Album: More of the Monkees
Year: 1966
Written by Neil Diamond — you know, the guy who wrote “Kentucky Woman” for Deep Purple and “Red Red Wine” for UB40 — the first thing I need to report about “I’m A Believer” was that it kept future Certain Song “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” from hitting #1 at the end of 1966, something which young Jim might have been pissed off about had he cared about anything but singing “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” over and over and over again.
That’s Diamond on the acoustic rhythm guitar — it’s a good performance, I wonder whatever happened to that dude? — probably his way of making sure that his song-for-hire was in the right hands.
Which, of course, it was. “I’m a Believer” is a massively classic pop song, near-perfect in both conception and execution. It announces its intentions to be such with Artie Butler’s iconic six-note organ hook, a quick electric guitar jangle, and then Diamond’s acoustic guitar, augmented by tambourine and handclaps.
Said handclaps never falter throughout the song, which means among with everything else, “I’m A Believer” is yet another proof of one of our favorite principles here at Certain Songs, The Handclap Rule: Handclaps always make a good song great, and a great song classic.
And on top of all of that, “I’m A Believer” sported a vocal arrangement that was clever, surprising, and thematically appropriate to the the lyrics. At first, Mickey Dolenz is wistful, sounding like a guy who had pretty much given up on love — maybe he went and got himself a dog for companionship — and all by himself.
I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else but not for me
But in the second half of the verses Davy Jones & Peter Tork comes in to hang out, and support him with harmonies and counterpoint vocals.
Love was out to get me
(Duh duh den duh den)
That’s the way it seemed
(Duh duh den duh den)
Disappointment haunted all of my dreams
That’s of course, the build up for the song’s big reveal, about that moment when you see someone and instantly fall for them, and suddenly believe in love, when seconds before, you thought it was all bullshit.
Then I saw her face, I’m a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
That right there, folks, is a helluva chorus all by its lonesome. With the organ hook kicking back in at each pause, the internal “face/trace” rhyme, Jones and Peter Tork on harmonies, and Dolenz’s mood gone from wistful to joyful cos he’s seen her face, it’s deathless and indestructible. You can imagine repeating it a couple of times, and everybody goes home fully satisfied.
But they were just getting started, because they somehow top it over one last handclap-and-tambourine-driven stop-time.
I’m in love
(Hmmmmmmmmm-WHOOOOOOOAAAAAA-YEAHHH)
I’m a believer
I couldn’t leave her if I tried
That moment when Jones and Tork explode from “hmmmmmmm” to “WHOAAAA-YEAHH” is everything. It’s falling in love. It’s your life changing in a single moment. Black and white to color. Doubt to belief.
And as an arrangement, completely and utterly brilliant, and given how overstuffed it was with hooks, that stop-time part probably wasn’t the only reason “I’m A Believer” was the Monkees second-straight #1 here in America — and a #1 around the world — but it certainly helped.
I’d call “I’m A Believer” their greatest song, because there is at least one I love more, but it’s most certainly their greatest single.
Fan-made video for “I’m a Believer”
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