Loving the comments about Tired of Waiting for You - one of the first really great "beautiful" Ray Davies compositions. And that it has three distinctly different (and great!) sections makes it a wonderful slice of pure pop songwriting. I first heard it on my gateway album "The Kinks' Greatest Hits" LP on Reprise, with that cavernous reverb added for the fake stereo mix. Somehow IMHO the reverb makes the song even more poignant and emotional. The live version on the Kelvin Hall LP is fantastic too - slowed WAYYYY down, it has even more beauty. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the similarity between Come on Now and the 13th Floor Elevators' "repurposing" of the riff for their song Tried to Hide. Here's the original single version, with harmonica: garage rock ahoy!
Excellent insight on both of these songs @Fortuleo. After reading your thoughtful and intelligent comments on the Wilco song by song, I am happy that you are taking part in this Kinks thread! "Tired of Waiting For You" - Everyone has pretty much said it all. I will agree with Dave and everyone on here that this is pop perfection! What a beautiful melody and sound that proves they have a lot more to offer than the heavy riffs of the previous two singles. Not sure if I ever made the connection with "Ticket To Ride" before, but they are clearly related. A song I will never get tired of. "Come On Now" - Dave takes charge and delivers his finest vocal so far. I love the riff and the energy. We also have yet another song that shares some Beatles similarities. These last several songs might have had John and Paul shaking in their boots. It was songwriters like Ray that made everyone step up their game.
Finally found a clip with the fake stereo with added reverb version. Of course, the low-generation punchy UK mono mix sounds wonderful, and is superior, but there is just something...dreamy about this reverb version. Your mileage may vary! This turntable might be running a tad slow as well. Still, you get the effect!
From the interview: You did some amazing guitar stuff on Village Green that’s underrated… All my stuff’s underrated!
Speaking of gateway Kinks albums , mine was ' Golden Hour of The Kinks'. Crappy sounding but that didn't matter much to me then. And what a great collection of songs!
Actually, here is how Americans heard this tune for the first time. No fake stereo, but lots of added echo. It came out only a couple of months after "I Feel Fine/She's A Woman" which also had a lot of reverb added for the U.S. market. I'm guessing that there were some honchos at Reprise who were keeping close tabs on what was going on over at Capitol. I've always preferred this over the dry PYE version. It makes it sound "big."
"Tired Of Waiting For You" was a hit at the beginning of 1965 and "Five O'clock World" was a hit at the end of the year. I think the similarity between the two hits is downright in-your-face. Especially when juxtaposed with the Reprise version of TOWFY with all the added reverb. The tempo is slightly faster, but it's the same meter and chord progression: As for "Come On Now," I'll just mention that it obviously marks Rasa's first appearance on a track. Her voice is particularly audible on the line, "It's Getting Late And We'd Better Go."
When I was a 7-year-old hearing YRGM in the background on my teenaged brothers' transistor AM radio, I thought the refrain was "She really got mad."
I, too, first heard Stop Your Sobbing through the Pretenders. The Kinks recording demonstrates Ray's potential as a writer in that it has a strong melody. But the performance itself is a bit clunky. I agree that it is missing that something special to elevate it.
You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night have not aged at all. The recording betrays their vintage but the songs still sound thoroughly modern to my ears. All Day And All Of The Night is a barn burner of a track. If the Kinks had stopped recording right afterwards, they'd still be celebrated for these songs.
You beat me to it, I was going to mention that 13th Floor Elevators song after I'd read through the comments. And what a song it is. And what a band they were..... for their first two albums anyway. No-one did garagey psychedelia as well as Rory Erikson and Co.
Mate, I haven't heard that song in a million years. At first I thought I didn't know it, but the little yodeling section brought it back. Cheers
Great posting here everyone. As a self appointed historian, I'll point out Ray got the idea for the track from the diverse young men nervously waiting for a date as one of his older sisters primped upstairs while young Dave tried to hustle them for this or that. One of my best buddies opened his group's set with Come On Now as he tasted rock stardom for a short time after college. A fantastic single.
..... and just to add to the other comments, I didn't realise Tired Of Waiting For You was only their third single. The songwriting was clearly developing at pace. Who can refuse this song, the first of many perfect singles. Whilst the first two were iconic and influential, this has depth and beauty, and yet the construction is maddeningly simple. The change into the minot chord (I assume it's a minor) for the middle eight is a touch of genius and changes the whole arc of the song. Pretty much perfect.
I, too, discovered this song as track three on some long forgotten hits package. The first two hits almost sound like a different band. My initial era of discovery of the Kinks was the late 70's & early 80's. So, I didn't experience the Kinks in any kind of correct chronology but, to my ears, Tired Of Waiting For You was the beginning of a window during which the Kinks were finding their sound. They started with the proto punk of the first two singles and found their unique Kinks sound beginning with A Well Respected Man. Am interested in hearing the thoughts of someone who experienced the Kinks in "real time".
Here’s the landmarks list (it was a reference link in wiki article for Tired of Waiting For You): “"The next big thing was 'Tired Of Waiting' which was No 1 all over the world. It was a change of style for us, we got a bit posher! Our material started to get a hit more melodic after that.” Dave Davies - N.M.E. - February 1971
This way also my gateway album. Back in the late '70s when Paul Weller, then of The Jam, was espousing the genius of Ray Davies, my friend got a copy of The Golden Hour Of The Kinks from the record library and we started to investigate them. When I first listened to it I already recognised a few of the songs (Waterloo Sunset being one) so their music had already seeped in. I can't remember much about how good or bad it sounded, but I have a feeling it may have been ten songs per side.
I think the story is they were watching a football (soccer) game getting drunk. Not to mention the sound of that show is pretty horrid. I'm guessing no one bothered turning down the microphone after Paul got off. I love this performance of "You Really Got Me." The look on Mick's face is priceless at the :30 mark.
I was just reading what happened that day in the The Kinks All Day and All of the Night book...they were flying back from Copenhagen that day, so for once they couldn't blame football or bad behavior.
The ‘late for a gig due to watching football’ story is from 1966, on the occasion of the World Cup final won that year by England.
TIRED OF WAITING FOR YOU Short, sweet, but so good. Mesmerising in fact. COME ON NOW A nice, fun B-side. The good news is that Dave Davies is singing better. The bad news is that it's late, the singer is not prepared to wait all night ... and yet the sun is shining.