The Kinks Kountdown: 50-1

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

"Oh, I love the Kinks" - said everyone ever when they get brought up in conversation.

I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't like the Kinks. Despite that they are never mentioned in the same breath as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who... and seem always destined to be on the 'underrated' list.

Why?

Too English, wry humour that didn't translate, social commentary not sexy enough to sell records, dramatic style changes, weird concept albums, touring ban in the USA... who knows. Good topic of discussion alongside this kountdown.


50. I Need You (1965) - B-side to the Set Me Free single.

Straight up rock n roll from kids finding their way. Power chords and distortion.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

49. The World Keeps Going Round (1965) - off The Kink Kontroversy album

What's the use of worrying 'cause you'll die alone
Times will be hard, rain will fall
And you'll feel mighty low
But the world keeps going round

Depressing stuff from their third album!

Their third album is regarded as their coming of age, with an added level of sophistication to the music and lyrics. All but one song was original material.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

48. There's A New World Just Opening For Me (1965) - unreleased

Lots of songs in this countdown are single releases or tracks off the Kinks' major albums however there are a few lesser known cuts. This sparse recording wasn't released officially until the Picture Book box set in 2008.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

47. Mr Churchill Says (1969) - off Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

Melody Maker described Arthur... as Ray Davies' finest hour while Rolling Stone said, "Less ambitious than Tommy, and far more musical ... Arthur is by all odds the best British album of 1969. It shows that Pete Townshend still has worlds to conquer and that The Beatles have a lot of catching up to do."

This commentary on WWII is the second track on side two of the album. The lyrics include several famous quotes from Churchill. The song clicks into gear with an air raid siren at 1:30.

Ray Davies on the song: "Today TV exposed weaknesses in politicians ... But I don't know about Winston Churchill. He may have been a bit more ruthless than we've been led to believe. When the battle's over and you've won, you always look good. But what was achieved by it?"

 

[PhatBoy]

In their own way they were the most important band in rock and roll history for no other reason than the fact that Dave Davies slashed the cone on his speaker and created distortion.

Waterloo Sunset is better than any song in history

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

46. Wait Till The Summer Comes Along (1965) - Kwyet Kinks EP

A largely forgotten Dave Davies composition, it was also released on the US-only Kinkdom album. It is now included on the expanded edition of their second album, Kinda Kinks. The longing, plaintive nature of this song is quite haunting and it is an example of the type of songwriting the group was moving towards - away from their early rock sound.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

45. Picture Book (1968) - off The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society album

Releasing a 'nostalgic concept album' during the cultural upheaval of the late 60s didn't really strike a chord with the public. The album was critically acclaimed at the time of release but sold poorly. However, it has stood the test of time and is regarded by many as The Kinks finest album. It appears in the Rolling Stone magazine Best 500 albums of all-time (at 255).

Picture Book was tucked away as an album track for 36 years, but in 2004 the song was cleverly used in an ad by Hewlett-Packard which coincided with the release of a deluxe version of this album.

Ray Davies: "I always knew that song would have its day. Sometimes you just know. It was never a hit, but it’s become a hit in another way.”

 

[Mootsy]

Ahh yes, remember the Hewlett Packard ad well, I thought it was a new band back then, lol.
Joined atease-web forums and was introduced to village green album, big sky was stuck in my brain for years!!
They are always in the class of coolest bands for me.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

44. Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1966) - single

A song that perfectly illustrates the Kinks' satirical humour, lampooning the burgeoning 60s fashion scene in England.

Trends were changing rapidly and there were those always trying to keep up. A non-conformist to the core, Ray Davies saw all this and satirised the hypothetical extreme; a superficial mod whose "clothes are loud but never square / It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best ... He thinks he is a flower to be looked at ... In matters of the cloth he is as fickle as can be."

A Top 5 single in the UK. Didn't chart in the US.... the Yanks didn't get this song or the Kinks in general I guess.

Some believed the song is a sly dig at his trendy brother Dave, but Ray says the song was inspired by a fight he had with a fashion designer at a party:

Ray Davies: "I got pissed off with [a fashion designer at a party] always going on about fashion. I was just saying you don't have to be anything; you decide what you want to be and you just walk down the street and if you're good the world will change as you walk past. I just wanted it to be the individual who created his own fashion. ... [It was] a terrible brawl. I kicked him, and I kicked his girlfriend up the arse."

Still, maybe Dave felt there were some home truths in the lyrics. Despite the praise for the song, he described the song as "terrible", saying, "[it was] the one Kink record I haven't got."

Pete Quaife: "That guitar clanging at the beginning, we did it over and over, changed guitars, tried it with a piano. Ray was after a sound and he didn't get it. When he realized he wasn't getting it, he took the tape, rolled it across the floor and set fire to it. The next day we started again and he settled for that. But I know he wasn't happy with the final result."

There are a few different mixes of this song floating around but I prefer the guitar intro on this version:

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

43. David Watts (1967) - off the Something Else by the Kinks album

This is the lead track off their 1967 album, Something Else by the Kinks. The song itself marks the middle ground between the hard, crunchy pop of the Kinks' earliest singles and the more pastoral material they would switch to - starting with the rest of this album.

The song bemoans the fact that most of us will never attain the glory or stature we want. "David Watts" is the person we all want to be, but will never become.

The real David Watts was a concert promoter from Rutland in the English Midlands. The Kinks band members were invited back to his house for a drink one night after a concert. Ray Davies recalled to Q magazine in a 2016 interview:

"My brother, Dave, was in a flamboyant mood and I could see David Watts had a crush on him. So I tried to do a deal and persuade Dave to marry David Watts cos he was connected with Rutland brewery. See, that's how stupid my brain was. (Chuckles silently) I thought if I can get Dave fixed up with this Watts guy I'll be set up for life and get all the ale I want."

But the song's about complete envy," Davies added. "It was based on the head boy at my school. He was captain of the team, all those things, but I can't tell you his real name as I only spoke to him a few months ago."



The Jam did a pretty cool cover in 1979:

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

42. Love Me till the Sun Shines (1967) - off the Something Else by the Kinks album

Dave Davies started to emerge from his brothers shadow on this album and this is one of three songs he wrote for it. It's a simple song - bringing some straight ahead rock to the middle of the album - but an effective one, further cementing Dave as a capable frontman in his own right. It became a live staple for the band.



BBC Session:

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

41. Get Back In Line (1970) - off the Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One album

A Ray Davies ballad about labor unions. From an album about the working man, power, money and manipulation. Who else sung about this stuff?!

This song sounds tender but is targeted at The Union Man:
He's the man who decides if I live or I die
If I starve or I eat
He walks up to me and the sun begins to shine
He walks right past and I know that I've got to get
Back in the line



Live version from 1977:

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

40. Mindless Child of Motherhood (1969) - B side to the Drivin' single

Another killer Dave Davies composition, it outshines the A-side by a considerable margin. This one got kicked off the Arthur... album. Didn't fit in with the concept of the album? Or a power play by Ray?

When he was 15, Dave got a girl pregnant, followed by his mother lying to him by telling him that the girl wanted nothing to do with him, so he never saw his daughter. It was clearly a key incident in his life, as it came out in more than one song.

I know that it’s not fair
To bear a bastard son
But why do you hide there
When we could have shared a love?

Swirling guitars and rolling bass suddenly lurch into drum rolls and power chords. Anguished, haunting lyrics surrounded by uplifting music which has quite a strange effect.

The song also appeared on the 1972 compilation album, Kink Kronikles (designed for the American market), which included various singles and unreleased tracks.

Dave finally met his daughter in 1993.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

39. Living On A Thin Line (1984) - off the Word Of Mouth album

Another Dave Davies track, this an uncharacteristically political one. There aren't many of the Kinks' later works in this countdown but this is perhaps the highlight of their 80s output.

Davies said that the track was influenced by The Kinks' long and difficult career, along with his hatred toward politicians. The song was also influenced by the deterioration of English culture and Davies' longing for a return to "days of old."

Fans of The Sopranos may recognise it. The track was played three times in the 2001 episode "University." Producer Terence Winter has said that it is the series' most asked about song.



Live version:

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

38. The Village Green Preservation Society (1968) - off The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society album

Opening track and mission statement for the album. A critical success, but commercial disappointment at the time, the LP eventually became the Kinks’ bestselling studio album – prompting frontman Ray Davies to once refer to it as “the most successful flop of all time.”

Davies got the idea for a concept record about small-town life when the Kinks recorded the song "Village Green" in 1967 during the sessions for Something Else by the Kinks.

A reflection on English life, the village green was also a metaphor, a fantasy of an ideal protected place of retreat. Ray Davies: "It’s all in my head, probably.... Everybody’s got their own village green, somewhere you go to when the world gets too much."

Even reviewers who heaped praised on the album couldn’t help but shake their heads at a group that was looking backward while war protesters were obsessed with the present and hippies were dreaming of a future.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

37. Situation Vacant (1967) - off the Something Else by the Kinks album

A classic Ray Davies character piece in which ambition leads to misery.

Newlyweds Susie and Johnny are doing just fine until Susie’s ambitious mom pokes her nose in and pushes Johnny to quit his job so he can find a higher paying, more prestigious position. In natural Kinks fashion, the old lady’s meddling ends in tragedy. Johnny can’t find work, he and Susie lose their apartment, she moves in with her mother, leaving her “little mama” as the only one who’s satisfied.

 

[adammania9]

Oh, I love the Kinks

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

36. Brainwashed (1969) - off the Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire) album

Ray Davies constructed this concept album as the soundtrack to a television play. However, the television program was cancelled and never produced. The rough plot revolved around Arthur Morgan, a carpet-layer, who was based on Ray and Dave's brother-in-law. Arthur Anning.

The Davies brothers' older sister Rose emigrated to Australia in 1964 with her husband, Arthur. The lead character in the album, the fictional Arthur Morgan—modelled after Anning—is a carpet layer whose family's plight in the opportunity-poor setting of post-war England is depicted. Ray Davies would later comment that Anning later "told me that he ... knew it [Arthur] had been partly inspired by him ... [it] reminded him of home ... I told Arthur that I felt guilty for using him as a subject for a song, but he shrugged off my apology, saying that he was flattered."

This was the first album recorded without their original bassist, Pete Quaife. He was replaced by John Dalton.

You look like a real human being
But you don't have a mind of your own
Yeah, you can talk, you can breathe
You can work, you can stitch, you can sew
But you're brainwashed
Yes you are, yes you are
Get down on your knees
You've got a job and a house
And a wife, and your kids and a car
Yeah, you're conditioned to be
What they want you to be
And be happy to be where you are

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

35. Two Sisters (1967) - off the Something Else By The Kinks album

The friction, jealousy, rivalry and love/hate relationship between Ray and Dave Davies fueled a number of the Kinks' songs.

The two characters in this song (Sylvilla and Percilla) were inspired by Ray and Dave. Ray was the married introvert while Dave was a party animal who was very outgoing. "Dave made up for both of us, he was the youthful, fun-loving one. 'Two Sisters' is quite accurate, in the sense that one had all the freedoms - one brother stays in, and the other goes out and has fun. And one resents the other for the ability to do it. But in the end, look what I've got...

Ray Davies: "Very early on Dave was 17 years old when we had our first #1. So he was really out of control from Day 1! He really went for it; booze, drugs, women, girls, women, and more women... whereas I stayed at home and wrote songs. But I wrote one song - we were very different people - it's about two siblings and their rivalry in similar situations to what Dave and I were in."

 

[Mootsy]

Arthur: would have to be the most underrated album in rock history! Musically awesome.
Australia is a gem, Victoria, ugh! it is very literal, but I like it. It has Drivin' on it too.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

34. See My Friends (1965) - single

This eastern-tinged single was released at a time when other bands (Yardbirds, Beatles) were also experimenting with Indian sounds. It doesn't actually include any Indian instruments - it just sounds as though it does.

The song's association with death has been confirmed by Ray Davies who once stated that the death of his older sister Rene provided the sombre and sorrowful atmosphere and subject of the song. It was Rene who, before she died due to hole in the heart complications, had given Davies his first guitar that would lead him into his initial forays into music.

Ray Davies denied that the song was about homosexuality, explaining: "It's more about you've lost the female love of your life, therefore you only have your friends left. That little interchange - 'She is gone' - is the sound of someone who is completely distraught. It's more about camaraderie than homosexuality. But then it borders on that. You go out for a pint with the blokes and then it gets to that moment… and they're singing to one another pissed, and they hug one another."

At the time of the song's release, Davies expressed disappointment at the single's lukewarm reception, saying "[It's] the only one I've really liked, and they're not buying it. You know, I put everything I've got into it ... I can't even remember what the last one was called – nothing. It makes me think they must be morons or something. Look, I'm not a great singer, nor a great writer, not a great musician. But I do give everything I have ... and I did for this disc."

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

33. Big Black Smoke (1966) - B-side to the Dead End Street single

Another Ray Davies character study, this time of a pure country girl corrupted by the big city.

 

[spinynorman]

A Top 5 single in the UK. Didn't chart in the US.... the Yanks didn't get this song or the Kinks in general I guess.

Weren't they banned from the US just at the precise moment they hit their peak? Due to the bad behaviour of the Davies brothers. So Lola was actually a big comeback record in the US, because they'd been unheard of in five years or so.

Also, whoa, you have See My Friends low. Would make my top ten. Village Green Preservation Society not far behind it too.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Weren't they banned from the US just at the precise moment they hit their peak? Due to the bad behaviour of the Davies brothers. So Lola was actually a big comeback record in the US, because they'd been unheard of in five years or so.

Yeah banned from touring from 1966-69 in the USA. Reasons still a bit vague ("a union thing" the most likely) and some conspiracy theories around I will explore later.

Basically cut them off at the knees. And when the ban was lifted they were largely performing social commentaries on English life that didn't translate.

Also, whoa, you have See My Friends low. Would make my top ten. Village Green Preservation Society not far behind it too.

One thing I've found when doing some reading for this countdown is how incredibly varied people's lists of favourite songs and albums are. I think it's because of the radical style shifts. Some people love their early rock stuff, others their later more sophisticated stuff, others the bit in between when they were on the precipice.

Number 10 to about Number 40 I've found tough to split.

Similarly songs 41 to about 65 I found very hard to split. Some beauties missed out.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

32. Too Much On My Mind (1966) - off the Face To Face album

The Kinks had pumped out their first three albums very quickly but took over a year for their fourth, Face to Face. During that time, lead singer and songwriter Ray Davies had suffered a nervous breakdown. The Kinks had to tour Belgium and France with a stand-in. Even after he returned many concerts were cancelled and endless obsessive hours were spent in the studio. They hired a new manager; the infamous Allen Klein.

As rough as this period was, that transition was necessary, for the Kinks were refusing to stay still. Dave wasn't going keep on playing blues riffs, and Ray was done with writing generic love songs. And amid all the smart, snappy satires and character studies of Face to Face, Ray Davies gave us one introspective song to explain what was going on inside that messed-up head of his.