“Ditty Diego—War Chant (prev. unissued version)”

Mike: Oh, you’re gonna start recording them now?
Peter: Why not?
Mike: We’ve got to do the first one together, right?
Micky: And the last.
Bob: Jack, you’re the chorus leader.
Mike: Ahhh!
Peter: Can you turn down the talkback volume?
Mike: Hey, hey, we’re The Monkees, you know we’d love to please…
Peter: For Bert so that he doesn’t pound us down.
Mike: …a manufactured image, with no philoso—
Mike, Peter: —phies.
Mike: Okay, shall we do that together?
Micky: Who does this first one?
Mike: We gotta do that together. You gotta go one, two, three, four…

All:
Hey, hey, we are The Monkees
You know we love to please
A manufactured image
With no philosophies

Mike:
We hope you like our story
Although there isn’t one
That is to say there’s many
That way there is more fun

Peter:
You’ve told us you like action
And games of many kinds
You like to dance, we like to sing
So let’s all lose our minds

Micky:
To mix it all together
Pictures, sounds, and songs
And time and place and weather
And even rights and wrongs

Davy:
We know it doesn’t matter
’Cause what you’ve come to see
Is what we’d love to give you
And give it one, two, three

Mike:
It may come three, two, one, two
Or jump from nine to five
And when you see an end in sight
The beginning may arrive

Peter:
For those who look for meanings
And form as they do fact
We might tell you one thing
But we would only take it back

Micky:
Not back like in a box back
Not back like in a race
Not back so we can keep it
But back in time and space

Micky: Ahhh!
Peter: He’s in there, he’s, he’s in there now!
Micky: Who?
Mike: He’s coming!
Davy: It’s, well, the thing that threw me was—
Micky: Uh buh, uh buh, uh guh gee…
Davy: —no man, wait a minute—
Micky: You’re supposed to be over here.
Davy: —I was really carried away—
Peter: The silence threw you!
Micky: He’s supposed to be over here.
Davy: —the thing that threw me—
Mike: You were carried away?
Davy: —was Micky’s reading!
Mike: I don’t want to know, man.
Davy: Man, that really threw me… blew my mind… your whole reading, man!
Jack: Wait a minute, who’s got the first one?
Micky: Bert…
Jack: “You’ll like our story”?
Bert: What?
Peter: Mike.
Jack: Mike, okay, you’re in position.
Davy: Oh, this is, this is all gem stuff, this is.
Mike: This is all what?
Micky: No, Peter, you’re next over.
Peter: Oh, you want me—we should go in order?
Micky: Yeah, Jack wants us in order.
Peter: I can’t stand here, this one’s the short mike.
Jack: Hey, now it’s the—
Peter: Wait uh, no no, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Jack: Don’t fuss around with the mike, you understand?
Peter: This last time it says, “Hey, hey we’re the”. Wouldn’t it, shouldn’t be “Hey, hey, we are the” again?
Jack: “Hey, hey we are…” Yeah, do it that way… “Hey, hey we are…”
Peter: Thank you.
Davy: Wait a minute, let’s not do it “Hey, hey we are”, let’s “Hey, hey! We are The Monkees”, like that.
Micky: Wait a minute—mine says here but I’m not standing over here!
Jack: Alright, he’s right, he’s not standing over there!
Micky: Now we got it, now.
Peter: We got it now, man. You can’t stand the—
Mike: Let me tell ’bout that, that Mick.
Micky: Okay, we got it now.
Jack: We got a man not standing over there, for sure.
Peter: —wait a minute, get it down, we got here.
Davy: Let’s do another one, okay?
Mike: Yeah, let’s—
Bert: Sure, go ahead!
Mike: —but we can do it tighter.
Jack: I’d rather that you do ’em back-to-back here, ’cause then is the way… one, two, three…

All:
Hey, hey, we are The Monkees
You know we love to please
A manufactured image
With no philosophies

Peter: “Hey, hey we are The Monkees”, right? “We’ve said it all before”. You want another one of those too, don’t you? Take the last one?
Jack: Take a slight break. “With no philosophies”, two, three, four, “Hey”…
Micky: Okay.
Mike: No, no, you gotta…
Peter: No philosophies…
Mike: That’ll never work, Jack. That’s a lame idea, I want you to know that.
Davy: Let’s take our own time.
Mike: That won’t work.
Jack: Alright, you guys do it your own way.
Micky: Let’s do it from the top and go through the whole thing.
Davy: Oh, shit, man…
Peter: Start from the top, go through the whole thing.
Mike: We’ve got the bottom, we’ve got the top. We’ll do it again.
Micky: One, two, three, four…
Micky, Peter: One, two, three.

All:
Hey, hey, we are The Monkees
You know we love to please
A manufactured image
With no philosophies

Mike:
We hope you like our story
Although there isn’t one
That is to say there’s many
That way there is more fun

Peter:
You’ve told us you like action
And games of many kinds
You like to dance, we like to sing
So let’s all lose our minds

Micky:
To mix it all together
Pictures, sounds, and songs
And time and place and weather
And even rights and wrongs

Davy:
We know it doesn’t matter
’Cause what you’ve come to see
Is what we’d love to give you
And give it one, two, three

Mike:
But it may come three, two, one, two
Or jump from nine to five
And when you see an end in sight
The beginning may arrive

Peter:
For those who look for meanings
And form as they do fact
We might tell you one thing
But then we’d only take it back

Micky:
Not back like in a box back
Not back like in a race
Not back so we can keep it
But back in time and space

Davy:
You say we’re manufactured
To that we all agree
So make your choice, and we’ll rejoice
In never being free

All:
Hey, hey, we are The Monkees
We’ve said it all before
The money’s in, we’re made of tin
We’re here to give you more

Mike: Oh, that was good. I liked that.
Peter: I thought so too.
Jack: Now, let’s do one more that same way, except there’s a couple…
Mike: I don’t want to do any more. I’ll see you later.
Jack: There’s a couple of spots where you, you can get that, that, that doggerel kind of… di-di-di-di-di-di…
Peter: Oh, yeah—
Jack: …so that it’s almost as though…
Peter: —oh not so much, uh, romantic reading, okay.
Bert: Sillier.
Jack: …as though it’s one guy reading it. Like Gilbert and Sullivan.
Peter: Aren’t I being silly enough? “Although there isn’t one”.
Mike: Oh, I see. I thought there…
Jack: “…although there isn’t one. That is to say there’s many.”
Mike: I thought it was “there isn’t one”. But that’s not what you meant at all, was it?
Jack: No.
Mike: Boy, dumbass me!