The Heartbreak of Micky Dolenz (piano excerpt)

When I was five, I watched The Monkees episode “I Was a 99-Pound Weakling.” Micky Dolenz, tired of sand in the face, starts lifting to steal back his dream girl from beach tyrant Dave Draper—Bulk himself. He returns a walking bicep, ready for triumph, and finds the blonde beauty arm hooked through a new idol: a skinny intellectual reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Micky’s expression does the math—pecs don’t beat paperbacks—and the lesson welded itself to my skull. Many years later, I’d write a piano composition, “The Heartbreak of Micky Dolenz.” What follows is an excerpt from that longer work.