Dave's Song of the Day
I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight – Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart
Monday song of the day: Today’s song was the biggest hit for a duo who were better known as songwriters for others than as performers.
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were both in Los Angeles in the late 1950s attempting to establish themselves as performers and songwriters. Boyce had written a #8 hit for Fats Domino and had co-written a #7 hit for Curtis Lee. The pair teamed up and started writing a string of hits for other artists in the 1960s, including Chubby Checker, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and most famously The Monkees. They also wrote and/or performed songs for movie and television soundtracks, including two of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm spy films,
The Ambushers and
Murderers’ Row, and the theme for the NBC soap opera
Days of Our Lives.
They wrote numerous songs for the Monkees, including
Last Train to Clarksville,
(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,
Valleri, and the theme from
The Monkees TV show. While doing all of this, they also recorded as Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart (often referred to with the shorter Boyce & Hart), releasing three albums and several singles. These included three top 40 hits, the biggest of which was
I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight, which hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song told of a relationship that had failed because the narrator couldn’t commit to his girlfriend and now he regrets it. The song was released in late 1967 and peaked in late February 1968. As was the normal industry practice at the time, an album was later produced to cash in on the success of the single, instead of an album coming first and singles released from that to promote album sales. In this case, the album shared the name of their hit song, being titled
I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonite?. Oddly, the single used the spelling “Tonight” while the album spelled the final word “Tonite” and included a question mark that was not on the original single.
In the mid-1970s, well after The Monkees had broken up, Boyce and Hart teamed with two former Monkees, Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz, touring and recording as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce, & Hart. The group recorded one album and toured in 1976 before breaking up.
As can be expected for songwriters associated with The Monkees, much of Boyce and Hart’s output consisted of happy, upbeat pop songs, some of which could be classified in the “bubblegum” genre. All told, as songwriters and performers, the Boyce and Hart team wrote over 300 songs, and sold over 42 million records.
They both continued to work in the music business, mostly separately but sometimes together, throughout the 70s and 80s. In 1994, Tommy Boyce committed suicide by shooting himself.
Audio
TV appearance on
The Hollywood Palace, December 1967
(The host is Herb Alpert, who in addition to being a musician, was also a record company executive. Boyce & Hart were signed to A&M records, and Alpert was the “A” in “A&M”)
Tomorrow: You make the knife feel good