"Monterey" | ||||
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Single by Eric Burdon & The Animals | ||||
B-side | "Ain't That So" (USA), "Anything" (UK) | |||
Released |
November 1967 (USA) May 1968 (UK) |
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Format | 7" single | |||
Recorded | 1967 | |||
Genre | Hard rock, Psychedelic rock | |||
Length | 4:39 | |||
Label | MGM | |||
Writer(s) | Burdon, Briggs, Weider, Jenkins, McCulloch | |||
Producer(s) | Tom Wilson | |||
Eric Burdon & The Animals singles chronology | ||||
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"Monterey" is a 1967 song by Eric Burdon & The Animals. The music and lyrics were composed by the group's members, Eric Burdon, John Weider, Vic Briggs, Danny McCulloch, and Barry Jenkins. In 1968, two different video clips of the song were aired.
Eric Burdon and the Animals performed at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival at the peak of the Summer of Love; they followed Johnny Rivers onstage and were introduced by Chet Helms. In his book, Monterey Pop, Joel Selvin wrote that, at the festival, "Burdon did nothing short of reinvent himself in front of the audience."
The song "Monterey" was subsequently written in tribute to the group's experiences at the festival, and proved to be one of the new band's biggest hits. The lyrics describe the atmosphere of the festival and some of the notable musicians who played, including The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, The Who, Hugh Masekela, The Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix, as "young gods" with music "born of love" and "religion was being born." The band described a scene at which "children danced night and day", and "even the cops grooved with us." "His Majesty Prince Jones" referred to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who was the MC at the event. Before the ending of the song, Burdon quoted the Byrds song "Renaissance Fair": "I think that Maybe I'm Dreamin'".