"A Well Respected Man" - Ever since becoming a Kinks fan, I've often heard that "Sunny Afternoon" ushered in the classic middle period of the Kinks career. When you are listening to the songs chronologically, however "A Well Respected Man" hits you straight away as something completely different from what came before. It's the first taste of obvious social commentary from Ray and that bouncy music hall-esque backing. I'm sure it confused many back then, and Ray himself abandoned this type of stuff for awhile, but as we know he came back. There's only a 2-line chorus (or refrain). It has a very unusual structure. For some reason, the liner notes of the deluxe "Kinda Kinks" call it the lead off track of the EP. That's not true. Maybe whoever wrote that was thrown off by the resequencing on the CD. "Don't You Fret" - A song I wasn't all that familiar with. Reminded me of "Mull of Kintyre" for some reason, but I'd rather listen to this. It's not the type of song I would think of putting on (since it's not on an album) but I don't mind it. I find the unique structure interesting, with that verse, chorus, and then a bit of a rave up before it slows down for another verse. Is this Ray's first mention of tea? I find Side 2 of the EP stronger than Side 1. Honest question since I wasn't alive in the 60s. Did radio stations play cuts from EPs? They didn't have singles to promote the EPs because there wouldn't be much reason to do EPs then. Every Beatles EP except one was recycled single and album tracks. When you have 4 songs available nowhere else, how did you get people aware of it and want to buy it?
I Bet You Won't Stay / The Cascades (September, 1965) This is a perfect example of what happens when you combine a very pretty melody with absolutely terrible lyrics. This song utilizes the same basic format as The Beatles' "Not A Second Time." Two extremely long verses, with the second being just a repeat of the first. The similarity ends there. The Lennon & McCartney tune has all sorts of internal rhymes and tells a story. These sound like working lyrics from beginning to end. The title is repeated so many times, that it takes up just about as much space as all the other lyrics. If you ask me, both the title and the lyrics should've been completely jettisoned, and replaced with entirely different subject matter. And it's a pity, as it is a genuinely good melody with lots of interesting chord changes. The wall of sound production is also good. It sounds like it was recorded at Gold Star Studios with a full compliment of wrecking crew (and probably was). The intro sort of anticipates "Good Morning Starshine" by a few years. As it stands, this would've been better off as an instrumental: And yes, these are the same Cascades that had a big hit a couple of years earlier with "Rhythm Of The Rain." They would go on to record one more Ray Davies give-away tune, but I'll deal with that when this thread gets into 1967.
I think you’re being a wee bit harsh on the lyric of ‘I’ll Bet You Won’t Stay’ there. I’ve always appreciated it’s unusual premise: glumly telling his partner that she’s unlikely to stick with him long term, almost like he’s just read a statistical report saying 8.5 out of 10 relationships fail in the first 3 months. It’s perhaps not particularly compelling but it is novel. With the bridge talking about the girls freedom it very much seems cut from the same cloth as ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’ to me.
Starting my catch-up. I think I was a bit harsh on "Who'll Be The Next In Line". I said it wasn't strong enough for a single. I've changed my mind and now agree with the majority here that it was stronger than "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" (though I like that too) and that they should have flipped it in the UK. Set Me Free is a real barnstormer. Love it. I first heard I Need You in a mod club in the '90s. I thought, "Wow, surley this is the Kinks. But if it is, why have I not heard it before? Why wasn't it a smash hit?" It should have been. The lost third part of a trilogy with their first two smash hits. It's great enough and different enough to stand alone. Both sides are frantic with frustrated desire and romance. Their best single pairing yet.
See My Friends (or See My Friend) I'm exhausting my superlatives here. A massive leap forward fir the Kinks and for British pop. This song confused me as a child, but as a grown-up the combination of Eastern and Western elements, and the more symbolic lyrics, are just perfect. And it's still a great chunky guitar-led rock song. Nothing much to say about the b-side.
Kwyet Kinks Wait Till The Summer Comes Along A beautiful song, one of my favourites by Dave, and a bold and good choice as the lead cut. Such A Shame One of their less distinctive and memorable songs of this time. Well Respected Man I am probably alone here, but I don't like this song. As others have said, it's the same musical phrase over and over in both the verse and chorus (excepting the title phrase). And it's just basically three notes. Over and over and over. And so lugubrious and funereal in its minor-key litany. Lyrically, I never listened to it carefully enough to get the point of the song. I just thought they were having a go at a "straight" for no real reason. I just didn;t like the music enough to give the lyrics the attention they deserve. Now this thread has got me reading the lyrics for the first time, and for the first time I can see what a lot of good satire is in the song and I appreciate the appeal a lot more. But I'm going to read it in future rather than listen to it. Don't You Fret This sounds to me like a much later Kinks song (think "Daylight" from Preservation Act 1) Overall the EP sounds like two singles combined (as a lot of EPs do), the odd numbered songs being the a-sides and the even numbered songs the b-sides. One single I like, and one I don't. I know I've been heretical today but to make amends I've got some rave reviews coming your way very soon.
Not heretical at all. I can perfectly appreciate your sentiment. Myself, I almost think the same. Which means : I feel the same if I'm focusing on the music only. So many Kinks songs, dozens and dozens of Ray Davies tunes are so much better, in terms of melody and harmony. BUT Ray is not a music guy in search for the right lyrics, nor is he a lyrics guy putting his word to music. He is definitely a song guy, where both musics and lyrics are organically combined to convey a certain type of message or emotion. Some pop writers are more spontaneous or instinctive, he is most deliberate about that, in a very artful and sometimes even intellectual way. Think Oklahoma USA : a very monotonous ponderous verse (life is a bore), waiting for the otherworldly ascending chord changes making way for the woman's vision that is the chorus (she is fa-a-aar ar-away) and back again to the boring life. He started approaching songwriting in that way quite early on, even on the agressive riff songs, especially the build towards the chorus in All Day and All of the Night, then on the different sections of Tired of Waiting for You and then of course it reached another level on the dreamy symbolistic lyrics of See My Friends, set on this drone-sy watery soundscape. I think Don't You Fret is another surprisingly great example of that style of symbiotic writing. As many of us noticed, A Well Respected Man is not only better if you read the lyrics, it's better if you listen to them as a song, the music creating the proper normative narrow-minded conformist frame needed to get the satire across.
A really fine recording with Dave's backing vocals really enhancing things here. (Incidentally the song on here i actually prefer to the original studio cut is Set Me Free!)
I had been time-lining and thinking in that very fashion as I was first initially reading that excellent post!
I don't doubt it and read he needed sessions with a psychologist which may not have been so common at that time.
I never noticed the resemblance to the epic genius of I Can't Seem To Make You Mine before, but yeah it's there. The definitive version, for me, of this song is Alex Chilton's, who as some may know became close to Ray Davies much later on and I think appeared on his Americana album. If you like The Seeds' song, listen to Alex Chilton's version.
I realise that Jon asked someone to post the cover, and I'm not getting bent out of shape about it, but this came out in November 1965, and we are in September of 1965. If as we go along folks jump ahead posting albums and songs as they feel like it, the thread is going to get a little messed up. Please follow along, your input is appreciated, but if everyone tries to lead where we are going, we will end up going nowhere. Cheers Mark
I just remembered (a contemporary one IIRC) an interview where Ray was discussing See My Friends and said that in his opinion it Was a Great Record but that he wasn't sure it was a Great Song! I have always thought it to be great and certainly the only Kinks song up until that time to stand proudly alongside YRGM & ADAAOTN. Music aside many here have spoken of Ray's leap here in imagery and lyric and I couldn't agree more with them as this Kinks song is truly timeless so yes sir it Did sound like the Future!
Here's my hide-under-the furniture-moment. I don't love listening to "Well Respected Man" too much, nor its followup "Dedicated Follower of Fashion." (the latter all the more.) And rarely ever have!! They were great the first three, five, 20 times. Maybe. I recognize their major importance in Ray's songwriting development. If no "Well-Respected Man", then no "Face to Face," no "Something Else," no "Autumn Almanac," all of which I adore; and no wonderful bands inspired by that next period of the Kinks. Heck, perhaps no "Mother's Little Helper", lyrical turn of "Aftermath," and "Between the Buttons". And how might this song, and the Kinks' new direction, have impacted things like "Nowhere Man" and some of the observational lyrics of "Sgt Pepper"? Straight through to XTC, Blur, and on and on. Nonetheless: I find "Well Respected Man" to be a little hit-you-over-the-head with its message. And even more so: While I recognize that the monotonous 3-note minor-key "three blind mice" melody helps convey what he's saying here, and is even rather bold -- it's just not that enjoyable for me to sit through, year after year, decade after decade, when piped in from the radio. I mean, each verse repeats that melody 10 times in a row. (The last 4 times with a harmony, true.) I would imagine if you were a foreign-language Kinks fan, you'd find this track unbearable, in spite of the eventual relief of the chorus. It's galling to me that this song is played SO much, when Ray consistently wrote more tuneful, more cutting, more poignant songs in the following years. Casual listeners don't even know where this led. The material of the following years is just not played on American oldies radio, other than "Sunny Afternoon" and maybe "Waterloo Sunset". I do appreciate the lyrics, and Ray's delivery of them. It's a great arrangement, great band performance, major breakthrough track. The band does clever things to offset that monotony, for sure. The song gets darker as it progresses. The lyrics get actively sad in the final verse, and Ray's vocal shifts as well, beautifully, to convey this. It transforms from being a simple putdown of the guy to making us feel a bit sorry for him. Yes, it works. Yes, it shows us a band we had NO reason to predict would appear -- a band who has something to say, with a truly unique take on things. History is made. Stop playing it, PLEASE. I wanna hear "Rosy Won't You Please Come Home" or "Too Much On My Mind" or 50 other Kinks songs instead. By the way, I've always heard the line as "His arm sweat smells the best," which I think is funnier. But I suspect I'm wrong.
Ray returned to this mode again and again over the next few years. Here are some songs that seem to be to be Well Respected Man's closest cousins: Mr. Pleasant (Workaholic "friendly" guy successfully earns consumer goods and "well-respect" from peers, but gets cuckolded as a direct result of staying at work late) Tin Soldier Man (9-to-5 guy is Just Like Everybody Else) Plastic Man (friendly fake guy, sort of a cross between the friendly fake Mr. Pleasant and Tin Soldier Man) These three all share a certain degree of meanness, sneering schadenfreude mixed with faint pity. The first two are redeemed by truly great music. The third is borderline-redeemed by being so over-the-top shameless, cartoonish and nasty-fun-stupid. Then there are some variations that branch out a bit: Most Exclusive Residence for Sale-- This could almost be a sequel to Well Respected Man, and if it is, the sense of both amusement and compassion for the guy puts it in a different league, as does its great music. I guess this is a guy who "made it", though, versus having inherited his money, so maybe it's a different guy. House in the Country--The song is narrated by the guy who despises the guy with the house in the country and the big sports car; but this feels to be more of an ironic take on the envy, resentment, and rage of its singer. This is more a portrait of a guy who might write some of these other songs. Another level of branching out: Shangri-La --"You," like Mr. Pleasant, successfully earn consumer goods and a nice house, then find yourself to be Just Like Everybody Else. This one feels completely different, as it is a second-person narrative, an epic piece of music, full of angst, pain, compassion. Autumn Almanac--First person narrative of guy who loves his street, loves autumn, loves bagging leaves, loves watching football. He's in the rhythm of life, connected to nature, even as he's in the suburbs. So there is something truly joyful in this track. But there's also the hint of something a little desperate by the end. His back is telling him he's getting old; he's stuck meeting only people from where he lives over and over again; and if he tries to leave, the street itself will command that he return. Then, there are Dandy, about a Don Juan, and Dedicated Follower of Fashion-- these were recorded in Jan and Feb 1966, respectively, and were the most direct followups to the Well Respected Man mode.... but seem less to be about the same guy. They are musically closest, though less monotonous. Dandy implies a bit of the first-person envy of the House in the Country singer. I guess Sunny Afternoon could fit in here somewhere, thematically, but I feel in my bones it's a whole 'nother thing.
While I'll admit I don't park myself next to the radio much, I don't think I've ever heard "Waterloo Sunset" on American Broadcast Oldie stations, and I pay attention to that sort of thing. Programers seems to rely on a metric that reflects US Top 40 success, which excludes many of the great Kinks songs that are standards in the UK but didn't make a dent on our shores. You are right, though, other than YRGM and Lola, I suspect it is the third most played, even more than Tired of Waiting or All Day and All the Night.
Nice exercise, and I agree with most. The protagonist(s) of Shangri-La and Almanac seem to be a different person to me, though--they are songs about the "Little Guy." That protagonist seems to convey a different social class than the one detailed in those other songs.
Agreed. In fact, I'm not clear on the class of Tin Soldier Man and some of the others, either. I was so hard on "Well-Respected Man" that I'm regretting that post, a little. Some of the other posts are having me reconsider its depth. I believe this is the Rolling Stones' response to "Well Respected Man," in terms of a both sound and a thematic door being flung open. Could just be that they were heading this way anyway, given "Play With Fire," but I dunno.
I can only speak for the U.S. market and say the EP was not a thing at all, and if those tracks got any awareness at all it was because they were split into 2 separate singles by the US company or absorbed onto US only albums, like they did with the Beatles. With the Kinks, some of those same tracks from the EP's were first heard in the U.S. on later compilations such as "Kinks Kronicles." As far as airplay during the time we are discussing it was rare for anything other than a single to get airplay at all. Album tracks maybe on a rare occasion, but generally those tracks didn't get much airplay until the advent of FM radio playing rock and roll in the late 60's.
