I'm a Believer

The best of the '60s good-time pop songs and one of the most infectious singles ever recorded, "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees grooves along with a ragged accompaniment featuring handclaps and tambourine, fab electric piano solos, and a few well-timed, rushing-up-to-the-brink pauses just before the contagious, fervent chorus. For a song so incredibly catchy, it's hardly surprising that songwriter Neil Diamond (before his transformation into a sex bomb for middle-aged females across the nation) and producer Jeff Barry were responsible; they were two of the most talented hires on the assembly line at the pop-song factory known as the Brill Building, responsible for dozens of hits during the '60s. "I'm a Believer" itself ranks as the third most popular rock song of the '60s, behind only the Beatles' "Hey Jude" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." It spent seven weeks at number one in America, hit the top of the charts in Britain as well, and charted in over a dozen countries. The vocals, by Mickey Dolenz, are poised halfway between the garage and the recording studio. Over the course of the song, Dolenz becomes increasingly aggressive, until he's practically screaming his devotion at the end of the last chorus. The rest is pure songwriting brilliance, and it's probably a rare group that couldn't have taken "I'm a Believer" to number one. Diamond's mix of internal and external rhymes in the chorus -- "Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer/Not a trace of doubt in my mind/I'm in love/I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried" -- are surprisingly complex for a pop song. With an efficiency matched only by the best songs on Motown Records, "I'm a Believer" proves that the American manufacturing process -- the best person for each job, working together in tandem to efficiently make a profitable product -- does occasionally result in high art as well as high sales.