media. Images from the huge Woodstock music festival that took place just six months before the Miami event near Bethel, New York – for many a striking symbol of the anti-establishment feelings of a whole generation of rebellious youth – were still firmly etched in the public’s memory.
Concert promoter Norman Johnson perhaps hoped my presence would neutralize at least some of the fierce opposition he had encountered from Miami officials. Whatever his reasons, I was delighted for the opportunity to speak from the concert stage to young people who probably would have felt uncomfortable in the average church, and yet whose searching questions about life and sharp protests against society’s values echoed from almost every song.
“I gladly accept your kind invitation to speak to those attending the Miami Rock Festival on Sunday morning, December 28,” I wired him the day before Christmas. “They are the most exciting and challenging generation in American history.”
As I stepped onto the platform that Sunday morning, several thousand young people were lolling on the straw-covered ground or wandering around the concert site in the warm December sun, waiting for such groups as the Grateful Dead and Santana to make their appearance. A few were sleeping; the nonstop music had quit around four that morning.
In order to get a feel for the event, for a few hours the night before I put on a simple disguise and slipped into the crowd. My heart went out to them. Though I was thankful for their youthful exuberance, I was burdened by their spiritual searching and emptiness.
A bearded youth who had come all the way from California for the event recognized me. “Do me a favor,” he said to me with a smile, “and say a prayer to thank God for good friends and good weed.” Every evening at sunset, he confided to me, he got high on marijuana and other drugs.
“You can also get high on Jesus,” I replied.
That Sunday morning, I came prepared to be shouted down, but instead I was greeted with scattered applause. Most listened politely as I spoke. I told the young people that I had been listening carefully to the message of their music. We reject your materialism, it seemed to proclaim, and we want something of the soul. Jesus was a nonconformist, I reminded them, and He could fill their souls and give them meaning and purpose in life. “Tune in to God today, and let Him give you faith. Turn on to His power.”
Afterward two dozen responded by visiting a tent on the grounds set up by a local church as a means of outreach. During the whole weekend, the pastor wrote me later, 350 young people made commitments to Christ, and two thousand New Testaments were distributed.
As I have reflected on my own calling as an evangelist, I frequently recall the words of Christianity’s greatest evangelist, the Apostle Paul: “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known … ” (Romans 15:20). … I once told an interviewer that I would be glad to preach in Hell itself-if the Devil would let me out again!
Excerpted from Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham (Harper Collins 1997).
Actually the answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
______________
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