Tear Drop City (Boyce - Hart) / A Man Without A Dream (Goffin - King)
To bring in the new year, RCA began a brand new numerical sequence for its 45s, the "5000" series. The first in this new line was the Monkees new single "Teardrop City", a song from the upcoming "Instant Replay" album.
If "Teardrop City" sounded like an unadventurous re-make of "Last Train To Clarksville", then that would not be surprising, as this particular Boyce-Hart composition was recorded well over two years previously, and had been rejected from the line-up of the Monkees' second album, only to be resurrected now, in what seemed like a desperate move by RCA to issue something remotely commercial from the group.
If that truly was the view of their A&R department, then RCA failed miserably, as the single barely scraped into the top 40, both in Australia and the USA.
See here for the intriguing theory that Peter Tork's image was eliminated from the cover artwork, due to the fact that he had recently quit the group.
