It took 56 years to finally make the Monkees political

Chris Murphy has taken many courageous stands in his career, but this week the senator from Connecticut went unusually far out on a limb.

Murphy’s son turned 14. The senator honored that occasion by revisiting the hits of 1987, when he turned the same age. This set up one of this week’s two collisions between the music of the past and the politics of the present.

Murphy’s rueful conclusion was that Top 40 music was terrible that year, with the following exceptions:

“‘Walk Like an Egyptian ,’ ‘Shakedown,’ ‘The Way It Is,’ Wang Chung, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Beastie Boys.”

“Shakedown” is a pretty mediocre Bob Seger tune most notable for its appearance in “Beverly Hills Cop II.” I’ll give him everything else.

But Wang Chung? Wang Chung was a British band. None of them appeared to be Asian, which would be a problem today. Their most famous song was indeed on the charts in 1987, stalled at No. 2 behind “Walk Like an Egyptian” (see above) by the Bangles.

The song was “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” which contained the following repeated couplet:

“Everybody have fun tonight

Everybody Wang Chung tonight.”

Using one’s band name as a verb took a certain amount of nerve. “Everybody A Flock of Seagulls tonight.” “Everybody The Andrews Sisters tonight.” You see the risk here.

The band members took pains to point out that the name was derived from the first note of the Chinese classical music scale and that “Everybody Wang Chung tonight” was an implicit rejection of trickledown economics and the Laffer curve.

No, they did not claim that, but they did say it was meant to be “an escape from pragmatic, complex ideas,” to which I reply: we already had Reagan for that. ( Just kidding, Reaganauts.)

I would have said Wang Chung was terrible, but upon further reflection, there’s a kind of exalted stupidness to that song. You cannot hear it today without smiling. It has become a comedic reference point over the years, especially for Conan O’Brien who invited us to consider what would happen if humankind were to wang but not chung.

Also, I had forgotten the same band did “Dance Hall Days,” which is a passable tune. In 2020, Wang Chung re-recorded its biggest hit as “Everybody Stay Safe Tonight,” to reflect the era of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter.

Chris Murphy, you changed my position on Wang Chung. It may or may not have been the smartest thing to do in the same week you wrote a piece in The Economist calling for a stronger position against China vis a vis Taiwan. Time will tell.

I said there were two stories of this type from the past week.

The other one is that George Michael Dolenz, Jr., better known as Micky, is suing the FBI, seeking records pertaining to bureau’s investigation of the Monkees.

Cards on the table. I am a big Monkees fan. Years ago, I even went around trying to wear a knit hat the way they did. What can I say? I was 47 and going through some stuff.

Peter Tork spent a full hour with me in my radio studio in 2013. (I barely trusted myself to speak.) Last February, I did another full episode about the Monkees which featured newsman Brian Williams, a Monkees fan who became friends with Michael Nesmith in the latter’s later years.

At the moment, I’m annoyed and offended by the way MS Word red-underlines “Monkees,” as if it were a misspelling. I will be sending a strongly worded letter to Bill Gates.

Micky Dolenz is now the only living Monkee. His complaint argues that he is sort of a “representative of the news media.” (He’s a little bit me, in other words.)

The complaint also notes that the FBI investigated and monitored John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. It points out that there is also a semi-public seven-page FBI Monkees document, which is so heavily redacted as to show us nothing.

The complaint does not allege that J. Edgar Hoover frequently referred to Davy Jones as “really cute,” but I’m going to go ahead as a representative of the news media and allege that on my own.

I never thought of the Monkees as political, although it turns out that “Last Train to Clarksville” is about a soldier leaving for war. (“And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.”)

I thought of the Monkees more in terms of being the Wang Chung of their time, you might say. I hate to see them dragged into the poisonous atmosphere of 2022 politics. What if there’s stuff about them in those Mar-a-Lago boxes?

If there is, don’t make it a campaign issue. They’re not your stepping stone.

AP “The Monkees,” in 1966. Clockwise from top left: Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones.