Got Love If You Want It. This track was written and recorded by James Moore, a US blues singer, better known as Slim Harpo. It was the b-side to his 1959 single I'm a King Bee. We open up with a fairly mellow groove and the harmonica holding the attention.... I'm guessing this is Ray putting on a slightly effected vocal. I like this track, and I am sure I know some other versions of this, but they aren't coming to mind at the moment. We have the mellow gentle kind of groove going on for a couple of run throughs and the we get a burst of adrenaline with the band kicking it in, and a harmonica break taking the lead. This leads back to the mellow reflections of the vocal sections, and then again we burst into a bit of a rave up, and the harmonica takes the lead. We modulate keys and and we get the vocal fire up at the end of the rave up and then we mellow out again for the fade out. Perhaps the Kinks were the greatest blues or R&B band, but I like their version of this track, and it ends the album pretty well, in my opinion.
Blues At The BBC Here we get the guys play Got Love If You Want It on the BBC tv show. It is funny seeing the handkerchief sitting on the snare as a damper or something at the start.
From my perspective this is a good debut album, and although the band was still finding their identity, I don't think there is anything to be embarrassed about with this album. There are a couple of the covers that aren't great tracks, and I seriously think the album would have been served better by having more Ray originals on it, but that was the times the band was in, and decisions were probably made based on what the market expected. It is probably an album I am going to return to less than most Kinks albums, but I think it sets the stage pretty well for the band.
Got Love if You Want It is one of the best covers here, everything is pretty cool, the harmonica intro, the fake fade out and Ray's sardonic delivery throughout. And of course Stop Your Sobbing is golden. If I had been there in 1964, this is the song that would've made me an obsessive fan. I'd have heard (and most likely loved) You Really Got Me, so I'd've felt compelled to listen to the album. And of course, I probably would've been underwhelmed… up until this 13th track. Some songs change everything. If such a melodic glorious self-assured easy flowing gem could be lost or hidden somewhere on Side 2 of an otherwise passable LP, then everything about that band surely would deserve to be checked out: all the albums tracks, all the B-sides, all the soundtrack songs, everything. Right from the start, because of Stop Your Sobbing, they can't be labelled a "singles' band". This song alone was indication (proof) there'd be more and more (and more) greatness to come.
That was my take also on what a bald headed woman was most likely to be but........how prevalent was it then?
Regarding Sobbing: the Pretenders version is definitive imo. It's one of these cases where someone saw the potential a neglected song had to offer, and plucked it from obscurity to allow it to reach it's full pop potential. The track is clearly the best written pop song on the album, but the somewhat brusque performance (esp Ray's delivery, where I've heard his 'stop it' phrasing compared to a nervous pet owner trying to discipline an unruly puppy) left room for improvement. It's placement kind of reminds me of 'There's A Place' on the Please Please Me LP: this last minute penultimate pointer to greater things just before the final rave up.
There's A Place by The Fab Four is a lovely hidden gem. Yes, Stop Your Sobbing elevates the album. To paraphrase the other post it highlights another side to Ray Davies' songwriting that marks him and The Kinks out as special. Of course it's easy for us to say that in hindsight, but the song is better than anything else on this record IMO. I also respect what The Pretenders did with it. I've always liked Got Love If You Want It. I'm not always a great fan of this side of The Kinks and the early covers of blues based material, but on occasion they get it right and this is one of those moments for me.
Lol No, I don't understand the appeal of a prepubescent appearance... I want some parsley on the plate
Stop Your Sobbing I'm probably going to be mostly alone in saying this song doesn't do a ton for me. Particularly this recording. The fact that Chrissy heard it and resurrected it many years later is a tribute to her. Though I'm not certain, I think the Pretenders version is likely where I knew of this song first. But in the pantheon of Kinks songs, it's just a little too bland for me. It is a well-crafted pop song, sure. I can hear that. But for me it doesn't have the special something that makes it a Ray Davies composition. Got Love If You Want It Out of the two songs presented today, I like this one so much better. I think I first heard/saw it on the live performance posted above and it instantly sticks in your head. Great groove. and cool way to end the album after many starts and stops along the way!
They do a bang-up job on it here. WOW. Too bad the camerawork was weird. Did they even show Pete once? and Dave is just a right hand strumming a guitar. Would have been better to just see one camera taking in the band as a whole, but alas...
Stop Your Sobbing This is a cover of a girl group song, right? (kidding). Ray’s early originals continue his streak of channeling contemporary top-40 expectations, and here his take on Goffin & King-esque Pop gets everything right. Easily the second best song on the album. I loved this one from the first time I played it. That the producers of “The Queen’s Gambit” used this cut as a mid-1960 period-setter*—as opposed to, say, something by the Chiffons or Supremes—just goes to confirm that after less than a year of composing at a professional level, Ray could already write a song without power chords that was defining the times just as well as anyone else. It’s just that because it’s buried as a deep cut on an album, no one knew about it. It took Chrissie Hynde’s girl-group-meets-British-New-Wave re-interpretation to revive interest in the original Kinks version and put it on the road to achieving 60’s pop-rock “standard” status. Until then even the Kinks had never considered giving it an in-concert treatment. (*If you haven’t seen Queen’s Gambit, the song improbably blares from a car radio, as if in 1964 a.m. radio DJ’s were scouring LP deep cuts for their playlists!) Got Love If You Want it The third best song on the album, and the second best cover the band would ever do. I read the song was in the repertoire of practically every London R&B group. The Kinks take on it was an exceptional piece performed live, as evidenced the the archival clip posted above.. Juxtaposing the quiet and loud had been famously employed by the Isley Brother’s on “Shout,” and probably elsewhere in other examples I can’t think of right now. Whereas the Isley’s travel to the two points in somewhat equal increments, Ray treats it like someone is playing a trick with the radio volume, gradually fading it out until, just when you expect the song to disappear, it’s yanked back to full volume. I’m not aware if it occurred to anyone else on the London club circuit to apply that gimmick to this song. But the result is this is a rare example of the band interpreting a cover that surpasses efforts by such torchbearers of R&B covers as the Yardbirds or Animals. Alongside Stop Your Sobbing, a great end to the original LP release.
Reference guide A bit about the band Oct 1963 I'm A Hog For You Baby (first recording) Dec 1963 Oobadiaboo unreleased? Feb 1964 Long Tall Sally - live footage Apr 1964 You Still Want Me - b-side You Do Something To Me Aug 1964 You Really Got Me - Shindig tv - live footage - beat room - BBC - SNL b-side It's All Right/It's Alright - shindig tv Oct 1964 The Kinks Beautiful Delilah - shindig So Mystifying Just Can't Go To Sleep Long Tall Shorty - live 65 - shindig - live 72 I Took My Baby Home I'm A Lover, Not A Fighter - shindig You Really Got Me Cadillac - live Bald Headed Woman Revenge Too Much Monkey Business -Alt fast take I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain Stop Your Sobbing Got Love If You Want It - Live BBC Paris 1965
Stop Your Sobbing -- Nice track, and an interesting departure from the straight-ahead rockers that make up the rest of the album. This is a strong, melodic, well-structured pop-rock song, the type Ray would soon produce scads of and would come to define him as a great songwriter. I actually prefer Chrissie's version -- the Pretenders flesh out the song nicely -- but the Kinks' original was a good harbinger of what was to come. Bald Mountain is in the rear-view mirror. Got Love If You Want It -- I first heard this song on a Golden Hour compilation I scared up from a bargain bin in the mid-eighties. Not long before I had picked up the Who's Odds and Sods, which features "I'm The Face", so I wondered who had ripped off who, given that it's the exact same song. Well, Slim Harpo was the face -- that is clear. But the Kinks' rendition has an attitude that's hard to dismiss. A worthy album-closer to a solid, if flawed, debut.