It’s well-known that Carole King, along with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, wrote several of the Monkees’ biggest hits and best-loved songs, including “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” the achingly gorgeous romantic ballad “Sometime In The Morning,” the country stomper “Sweet Young Thing,” the groupie anthem “Star Collector” and Head‘s remarkable water-logged symphony “Porpoise Song.” Although her demo track for “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was released on her 2012 collection The Legendary Demos, the rest are less well-known to her fans.

Goffin and King were living in West Orange, New Jersey—total suburbia—in the mid-Sixties. Unhappy with all the conformity they saw around them at the height of the 1960s, the pair wrote a song named after a street there called Pleasant Valley Way:

“Serenade the weekend squire, who just came out to mow his lawn . . .
Another Pleasant Valley Sunday,
Here in status symbol land.”

“Pleasant Valley Sunday” demo
 

 
“Take a Giant Step” demo:
 

 
“Sometime In The Morning” demo:
 

 
The “Porpoise Song” demo. Dig the Gregorian chant thing she’s got going here (it’s the Mass of the Dead, remember this was the song playing during Micky Dolenz’s “suicidal” jump off the bridge in the beginning of Head) :