Monkees – "Words" (1967)

Words with lies inside

But small enough to hide

Till your playin’ was through

I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with Brienne Walsh, who’s an old friend of 2 or 3 lines.

Those of you have been reading my wildly popular little blog for a long time know all about Brienne.  But if you’re relatively new to 2 or 3 lines, you may want to click here, and then click here, and then click here, and then click here.

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Brienne holds nothing back in her blog, A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  She is less guilty of self-censorship than any writer I know – including myself.  I leave a lot out of 2 or 3 lines because I worry about what others would think about me if I revealed more about myself, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Brienne.  She’s much braver than I am.

Brienne Walsh

Brienne’s honesty is not the only reason to read A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  Brienne is smart and thoughtful, and her writing is often very, very funny – but what sets her apart from anyone else I know is that honesty.  

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Brienne and I spoke last week because she is writing an article about online dating, and she wanted to interview me about my experiences on one particular dating website last year.  

When the article comes out, it will be interesting to see if she was able to use anything from our conversation.  (As is my wont, I subjected her to a tsunami of personal anecdotes, most of which were probably not germane to her writing assignment in the least.)

I seriously doubt that I will share her article with my friends and family.  As I noted above, I’m not as brave as Brienne is – I hold a lot back.

Maybe the real problem is that I do a lot of things that I have good reason to hold back.  If I cleaned my act up, maybe I’d feel less inhibited when it comes to revealing myself in my writing.

(Fat chance of that happening . . .) 

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Today’s featured song was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart – a great songwriting team best known for “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight,” one of the best truly great pop records of the sixties.

“Words” was originally recorded by the Leaves in 1966 and released on their Hey Joe album.  The Monkees covered it the next year.

The original Monkees recording of “Words” featured a number of session musicians – all that the Monkees contributed to that version were the vocals.

The group was allowed to play their instruments on a second recording of the song, which reached #11 on the Billboard “Hot 100” later that year.

I don’t know how I missed “Words,” which I don’t remember ever hearing until recently.  It is a GREAT record – unlike any other record of that era that I’m familiar with.

Click here to hear the first version of “Words,” which I prefer.

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.