Expert: James - 9/16/2008

Question
Do you think most of the songs that Mike Nesmith wrote from 1965-1975 were about his first wife? Also, I noticed that he uses the word "sun" a lot in his very romantic songs, do you think that is symbolic of someone?
Thanks!

Answer
Hi and thanks for the question.

The following are only my opinions.  I can't positively confirm any of this.  It's just my feeling.

I think that a couple of early songs might have been inspired by Phyllis, but from the reading I have done about Nez, I would probably doubt it.  Nez and Phyllis were never really happy in their marriage.  So I think the women in his early Monkees' songs (up to the time when Nez started writing his "poetry" songs like Tapioca Tundra and Daily Nightly) were mainly generic in nature.

As for the second question, I must be honest that I have never really noticed an overuse of the word "sun".  I know that songwriters sometimes get "hung up" on a word or phrase and seem to overuse it, especially in a short period of their creative career.  This is very visible in the Dave Clark / Mike Smith songs from the DC5.  However I have never noticed such a concentration with Nez's work.

Thanks again, and if you have a follow up question, please do not hesitate to write back.

Randall