"Pleasant Valley Sunday" is a song by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, most famous for the version recorded by The Monkees in 1967. Goffin's and King's inspiration for the name was a street named Pleasant Valley Way, in West Orange, New Jersey where they were living at the time. The road follows a valley through several communities among the Watchung Mountains. The lyrics were a social commentary on status symbols, creature comforts, life in suburbia, and "keeping up with the Joneses". The song has been regarded by many as an underrated comment on consumerism while maintaining a relentlessly driving pop beat. It became one of the Monkees' most successful singles.
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Famous quotes containing the words pleasant, valley and/or sunday:
“Hume’s doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot; the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don’t ya? After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?”
—Martin Goldsmith, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Charles Haskell, Jr. (Edmund MacDonald)