I was a child during the Monkee's revival of the 1980s. I watched the reruns on TV and bought the reissue of their albums. It was a great time. When I was contestant on "Star Search", "I'm a Believer" was the song I sang. But it was another one of their songs that touched me even more.
I remember asking my mom to write down the words to "Daydream Believer", and God bless her, she tried. The words still don't make sense to me, but what a great recording. The piano, the chords, the sound of Davy's voice -it shaped me musically more than I realized. Davy Jones was the Monkee I admired the most. He was the short, cute guy all the girls liked. Amazingly, I had an encounter with him at the most unlikely of places.
When I was 18, years after I discovered the Monkees and "Star Search", my father died and I was forced to go to work full-time. It was the best and worst thing that could've happened to me. I was scared to death because the life I'd known had ended. I was toiling at a retail job in a dead-end shopping plaza. I was only a few miles away from Nashville's Music-Row and the excitement of the music business, but it might as well have been a world away. Then suddenly, in this obscure place, Davy Jones walks in.
He was kind and friendly with everyone. The girls in the shop still swooned over him. He asked me about an item (we didn't have it). He was not there long, but strangely enough, it gave me some hope for the future. If in this low place in my life, I could brush with greatness and excitement, I still had things to look forward to.
Davy Jones has passed on now. I never saw him again. Today when the surviving Monkees play, they have a recording of Davy singing "Daydream Believer", and the crowd sings along. It's a fitting tribute to a man that brought some joy to this world. He certainly gave me lift when I needed it and I have never forgotten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvqeSJlgaNk
