Last of the primates
you were chosen
Micky Dolenz
by the showbiz gods
the hitmakers
the movers and shakers
to play the drums
in a band
that didn’t really exist
and anyway
you didn’t play the drums,
or write songs
and they made sure
you were forbidden
to try
under contract;
but you were chosen
Micky Dolenz
to pretend
to be the drummer
in a pretend musical group
with pretend fans
LPs were made
(not by you)
and according to plans
millions were sold
Micky Dolenz
more in ‘67
(the summer of love)
than by the Fab Four
and Rolling Stones
combined*
everyone knew
and no one seemed to mind
you weren't real.
Tell me
Micky Dolenz
what it's like
to survive a pretend life
to hear pretend cheers
from pretend fans
to feel pretend love
in a pretend world
and to try
to make it real.
I need to know
Micky Dolenz
how it feels to be
the last one standing.
(*Mike Nesmith, who passed away this week, admitted that this was a lie that he spread on purpose to see how widely it would be reported in the media.)
2 comments:
"Last of the primates" ... LOL!!! Love it!
I am not so sure about the "pretend fans" part. Everything else may have been pretend, but I don't think the fans were pretend. That's the bizarre part. I think people really loved them, and still do!
Well, with ‘pretend fans’ I was thinking about on the tv show. There were episodes when they would play songs and there would be cheers, and it was all make believe. But yes there’s no doubt that there were millions of real fans of the Monkees. Except can you be a ‘real’ fan of a pretend band? What are you a fan of? That’s sort of the essence of the poem in a nutshell. The line between the real and artifice.
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