TOP 40 DEBUT: January 19, 1980
PEAK POSITION: #12 (February 23, 1980)
There’s always been an audience for “comfort food.” Whether it comes in the form of music, or television, or actual food, plenty of folks prefer the safe, unchallenging option—critics and tastemakers be damned. That’s true even during the most creative and groundbreaking eras in pop music, an inexplicable phenomenon I like to call the “Winchester Cathedral Theory.”
(In brief: “Winchester Cathedral,” a novelty record by The New Vaudeville Band, is one of the most annoyingly lightweight pieces of pop fluff ever recorded. And yet, in December 1966, it managed to ascend to #1 twice, knocking off both The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” A pinnacle moment for early Motown, and one of the greatest pieces of art of the 20th century: Both taken down by a toothless trifle. Let’s not even discuss its Grammy win over “Eleanor Rigby” the following year.)
Anne Murray has sold 55 million albums over the last fifty years. She’s scored more than a dozen #1 singles on three separate Billboard charts. Her pure, pleasing alto is a thing of beauty, and by all accounts, she’s an incredibly decent, down-to-earth person. But Anne Murray is also the essence of comfort food. Her recordings feature no sharp edges and no surprises, making them perfect for audiences seeking the musical equivalent of a warm blanket. And, as the Winchester Cathedral Theory confirms, that audience never really goes away. Case in point: Mere weeks after two era-defining singles barely cracked Billboard’s Top 40, Murray came within spitting distance of the Top 10 with a beyond bland cover of a Monkees hit from 1967. At least she didn’t win a Grammy for it.
Morna Anne Murray grew up in the small mining town of Springhill, Nova Scotia, the only girl in a family of six children. Despite three years of voice training and a summer of singing in local venues, she never seriously considered music as a career; at the University of New Brunswick, Murray earned her Bachelor’s degree in health and physical education. Prior to winning a role on the Canadian television program Singalong Jubilee, she’d been working for a year as a high-school gym teacher.
By 1967, Murray had become a regular soloist on the Singalong show. Canadian audiences quickly warmed to this barefoot, wholesome ingénue singing gentle, country-flavored tunes, and Brian Ahern, musical director for Jubille, advised his rising star to move to Toronto and cut a proper solo album. Murray’s debut, What About Me, came out in 1968 on the Canadian label Arc; a year later, she made the jump to Capitol Records for 1969’s This Way Is My Way and 1970’s Honey, Wheat and Laughter. Initially, none of these albums were issued in the States, a pragmatic decision given the high failure rate of Canadian vocalists—especially women—on the American charts at the time. And then “Snowbird” changed all that.
A year after first appearing on Murray’s Capitol debut, “Snowbird” became a surprise hit in the summer of 1970. The song’s easygoing, folksy bounce proved irresistible to Canadian audiences—and, surprisingly, American ones as well. (It’s a 5.) In the pages of Billboard, “Snowbird” peaked at #8 pop and #10 country; more importantly, it reached #1 on the “Easy Listening” chart, the first time a Canadian female solo singer topped any Billboard list in the United States.
“Snowbird” did more than just open doors for other Canadian singers and songwriters. It also created a template for a style of adult-contemporized country music—sweetened with strings and absent any hint of “twang”—soon to be adopted by future crossover artists like John Denver and Olivia Newton-John. Murray eventually scored ten country #1’s over the course of her career: more than triple the tally of Denver, with barely one tenth the amount of ire from purists.
After doing a side-by-side comparison, I’m honestly baffled by those drastically different responses; John Denver was never a traditionalist, but he’s basically Hank Williams compared to, say, “Broken Hearted Me,” a #1 country single Murray released ahead of “Daydream Believer.” Perhaps Nashville had already entered its “homogenized pop” phase by 1979, the year three of her songs reached the summit of both the country and easy listening charts. Or a more likely scenario: It’s simply impossible for someone as nondescript as Anne Murray to draw the ire of anyone.
To the best of my knowledge, Murray never wrote her own material. That’s not an indictment, of course; some of the greatest vocalists of the last century, from Frank Sinatra to Linda Ronstadt, turned interpretation into an art form by fully inhabiting lyrics and music composed by someone else. Early in her career, Murray showed flashes of a similar eclecticism, shining the spotlight on talented-but-overlooked Canadian songwriters like Bruce Cockburn and Gene MacLellan (the man behind “Snowbird”). As her popularity increased, her song choices grew safer: an Everly Brothers tune, multiple Kenny Loggins covers, even an odd gender-swapped version of the George Jones classic “She Thinks I Still Care.”
Again, this isn’t necessarily an indictment. Murray’s warm, easygoing delivery, paired with the proper selection, often worked wonders; there’s a reason why her version of “Danny’s Song” (a 7) remains the definitive one, even compared to the (very good) Loggins & Messina original. On the rare journey outside her comfort zone, Murray could even surprise you: Witness her loose, sprightly take on the Beatles chestnut “You Won’t See Me,” which hit #8 pop—and #1 Easy Listening, of course—in the spring of ‘74. (John Lennon himself called this one of his favorite Beatles covers. I give it an 8. I’m not about to disagree with Lennon.) That’s why her rendition of “Daydream Believer” disappoints on numerous levels. Instead of bringing something new to the equation, Murray chickens out, settling simply for a slavish recreation of a song that couldn’t be improved in the first place.
“Daydream Believer” hit #1 on December 2, 1967, becoming the Monkees’ third—and final—chart-topper in just over a year. The group’s two previous #1’s, “Last Train To Clarksville” (which, at the risk of belaboring a point, also lost the Grammy to that same idiotic “Winchester Cathedral” song) and “I’m A Believer,” are unequivocal, stone-cold classics. And yet, “Daydream Believer” might be even better. At the risk of showing my bias, here goes: This is my favorite Monkees track, my favorite Davy Jones performance, and possibly one of the most perfect radio singles ever released to radio. (It’s also, obviously, a 10.) The man who wrote it, John Stewart, enjoyed an acclaimed stint in the Kingston Trio and released more than forty solo albums, and I think it’s the best thing he ever did, too. (Weirdly, Stewart experienced a career renaissance at the exact moment Murray decided to cover his best-known composition. He’ll be getting his own entry on this site in a matter of weeks.)
In short, “Daydream Believer” is hallowed ground. “Daydream Believer” is already definitive. “Daydream Believer” neither needs, nor benefits from, yet another cover version. So if you’re going to attempt one anyway, at least try an original approach. Take some real risks. And by all means, do not simply recreate the entire arrangement, note-for note—which is exactly what Anne Murray did.
Here’s how to tell the difference between the Monkees original and the Anne Murray version: The latter is in a higher key. The drum track doesn’t quite swing. (Therein lies the danger of trying to replace a legendary session man like Eddie Hoh.) And instead of Davy Jones on vocals, you get… Anne Murray. Everything else? Basically carbon-copied from the original.
Murray and her go-to producer, Jim Ed Norman, don’t bother to alter the tempo, or the instrumentation, or any part of the song structure. Jones’ entire vocal performance is similarly mimicked, right down to the smallest inflections—except for the second verse. The original lyrics: “You once thought of me/ As a white knight on his steed/ Now you know how happy I can be.” Murray flip the first line to “I once thought of you,” in deference to the idea that knights can’t be women, I guess? It’s both the most significant change from the original and the most harmful, ruining the entire rhyme scheme for the sake of preserving an antiquated gender role.
As for the rest, there’s another tiny lyric tweak (from “and our good times start and end” to “started then”), and the breakdown before the final chorus gains a blink-and-miss-it guitar lead. But any other differences are minor to the point of nitpicking. Honestly, it’d be more interesting if the whole thing had turned into one giant train wreck; given the level of professionalism all around, that was obviously never gonna happen. So no, this particular “Daydream Believer” isn’t actively bad. It’s just pointless.
Murray’s rendition of the Monkees classic appeared on shelves in December 1979, a mere twelve years after “Daydream Believer” first hit #1. To put the timeline into perspective, that’s like releasing a note-for-note cover of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” in 2020. It’s a meaningless exercise in sheer redundancy. Are you ever gonna top the original? Of course not. So why bother?
This brings up further questions, such as: Am I missing something? Was Murray filling an unspoken need? Did radio listeners collectively forget about the existence of “Daydream Believer” over the span of a single decade? Did the Monkees’ entire back catalog go out of print sometime in the mid-Seventies? And finally, what was going on with Billboard‘s “Hot Country Singles” in the Eighties where a song with no discernible country elements could still get to #3? (Possible explanation doubling as another question: Was Branson, Missouri already a thing by 1980? Because this entire recording absolutely fits into the Branson concept of “country.”)
In an odd bit of chart trivia, “Daydream Believer” became Murray’s third single to peak at #12 in the span of one calendar year. (Plus, she'd previously reached #12 with “Love Song” back in ’74. The woman might hold the record for Most Total Singles Peaking At #12.) It also marked her last “big” hit on the Hot 100. Murray scraped the lower reaches of the Top 40 just twice more, in November 1980 and May 1981, before basically disappearing from pop radio altogether. (I’m sure all of you are now eagerly anticipating those last two entries.)
But over on the country side, one of Canada’s most consistent musical exports was just getting started. Riding Nashville’s new wave of safe, streamlined country-pop, Anne Murray would score thirteen more Top 10 hits on the Hot Country Singles chart over the next half decade, including six #1’s. None made any concession to her new, Nashville-centric fanbase—nor did they need to. By 1980, Murray’s well-established pattern of delivering gentle, tasteful songcraft in a gentle, tasteful fashion was its own brand: comfort food for an audience that never went away, but simply changed stations.
GRADE: 3/10
BONUS BITS: Here’s Anne Murray revisiting “Daydream Believer” yet again for 2007’s Duets: Friends & Legends, her last full studio album of new recordings. Remember when Nelly Furtado was the next big thing? Remember when she was recording tracks with Timbaland? Yeah, so… I’m just gonna leave this here…