Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne Division that was then serving in Vietnam. According to Hart, "We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There's a little town in northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarkdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarkdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn't know it at the time, [but] there is an Army base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee — which would have fit the bill fine for the storyline. We couldn't be too direct with the Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it—we kind of snuck it in." Although Clarksville, a common location name in the U.S., is in the song's title, the video accompanying the song on the Monkees' TV show depicts a sign pointing to Clarkesville, a much less common spelling now used only for a single town in Georgia; other communities of that name have been either abandoned or renamed. Recording Boyce and Hart's band, Candy Store Prophets, performed the instrumental session work on the recording. B-side The single's B-side, "Take a Giant Step," later appeared as the closing track on Side 1 of the Monkees' debut album. Micky Dolenz performed lead vocals. The song is presented as a plea to a heartbroken girl to move on from her past romantic disappointments and to "learn to live again at last" by "taking a giant step outside your mind." Critic Eric Lefcowitz describes the song as "proto-psychedelic." Reception Of "Last Train to Clarksville", Billboard remarked that "all the excitement generated by the promotion campaign for the new group...is justified by this debut disk loaded with exciting teen dance beat sounds." Cash Box said that it is "a hard-driving, pulsating romantic wailer with catchy repeating riff." Personnel Micky Dolenz – lead vocal Peter Tork and Davy Jones – backing vocals Tommy Boyce – acoustic guitar Louie Shelton – lead guitar Wayne Erwin and Gerry McGee – electric guitars Larry Taylor – bass Billy Lewis – drums Gene Estes – percussion Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart – producers Chart performance Weekly charts Year-end charts References External links (US) (UK) 1966 debut singles 1966 songs The Monkees songs American country music songs Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Cashbox number-one singles Country rock songs RPM Top Singles number-one singles