Writer of Monkees' Theme Song Dies

Songwriter Bobby Hart, a key part of the Monkees' multimedia empire who teamed with Tommy Boyce on such hits as "Last Train to Clarksville" and "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone," has died. He was 86. Hart died at his home in Los Angeles, according to his friend and co-author, Glenn Ballantyne, per the AP. He had been in poor health since breaking his hip last year. Boyce and Hart were a prolific and successful duo in the mid-1960s, especially for the Monkees, the made-for-television group promoted by Don Kirshner. They wrote the Monkees' theme song, with its opening shot, "Here we come, walkin' down the street," and enduring chant, "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees," and their first No. 1 hit, "Last Train to Clarksville."

The Monkees' eponymous, million-selling debut album included six songs from Boyce and Hart, who also served as producers and used their own backing musicians, the Candy Store Prophets, as session players. "I always credit them not only with writing many of our biggest hits, but, as producers, being instrumental in creating the unique Monkee sound we all know and love," the Monkees' Micky Dolenz wrote in a foreword to Hart's memoir, Psychedelic Bubblegum, published in 2015. As Boyce and Hart grew in fame and the Monkees took more control of their work, they pursued their own careers, releasing the albums Test Patterns and I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite and appearing on such sitcoms as I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.

They also were politically active. They campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy when he ran for president in 1968 and wrote the brassy "L.U.V. (Let Us Vote)" in support of the 26th Amendment, which in 1971 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Their other songs included the Monkees' melancholy "I Wanna Be Free" and the theme to the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives. They were covered by everyone from Dean Martin ("Little Lovely One") to the Sex Pistols ("I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone"). Boyce, who died in 1994, and Hart were the subjects of a 2014 documentary The Guys Who Wrote 'Em. Hart—born Robert Luke Harshman—was married twice, most recently to singer Mary Ann Hart, and had two children from his first marriage.