“It’s about a guy going off to war. Frankly, it’s an anti-war song. It’s about a guy going to Clarksville, Tennessee, which is an army base if I’m not mistaken. He’s obviously been drafted and he says to his girlfriend, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever coming home.’ Considering that it was a Monkees song and the first one, I was always surprised that the record company even released it unless it just went right over their head.“ – Micky Dolenz talking to Rolling Stone about The Monkees first number one hit “Last Train to Clarksville”

Sometimes summer just goes by so quickly – and this year is no exception.

I haven’t been posting much lately so I thought I’d recap some of my music finds/adventures from this past summer. In this post I’m going to take a look at some groovy vinyl I found as well as a mostly anti-climatic journey I took this past May to a legendary musical city – Nashville, Tennessee.

After years of contemplating I finally made the seven hour trek by car to experience the sights and sounds of the legendary Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve heard so many good things about Nashville that I was eager to see what all the fuss was about and try not only some of the local music scene but some of the local food as well.

As an added bonus Clarksville, Tennessee was within an hours drive or so from Nashville and quite frankly I was just excited to see that city as Nashville. Why Clarksville you may ask?

Well according to the quote above from Micky Dolenz, Clarksville, Tennessee may have been the inspiration for The Monkees first number one hit “Last Train to Clarksville” which has always been one of my all-time favorite Monkees songs.

There’s an army base located very near Clarksville – Fort Campbell – and I’m guessing Boyce and Hart who wrote “Last Train to Clarksville” for The Monkees somehow knew about it and used it as a jumping of point for the song.

Of course any real life inspiration for a Monkees song is well worth investigating, IMHO. So near the end of May I made my way to Nashville, the Music City, and hopefully to get a glimpse of the fabled Clarksville.

Let me just say that Nashville wasn’t exactly the dream trip I was hoping it would be. The first, and frankly the only, word that comes to mind when I hear the word Nashville from now on is … traffic. And when I say traffic, wow do I mean traffic.

I have never in my life seen so many cars crammed onto such weirdly designed highways. It was a nightmare driving anywhere in the Nashville area that didn’t involve a lot of frayed nerves and a lot of intense cursing. The drive to Tennessee even took an extra two hours just because of the God awful traffic that started to rear its ugly head about an hour and a half outside of Nashville – ugh.

To top it off It was a wet and dreary May weekend and the rain certainly didn’t help matters any as my spouse and I nearly lost ten years of our lives trying to maneuver our way through the dense and never ending highways around Nashville.

We did manage to get to see a show at the Grand Ole Opry which was a treat but other then that the weekend was one rainy bust plus a bicycle race throughout the city that same weekend made getting around a complete disappointment.

In fact the only thing that truly saved the weekend for us was our trip to the lovely and charming town of Clarksville, Tennessee.

After a hectic Friday of driving to Nashville and then barely making it to see the Grand Ole Opry, we were hoping for a Saturday of fun in downtown Nashville. Apparently fate had other things in mind as the pouring rain and the homeless folks everywhere and the overall dreary atmosphere really made the weekend seem like a lost cause.

What actually saved the whole trip was a Google search for antiques shops in Clarksville and the discovery of what looked like a really interesting record store.

After a rainy stop at one local Nashville record store – a nice store actually but I found nothing to buy – off we went to Clarksville and hopefully escape the wretched traffic and the odd tourist buses full of drunk people at 9 a.m. shouting into the rainy sky that filled the streets of downtown Nashville.

I must say the trip to Clarksville was much easier on the nerves as the traffic was much better and the scenery was nice as well. By the time we got there the sun had come out and the sky became blue and we knew that this must have been a good idea as both our moods got a lot cheerier.

The antique stores and the record store were indeed nice and I manged to score a near mint and unplayed copy of The Monkees 1969 single “Tear Drop City” in its picture sleeve and a lovely promo copy of the first Archies album which also looked unplayed (see photos above).

It’s kind of funny that I found the “Tear Drop City” 45 as that song is basically a rewrite of “Last Train to Clarksville” which was also recorded in 1966 but unreleased until 1969.

Ironically I went to three record stores and several antique stores in the Nashville area and the only Monkees album I found was three very used copies of their fourth album “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd.” which features some songs that were recorded in Nashville! Weird but true.

After walking around we could both say the definite highlight of our trip to the Nashville area was going to see the sleepy and charming Clarksville and of course finding some fun vinyl along the way didn’t hurt things a bit. There was also some really good food in Clarksville and that’s always a good way to ease the pain of traveling.

(Note: You can see photos below of Clarksville and the Grand Ole Opry show we saw below.)

Maybe we just had bad luck with Nashville but I am actually glad I finally got to see it as it’s such an iconic American city but really I have no desire to return. It was an interesting trip and at least I can scratch the Music City off of my list of things to see.

I’m sure other people have had much better experiences visiting Nashville but for me it will always be one dreary city full of dirty cars and … traffic.

Well that’s all for now.

As usual be safe and well and I hope you’ve had a good summer

There are more summer recaps coming soon.

Ta ta for now