The Monkees’ famous single “Pleasant Valley Sunday” made it all the way to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 on the strengths of its up-tempo beat and strong lead vocal track by Micky Dolenz. Written by the accomplished songwriting duo of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, the song’s message was, however, in direct contrast to its attractive presentation. It spoke of a suburbia where middle-class guys sleepwalked through their days, keeping up their meticulously groomed lawns in front of “rows of houses that are all the same.” In front of some of those houses undoubtedly sat 1967 Chevy Impala station wagons such as this one, built the same year that the Monkees released their catchy hit. But is there anything really wrong with living in “status symbol land?”
The Monkees have probably earned some vindication over the course of the last 60 years. Derided as a paint-by-numbers boy band by many, they actually had some really good albums; my favorites are Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., the album where you can find “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” The song’s intention was to skewer American consumerism and conformity, how our identity is based on our perfect houses, perfect lawns, and our “TV[s] in every room.” The lyrics certainly paint a picture of boring, unfulfilling, inauthentic lives for those who have chosen the nine-to-five world of a family man (or woman), but I think that is a cynical viewpoint. What’s left out is that the average American isn’t necessarily all that adventurous, and we can’t all be topping the charts or writing hit after hit like Goffin and King did. Millions were perfectly satisfied tinkering in the yard and putting a Saturday coat of Simoniz on the Chevy.
Whoever bought this ’67 Impala new certainly did that once or twice, or indeed every weekend. There were no placards or historical documents surrounding it when I saw it at Sloan Museum’s Auto Fair in June 2025, but it had the trappings of a nearly-original V8-powered station wagon that happily carried so many families to the movies, ball games, church, and school. It’s truly as American as apple pie.
Although Chevrolet was the perennial number-one automaker, Ford always made it a tight race in the wagon department. The 1967 Country Squire seen here was a favorite from across town, or perhaps across the driveway from “Mr. Status Symbol.” The still shot above is from the 1968 Steve McQueen caper The Thomas Crown Affair. Crown, a bored millionaire from Boston, hires a group of random ne’er-do-wells, who never actually see him or knowingly interact with him, to rob a bank. One of the guys could easily be the guy from “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” a henpecked husband looking for a little adventure (and a little cash on the side). McQueen’s character tells his to go out and buy a Ford wagon, “the kind with wood on the sides”; after all, what blends in more after a robbery than a suburban middle-aged male in one of the most common wagons on the road? It could have easily been an Impala.
No offense intended to the Ford fans in our audience, but I’ll take the Impala any day over the Country Squire. While you could get wood sides on your Caprice Custom Wagon, I prefer the flanks unadorned. The Impala’s new-for-1967 styling was as typical of Chevrolet as the Country Squire was of Ford, but for some reason, I think it looks a little more lively, and that counts when you’re trying to show off to your neighborhood.
Our featured wagon shows the bumps and bruises (K-Mart rash, or so it was called in the magazines I read as a kid) of its time spent as a family hauler, maybe being hit once or twice by a ladder or a bicycle in traditional spot in the one-car garage. It doesn’t have a humdrum 283 under the hood, but rather the 10:1 compression ratio, 275-horsepower 327 coupled to either a Powerglide or a Turbo Hydra-Matic (which would have been a TH400 in 1967). While this 327 was no Duntov-cammed fuelie of song and legend, it breathed through a big Quadrajet and would have performed its daily duties nicely, even with tallish 3.08 or 2.73:1 rear end gears (depending on whether it has the Powerglide or the Turbo 400).
I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it was the color (Emerald Turquoise, most likely) that drew me to the big wagon out on the show field. Well, the color and the ten-footer original condition. OK, the color and the condition and my long-standing “thought about buying one (or two) when I was young” sentimental attachment (another story entirely). I’d be quite content owning an Impala exactly like this, and I wouldn’t care at all if a couple talented songwriters and a famous boy band thought I was nothing more than another guy in the suburbs.
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Funny I went on a little Monkees kick last week during my commute. I hit on all my old favorites – Mostly the Dolenz stuff like PVS, ‘Last Train to Clarksville’, ‘Stepping Stone’, and my personal favorite, ‘Mary, Mary’. Spotify then hit on a few tracks from an album I wasn’t even aware that they released in 2016 called ‘Good Times!’ Several were excellent, in particular I fell for ‘Me and Magdalena’. The album has strong reviews, a little hidden gem. You are correct that they’ve been vindicated.
“Me and Magdalena” is a great song; I have it on one of my hundred mixes. Nesmith and Dolenz’s more world-weary voices fit the song well.
+1 on “Me and Magdalena”
Recently I found a funny Nesmith song called “Rio” from 1977. A great time-capsule.
According to the interwebs, it’s off an album called “From a Radio Engine to a Photon Wing.”
Thanks for a great read!
You’re welcome! If you like Nesmith at all, his post-Monkees country-rock band (called the First National Band) was not too bad. He toyed with country rock in the Monkees (“What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round”), but he went all-in for three albums.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will check it out for sure.
In that same vein I’ve been listening to a lot of Dillard & Clark and Brewer & Shipley “Weeds.”
As much as I don’t like to admit it, I have Spotify to thank for those two.
But it’s always nice to get recs from a real person, too!
Rise Up (Easy Rider)
Dillard and Clark were a great duo, especially their first album. You might also like Gene Clark’s “Roadmaster” album. I love the song “Here Tonight.”
Mary Mary should have been a top 10 hit in the US.
Mary Mary was written by Mike Nesmith and was also recorded previously by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The Monkees version has Glen Campbell on lead guitar.
Yes, I am a big Monkees fan, and I like that station wagon. We never had one when I was growing up. Maybe not enough status symbol land there for my mother. We had to make due cramming 3 kids and a week’s worth of luggage into Sedan deVilles.
and the great Hal Blaine on drums.
I watched a pretty decent documentary on the Wrecking Crew a while back on YouTube. I am a mediocre saxophone player, and I’ve always been envious of those guys’ (and gals’) ability to walk in and just knock it out every time. The Nashville Cats were much the same.
Funny, I know the Paul Butterfield version but never knew it was written by Nesmith or recorded by the Monkees. “Not Your Stepping Stone” is probably my favorite.
Good Times, the Monkees reunion album from 2016, surprised many by being great. Full of catchy songs by both yesterday’s and today’s best pop tunesmiths, and a few written by the Monkees themselves. Just as good as Monkees songs from the 1960s.
“More Of The Monkees”, the band’s second album, was the very first LP I ever bought with my own money, some time in 1967. I still have the other two albums you mention downstairs along with all of the other albums I have not spun on a turntable in more decades than I would like to admit.
I have to agree that this was a very nice looking wagon, both then and now. Although as the former owner of a 67 Ford I have a sentimental attachment to the Country Squire.
A family friend once owned a 67 Pontiac wagon in this very same color combo. At the time (probably 1969-70) it seemed to me to be the most boring family car in the world. I would sure love it now, though.
In my picture files, I have a loaded ’67 Pontiac in the same paint scheme as the Country Squire pictured from the movie. I’d post a picture but I’ll probably write about it one of these days. 🙂
That’s probably what kids today think of the crossovers or minivans…..boooooooring. I wonder if they’ll look back in 50 years and want one?
When I was 21, I bought a used station wagon as a winter car. It was in good shape but had an inline 6/Powerglide. Within 4 months it had a 327, TH400 and became my favorite car (despite some of the criticism). In fact my two year old Nova sat as the wagon became my everyday year ’round driver. Eventually big block power, years on the drag strip as well as street racing circuit and then a frame off resto. Now it leads a more pampered life. I still have it and the Nova, over 50 years later.
My first thought was that the biggest difference between that street in Pleasant Valley then and now is mature trees and the Country Squires and Impala wagons having been replaced by RAV4s and CR-Vs.
“Pleasant Valley Sunday” also notes the status symbol of “a TV in every room”. This is 1967, so most of those TVs were probably 12″ black-and-white sets with mechanical knobs for tuning and no remote. Not much of a status symbol by the time I was in elementary school. A few years later, Janis Joplin considered a TV a luxury only if it were color (which accounted for about half of new TV sales in the US by 1971). A hip-hop song I heard on the radio circa 2000 found the rapper bragging about his flat screen – even color CRTs were no longer a status symbol by then. And last month I walked into Costco and saw a monster-sized 75″ flat-panel TV – not an off-brand but an LG – on sale for $589. I think by now we can rule out TVs of any description as a status symbol.
“K-Mart rash” is also a thing of the past. There is only one Kmart left in the US, and it’s just a convenience store situated in the gardening section of the real Kmart that used to be there. Their sister store Sears has five remaining locations, and they’re sad affairs with entire floors closed off and sparse merchandise.
Yup. Although for some reason, the first thing that I thought of upon seeing the car Aaron featured here is that it is in “that KMart blue”. I know that they changed their logo eventually to be just red, but what they were using in 1967 is what sticks in my mind…and the “Mart” part is pretty close to what’s on this Chevy.
I too love the Monkees, but that has been a while coming as I first had to overcome the fact that as a 6 or 7 year old in the Monkees’ heyday they were one of the bands that my mom really…really…hated and thus pretty much always made us turn off the radio when they came on (it’s a wonder that we didn’t wear out the switch on the radio as they were on A LOT). I really have no idea why, but she took some particular dislike to their whole physical appearance and I think also the fact that for a while there (right around 1967) they were a pretty dominant force in pop culture what with the constant airplay, tv show, etc. I remember visiting relatives (2 teen-aged cousins) in the summer of 1967, and those 2 girls were simply wild about the Monkees. For years afterwards, my mom would just launch on “those damned teenagers and those Monkees records!”. I guess everyone has their triggers…and the Monkees were hers (I could go on) 😉 )
Now, I just have to say that someone here needs to show some love to Daydream Believer. I love that song.
I really like your basic premise here in this post, Aaron. As someone of a generation now called “Generation Jones” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones ), I have always felt that I grew up in the shadow of all of that anti-materialism stuff from the Boomer generation (and the Beatniks before that). It seemed so entirely tired to me at the time and has only gotten more so as I’ve aged. Ridiculing people for wanting to have lawns and station wagons and well-paying jobs is just so….boring. And (even as a child, I thought) childish. And it was more than a bit hypocritical when one could make some pretty good coin writing derisive songs and singing about it.
That said, Pleasant Valley Sunday is probably my second favorite Monkees song. If I had a 67 Impala wagon, I’d like nothing more than to put on the Monkees while I gave that car a nice Turtle Wax shine alongside the well-clipped yard on a summer weekend.
In the meantime, you have guys like dirtbag Thomas Crown who’s so bored with his lifestyle that he has to put lives in danger for his own gratification! (I realize it’s a movie.) 🙂
Yeah, there’s not always anything wrong with keeping up with the neighbors.
Perfectly placed!
It’s never been clear to me why Ford perennially won the wagon race while Chevrolet consistently beat them in overall sales. I know Ford beat Chevy to the punch in the two-way tailgate, but other than that, I’m not really sure why wagon buyers preferred Ford.
The Monkeys were TV actors and were taught how to look like they were playing their hits. The Wrecking Crew took music and crafted what they were given into the hits we know. On their hit albums, none of the actors are playing. They only provided vocals. On the TV, they are acting as a cut, off the album, is played. Mike Nesmith did write songs, but everything recorded is the work of the Wrecking Crew, not the actors. Years afterwards, the actors mastered their hit songs enough to play them live.
Suburbia existed since the dawn of mass transit. It is during the post-WWII era that we begin to see suburbs negatively, It became fashionable in colleges to bash them. However history proves that mass manufacturing housing was available a half century before WWII, and used extensively. Using mass produced products enable high standards of living at affordable prices. Suburbia is a good thing for millions. My cookie cutter suburb was/is culturally diverse, by race, languages and culture. The houses looked identical but we were not.
Same with our cars. Lots of brands. Lots of imports. AMC was only 70 miles north, South Bend, only 70 miles east, so lot of cars from Rambler and Studebaker. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was pop fiction. We went to churches, temples, synagogues and Hall on Sundays. That song never mentioned anything like that.
Nostalgia is a broken fun-house mirror.
Both Nesmith and Tork were experienced (if not successful) musicians when they answered the casting call. Dolenz and Jones had TV and theatre experience respectively.
I watched a documentary where Tork recounted how he took his guitar to an early Monkees recording session, only to be told that the music was already in the can and they were just adding vocals. That bewilderment turned to anger pretty quickly and they were playing live shows by the end of 1966.
Cookie cutter houses with lawns. Definitely not New Jersey in 1958. Maybe a little in Catonsville MD in 1962-66 but our front yard had a little hill unlike others. I was stuck mowing the lawn and once fell mowing up hill when I fell and the lawn mower rolled back on me. I got out of the way but my flip flops did not. Canoga Park, in the San Fernando Valley, was like that in 1966-68. Only lawns were dichondra so no mowing! Houses in San Diego and Orinda had no lawns only native plants as per my mother. My front yard today is native plants while those to the left and right of me are lawns but retired folks. Heck I should be retired but don’t care to. The Colonel, two houses up, mows his lawn every week like clockwork.
Now on the long block in the Valley what did I see? Lots of Country Squires but, of course, my mother ended up with a 68 Plymouth Satellite wagon. Hey, I have a wagon come to think of it but who ever has ever heard of the Ambassador?
The Monkeys I mainly know from their TV show at the times. I wasn’t much of a radio listener till 1968. The Beatles in 1964? Who are they? Bought my first albums in 1969 at the age of 15 which was Grassroots and Led Zeppelin II. The Monkeys were kind of like bubble gum music back then but I appreciate their songs today and have thye CDs.
This is a Monkees favorite for me. The subdivision I live in is named Pleasant Valley. My home was built in 1966 and my neighbor across the street has the same house.
I can picture this wagon sitting in my drive during the late 60’s / early 70’s although it wouldn’t have fit in the garage. That’s a good year for Impalas, they got less attractive from this point on.
Besides this Impala wagon, it would be interesting to see if there’s some 1967 Chevelle Concours wagons still on the road. https://oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Chevrolet/1967-Chevrolet/1967-Chevrolet-Wagons-Brochure/slides/1967_Chevrolet_Wagons-08-09.html
Still that Impala wagon bring the summer like the Monkees. 😉
“I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it was the color (Emerald Turquoise, most likely) that drew me to the big wagon out on the show field.” I suppose it’s nostalgia, my Dad had a ’68 Nova in either that color or something very close to it, and the vinyl inside was exactly the same shade. I’d have approached it whatever the color as for me it’s a very uncommon car, but the color means a lot to me, at least in an American Chevrolet.(Chevies made in Argentina had different shades)
I wasn’t around for the first round of turquoise yet, Rafael, but my ’65 Dart Wagon is turquoise. It’s just a nice color for just about any ’60s car.
I enjoyed the Monkees references and comments, but the car … meh, didn’t really click with me one way or another. Then a few hours later I’m out walking the dog, and bingo, the CC Effect strikes. A Chevy wagon drives by, admittedly a ‘68 not a ‘67, green not blue, and with just two taillights per side. But still the first pre-77 wagon I’ve seen in a long time.
” A Chevy wagon drives by,……..and with just two taillights per side.”
Two taillights per side is HARDLY keeping up with the Jonses.
😉
And unusually in 1967, the Bel Air (but not Biscayne) had 3 taillights per side! (This photo for the Bel Air in the 1967 Chevrolet brochure is incorrect. In addition to the wrong taillights, this was obviously a 4-door with the rear door airbrushed out.)
What a strange picture to put in a brochure, especially from GM, simply airbrushing the rear door out from a 4 door car is not an attractive look.
Wow, that is surprisingly lazy advertising. Yikes.
Surprised no one has mentioned Subdivisions by Rush. A darker take on the sentiment of Pleasant Valley Sunday.
In the summer of 1976, friends of mine had this exact Impala wagon. Yet, they were far from the suburban stereotypes that the Monkees portrayed:
Doug was a ceramic artist, and Karen was a musicologist (music historian). Their son was 4 years old, and climbed all over the interior rear of the wagon.
Doug & Karen are gone now, passed away at early ages. But, that very artistic pair used this trusty, convenient 67 Impala wagon for both their professional endeavors, and family lives.
A lovely car the ’67 Chevy .
I too am old and enjoyed The Monkees .
One of these days I’ll find some CD’s .
-Nate
Come on Nate I’ll make it easy for you since there is no Tower Records or Rasputin’s to walk into.
https://shorturl.at/x2tCt
You struck a chord with a lot of people with this article, aaron65!
I’ll add my bit here — My mom had a Chevy of this year and color (Emerald Turquoise), but it was a Bel Air 2-door sedan with the 250 six and 3-on-the-tree. I learned to drive in this car. Our house at the time was definitely not a cookie cutter but we did have a lawn that had to be mowed.
I really got into Top 40 AM radio in 1966 so of course remember the Monkees with fondness.
Last, during 1986-92, my wife, sons, and I lived in a subdivision called Pleasant Valley that was built alongside Pleasant Valley Road in Chantilly, Virginia (suburb of Washington, DC).
A chord indeed.
In 86 I had a 67 Chevrolet Caprice 2 Dr.. Black, 283 Auto.
Wish I still had it.
I’d absolutely take the Featured Impala wagon though.
So much better looking than the Ford. (And I’m glad Chevy didn’t use the fake wood, it would have totally ruined it).
One minor correction: if I remember correctly, you could not get the THM-400 in a small-block Chevy at the time; the THM was reserved for the big-block engines like the 396 or the 427. If you chose a six or a small-block Chevy and wanted an automatic transmission, you had to take the two-speed Powerglide until 1969, when the lighter-duty THM-350 became available…
The THM-400 was available with the 327 in 1967, but only in Impala and Caprice models.
My ’68 Caprice had the less potent 327 version with THM400, it’s now in Sweden.
Oh how I’d love to have this car! We had an identical one in ’67, though my dad didn’t think to order full wheel covers. He traded it two years later for a ’69 Caprice with a 427, another car that I’d like to have today.