‘The Monkees’ Didn’t Believe Mike Nesmith Wrote ‘Different Drum’
Although known well within his inner circle as a songwriter, The Monkees Mike Nesmith had yet to prove himself outside the band’s confines. However, one song gave him that chance. A hit for The Stone Poneys, “Different Drum,” was the first time Linda Ronstadt was featured as a lead singer. The song’s popularity caught Nesmith and his fellow bandmates by surprise. None of them believed he even wrote the tune.
‘Different Drum’ was a huge hit for The Stone Poneys in 1967
When Ronstadt was set to record “Different Drum” in 1967, the song was a ballad. However, it wasn’t originally written that way.
Nesmith told The Wall Street Journal that it was 1964 when he was a guitar player in folk and bluegrass bands when he first wrote the tune. “In 1965, I met John Herald of the Greenbriar Boys trio. We sat down and began sharing songs. John loved ‘Different Drum’ and slowed it down when he recorded it the following year for Vanguard Records.”
“I had been playing guitar in folk and bluegrass bands and wanted to sing solo. So I began writing songs. I wrote ‘Different Drum’ early one morning on the back porch of my San Fernando Valley apartment. The lyrics about a breakup came fast—but they had nothing to do with my personal life. I was newly married to a pregnant wife,” Nesmith shared.
“Whenever I wrote, I liked creating little ‘movies of the mind.’ I was thinking about two lovers—one of whom decides they love different things. In later years, comedian Whitney Brown referred to ‘Different Drum’ as the first ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ breakup song,” he concluded.
The Monkees didn’t believe Mike Nesmith wrote ‘Different Drum’
Nesmith admitted that his fellow Monkees bandmates Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones didn’t believe he penned the tune. He revealed he first heard Linda’s record on the radio in Philadelphia while riding in a limo with The Monkees.
“No one in the car believed I had written the song. Linda did more for that song than the Greenbriar Boys’ version,” he wrote.
“She infused it with a different level of passion and sensuality. Coming from a woman’s perspective instead of a guy, the song had a new context. You sensed Linda had personally experienced the lyrics—that she needed to be free.”
Ultimately, Linda Ronstadt wasn’t a fan of the finished recording
Ronstadt admitted to The Wall Street Journal she wasn’t a fan of the finished recording, eventually released in September 1967. “I was just thrown into it; I was completely confused. I didn’t have the lyrics in front of me—I sang them from memory,” she explained.
“Since I can’t read music, I didn’t have a lead sheet either. I knew I could remember the words, but I wasn’t sure how to phrase them with the new arrangement and faster tempo.”
“I’ll be honest—I was never happy with how I sounded. It took me 10 years to learn to sing before I had the skill and craft. Today I will break my finger trying to get that record off when it’s on. Art wasn’t meant to be frozen in time like that. Everyone hears something in that song—a breakup, the antiwar movement, women’s lib. I hear the fear and a lack of confidence on my part. It all happened so fast that day,” she concluded.
