'Daydream Believer': The Real Story Behind The Monkees Song Featured in 'WandaVision'
01/22/2021 11:43 pm EST
Stewart recorded his own version in 1971. The song also became a hit for country singer Anne Murray in December 1979. Her version topped the Adult Contemporary chart, reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chat and third place on Billboard's country chart. Murray sang "happy" instead of "funky," too. It will "always be 'happy,'" Stewart said in 1991.
Although Stewart wrote hundreds of songs during his life, "Daydream Believer" became the best known. "I lived off the song totally for more than a year. And then Anne Murray recorded it and it came up again. It was just a song I wrote in a few minutes," Stewart said in 1991. "I've written other songs like 'Runaway Train' just as fast."
The Monkees' version has been included on just about every Monkees greatest hits album, although it first appeared on The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees. The album version opens with funny banter between Jones, who died in 2012, and producer Chip Douglas, who yells the take number at the singer. "Okay, I don't mean to get you excited, man," Jones replied. "It's 'cause I'm short, I know." "You can tell from the vocal that I was pissed off," Jones later wrote in the Monkees' biography.
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