"With infinite love we announce that Michael Nesmith has passed away this morning in his home, surrounded by family, peacefully and of natural causes."

 Said the family, quoted in "Michael Nesmith, Monkees Singer-Songwriter, Dead at 78" (Rolling Stone).

“This being, ‘What is this thing? What have we got here? What’s required of us? Is this a band? Is this a television show?’ When you go back to the genesis of this thing, it is a television show because it has all those traditional beats. But something else was going on, and it struck a chord way out of proportion to the original swing of the hammer. You hit the gong and suddenly it’s huge.”

I thoroughly loved The Monkees. I remember reading about the show before it began and awaiting it eagerly. I remember when Mike Nesmith was called "Mike Wool Hat Nesmith" — as if he was too hard to identify without the added attribute of the hat and the continual pointing out of it. I remember he was, essentially, the John Lennon of the group, sarcastic and a little mean. 

I still listen to The Monkees and too much time has passed to put them down, even if, long ago you did put them down, when they were too busy singing to put you down. They came up in my playlist as I was sunrise-running this morning: "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone."

Here are The Monkees — the Monkees then still living — last month:

 

And now there's one Monkee left — our dear Circus Boy: