The classic song Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips hated: “That’s the most pretentious song I have ever heard”
From their sound and appearances, it would be assumed that the Mamas and the Papas were all peace and love. With their long flowing hair, psychedelic loathing, and total commitment to free love, as suggested by their many affairs, the band were the very image of the 1960s hippie era. But behind the scenes, the four-piece could get nasty, leading to major in-fighting that sometimes attacked the music, too.
Ask anyone who has ever been in a band, no matter whether they’re one of the biggest in history or just a local outfit playing the stage in some small-town bar, and they tell you that it’s hard work. Band politics truly tests the limits of both friendship and democracy itself as groups throughout history and around the world are toppled by small decisions blown up into huge member-splitting debates.
It’s always more challenging when the issue is the art itself. When one member likes a song but the others don’t, it’s difficult to tell someone to abandon their brainchild. This was precisely the situation with the Mamas and the Papas, who tried to persuade John Phillips to discard one of their biggest hits.
It was 1965, and the band were riding high. ‘California Dreamin’ had just shot them to notoriety, suddenly placing them among the stars. It didn’t hit number one, but the components they were up against seemed to only prove that they were doing something really right. “We were against The Beatles. We were against The Stones. We were up against everybody at Motown. It was all English invasion,” Michelle Phillips recalled. “If you got your record to number four on the Billboard charts, you were thrilled. And we were.”
But then, when attention turned to what would be their next hit, things got difficult. “Then John wrote ‘Monday Monday’, and Cass and I hated it,” Phillips said. That’s where the trouble began.
It’s tough to think of anyone hating ‘Monday Monday’. Not only has it endured as one of the timeless hits of the decade, but it’s simply just such a mild-mannered song; there’s not really much in there to hate about it. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything all that divisive or musically offensive about the track, at least not enough to fight over. But Phillips and Cass Elliot found fault in it.
They didn’t even just dislike it, they doubled down. “Hated it,” Phillips emphasised, “I said, ‘That’s the most pretentious song I have ever heard, John.’” Naturally, the songwriter got defensive or at least a little upset, “His feelings were a little hurt. He said, ‘Well I like it.’”
But the band’s thoughts were three against one as even Denny Doherty rallied against the track, with Phillips remembering, “Denny said ‘I don’t know John, I kind of agree with the girls.’”
However, everyone knows that band dynamics become even trickier when the industry gets involved. Swooping in like dictators, overruling the democratic approach within the group, the band’s label stepped in. “John said, ‘Let’s sing it for Lou.’ And we did,” Phillips said, talking about Lou Adler, the co-owner of their record label, Dunhill Records.
In the end, it was Adler who saved the single from the trash heap as he sided with John Phillips. “Lou said, ‘What are you guys talking about? This song is great.’” The band attempted to fight back, but he only doubled down, as Phillips remembered, “We said ‘No, it’s not.’ He said, ‘It is. And do you know what? It’s gonna be your next single.’”
Phillips still had no faith in the track, “I said, ‘This is going to be the end of a very promising career for all of us.’” But she was put in her place as Adler said, “How about you do the singing, and I’ll do the releasing, Mitch?”
Maybe sometimes democracy has to crumble, at least for the greater good of a song. ‘Monday Monday’ shot to number one, giving the band another huge hit and further solidifying their star status, even if it came as a humbling blow to three-quarters of the members.
