The Monkees vs. The Beatles: How The Monkees Made Their Own Version of ‘A Day in the Life’
The Beatles‘ “A Day in the Life” is the band’s magnum opus because of the way it combines multiple genres and tones to create a miniature symphony. Interestingly, The Monkees released a song with a lot of the same elements. A member of the Prefab Four revealed that the tune was inspired by one of his interactions with the Fab Four.
What is going on in The Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’?
The reason why “A Day in the Life” is so great is that, initially, the different parts of the song feel like non-sequiturs. What do the lyrics about a death in a car crash, going to the movies, and combing your hair have in common? Nothing. The tune is held together by some discordant cacophonies that say more than any words could. The reason why the song switches back and forth between sounding cute and sounding terrifying is because we all have to ignore the horrors around us to experience a mundane day in the life.
The Monkees’ “Randy Scouse Git” has a lot of the same elements. It switches genres between vaudeville and experimental rock. It has an ominous ending. The lyrics seem disjointed. However, there’s a lot going on between the lines.
Parts of the tune are about The Monkees partying with Mama Cass and other stars, but the chorus seems to be about the Vietnam War and how it was justified as a pursuit of freedom. While The Beatles seemed to be critical of the way we ignore the terrors of this world to get through the day, The Monkees seemed to be commenting on the fact that celebrities are insulated from real problems. The Prefab Four had the guts to get self-critical.
How The Beatles inspired The Monkees’ ‘Randy Scouse Git’
During a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz revealed that partying with The Beatles inspired “Randy Scouse Git.” “With Headquarters, we wanted to do it all, and we did,” Dolenz said. “I wrote ‘Randy Scouse Git’ when we went to England on tour. The Beatles threw us a party at a very famous nightclub, and the Stones were there and all sorts of other people.
“The morning after, I was sitting in my room with a guitar, and I wrote the song stream-of-conscious,” he added. “The ‘four kings of EMI’ are The Beatles, of course. I was watching an English television show called Till Death Us Do Part, which became All in the Family over here years later. The father figure calls the young song a ‘randy scouse git.’ I didn’t know what it meant, but in my frame of mind I just thought, ‘Whoa, that’s really cool, man. I’m gonna call my song that.'”
The song inspired The Monkees’ best joke
It turned out that the phrase “randy scouse git” was highly offensive in England. “When I got back to the States, I heard the English record company wanted to release it as a single, but they wanted to change the title,” Dolenz recalled. “Randy scouse git” means “an oversexed, illegitimate son of a prostitute from Liverpool.” For that reason, the track had the name “Alternate Title” in the United Kingdom. That might be the funniest joke in The Monkees’ entire oeuvre.
“A Day in the Life” is The Beatles’ masterpiece — and “Randy Scouse Git” is The Monkees’.
