Neil Diamond didn’t write many of the Monkees’ hits — Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were producer Don Kirshner’s go-to tunesmiths — but their second single, “I’m a Believer,” became their all-time top-seller, and it topped the charts for several weeks to start 1967.
Kirshner gave Diamond first crack at the follow-up. He came up with this slice of sunshine pop, cut from the same vaguely Latin rhythm as his own 1966 hit “Cherry, Cherry.” “A Little Bit Me” only made No. 2 on the Hot 100, but it hit No. 1 in Cashbox, whose formula — they weren’t algorithms yet — relied more heavily on actual sales. The song was the first hit with Davy Jones singing lead, important in the group’s marketing because he was packaged as the band’s teen idol front man.
Neil Diamond never recorded the tune himself, but someone taped his live performance of it at the Bitter End in August 1967.
“I’m a Believer” has had a long afterlife; “A Little Bit Me,” not so much. The only interesting cover was by the mid-’90s lineup of British ska revivalists the Specials. Their version illustrates how similar the song was to ska in the first place.
