Different drum

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Different Drum is a song written in 1965 by Mike Nesmith (later known as a member of The Monkees ) . Particularly well-known is the interpretation by Linda Ronstadt , then singer of the folk band The Stone Poneys , who reached 13th place on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 ; since then the piece has appeared in a large number of cover versions .

To the text

The title of the song refers to a well-known quote from Henry David Thoreau's book Walden (1854):

" If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. "

“If one doesn't keep up with the others, it's because he's listening to another drummer. Everyone directs his steps to the music he hears, no matter how measured and quiet it may sound. "

The self-confident non - conformism that becomes clear in sentences like these made Walden a “ cult book ” of youth and counterculture, especially in the 1960s . In Nesmith's verses, the metaphor of the “other drummer” stands less for the assertion of his individuality in society than in an intimate love relationship. Different Drum is therefore the opposite of a love song - the singer explains to his admirer that he is very attached to his freedom and is therefore unwilling to enter into a stable relationship with her ; in the end he assures her that both of them will surely have a longer life if they went their separate ways.

Recordings

The first recording of the piece appeared in 1966 on the album Better Late Than Never by the bluegrass band The Greenbriar Boys , sung by John Herald, accompanied on the mandolin by Frank Wakefield . Herald became aware of the song in 1965 when the then unknown Nesmith performed it at the Ash Grove folk club in Los Angeles. Soon after, Nesmith was hired for the casting band The Monkees , which had great success over the next few years with their comedy television series of the same name. In the episode Too Many Girls , first broadcast on December 19, 1966, Nesmith also briefly intoned the song herself, but in a deliberately ridiculous and tangled version. It was not until 1972 that Nesmith played his own recording of his composition for his solo album And the Hits Just Keep on Comin ' .

Also in 1966 the folk band Stone Poneys played the song for their second album Evergreen, Volume 2 , which, like its predecessor, remained commercially unsuccessful, so that the band broke up the following year. Different Drum , redesigned by producer Nick Venet into a ballad with a violin arrangement, was, contrary to expectations, a hit as the last single release, so that the band then reformed for a short time. In the following years the song was part of the standard repertoire of singer Linda Ronstadt , who developed into one of the most successful folk and country singers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Since then the song has been covered many times, for example by The Lemonheads ( Favorite Spanish Dishes , 1990), The Pastels (1990), PP Arnold (1998), Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet ( Under the Covers, Vol. 1 , 2006) and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes ( Blow in the Wind , 2009).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On Thoreau's influence on American musicians, see for example: Walter Harding: A Bibliography of Thoreau in Music . In: Studies in the American Renaissance , pp. 291-315.
  2. ^ Richie Unterberger: Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock . Backbeat Books 2003. (Chapter 3 online at richieunterberger.com)