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" Valleri" is a song written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart for the Monkees. The single peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent two weeks at #1 on the Cash Box chart in early 1968, and reached #1 in Canada and #12 in the UK.
The original recording included instrumental backing by the Candy Store Prophets. Wrecking Crew session musician Louie Shelton contributed a flamenco-style guitar solo consisting of and . The song was featured in the television show's first season in 1967; a staged performance showed Michael Nesmith apparently picking Shelton's guitar solo via cuts between Nesmith with his hands obscured and close-ups of hands playing the solo.Frawley, James (Director). The Monkees, "Captain Crocodile" (Season 1, Episode 23), 20 February 1967. While the first version of "Valleri" went unreleased, a few off-air recordings received radio airplay when some DJs recorded the song from the television and later surfaced on bootleg recordings.
By late 1967, Colgems was looking for a follow up single to Daydream Believer. Lester Sill reportedly told Bobby Hart, "We all know that ‘Valleri’ is a smash, and I need a hit single bad." According to Hart, the original 1966 track could not be used because union contracts had already been filed with Boyce and Hart listed as producers, and the Monkees' contracts stipulated that all future recordings would show "Produced by the Monkees" on the label. Boyce and Hart were approached about coming back to produce a new version of the track. Hart said: "
When Sill heard the track, he felt it that needed something more, and had a brass section overdubbed on December 28. The remade "Valleri" was released on February 17, 1968. In the United States, the song reached #3 on the Billboard charts Billboard charts and #1 on the Cash Box singles chart. The single was the band's last American Top Ten hit, their last to receive a push from their television series, and their last to be certified gold. The song was featured on the band's fifth album, The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, released in April 1968. The follow-up single, "D. W. Washburn," was not featured on the show, and only reached #19 on the pop charts.
The song consists mainly of four chords (F major, E major, A major and C major), and the bridge introduces some harmonic variety (from F major to D minor, twice).
Single and LP releases of the second version, as well versions appearing on subsequent packages, feature a fadeout ending. The cold-ending version (heard in one episode of the television series and credited as "Valerie") was first released on Arista Records's Then & Now... The Best of the Monkees compilation in 1986. Subsequent hits packages and reissues of the single on the Flashback label also feature the longer version. Early examples of the Flashback single release have the fadeout ending.
The song "Barmy" by the Fall from the 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace includes a riff based on "Valleri."
The Monkees
Additional musicians
| ARIA Charts | 4 |
| Austria | 20 |
| Canada | 1 |
| Finland ( Suomen Virallinen) | 38 |
| Germany | 11 |
| Ireland | 8 |
| Japan | 4 |
| Netherlands | 12 |
| Norway | 9 |
| New Zealand | 4 |
| South Africa (Springbok Radio) | 15 |
| UK | 12 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 3 |
| U.S. Cash Box Top 100 | 1 |
| Canada | 89 |
| U.S. (Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual) Joel Whitburn (1999). 089820142X, Record Research Inc.. 089820142X | 35 |
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