Friday, November 28, 2025

The Monkees - Love Is Only Sleeping


One of the Monkees' finest album tracks ever, "Love Is Only Sleeping" was written by the great Brill Building songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. It's a testament to their craftsmanship that they were able to come up with a fabulous piece of pop psychedelia. A great descending guitar riff is the hook here, before moving into a series of minor-key melodic shifts. The rhythmic dynamics of the song -- complete with a folksy bridge -- are almost on a par with some of the Beatles' better efforts of the period, and that's saying something. One of Michael Nesmith's finest vocal performances and a trippy arrangement highlight the recording, again one of the band's greatest and most obscure.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/song/love-is-only-sleeping-mt0010609997#review