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The Lie That Led To A Hit Song: “Valleri” by The Monkees
My continuing series of “songs that matter”
Written against the clock, recorded twice, and featuring a session guitarist who was clearly not a Monkee, this was the band’s last song to benefit from the massive exposure of a prime-time hit television show. Boyce and Hart wrote it, the same team who wrote “I Want To Be Free,” “(Theme From) The Monkees,” and “Last Train To Clarksville.”
Let’s take a closer look at “Valleri” by The Monkees.
At 10:00 a.m., Monkees music supervisor Don Kirshner called Tommy Boyce and told him he wanted the next Monkees single to be a girl’s name. The songwriter lied, telling Kirshner he and his songwriting partner, Bobby Hart, had just written a song for Davy Jones to sing the night before, and it was a girl’s name. Kirshner asked if they could be at his Beverly Hills Hotel room at 12:30 to play it for him. Boyce called his songwriting partner to discover he had been up until 5:00 a.m. Hart asked Boyce to bring a cup of tea, confident they would come up with something. With the clock ticking, Boyce pressed Hart for a girl’s name. He recalled a girl who broke his heart when he was fourteen.
When Boyce asked her name, Hart replied: “Her name is Valleri.”
