Good question, to which I did not know the answer, and now I've learned something about this too! I was wrong, it has nothing to do with toffee.. Wikipedia provides the following: "The word "toff" is thought to come from the word "tuft", which was a gold tassel worn by titled undergraduates at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge" It turns out the term 'toffee-nosed' actually derives from toff instead, meaning 'stuck up' or full of themself!
Hmmm ... I can only guess really, but my guess is that toffee, being a desired confection was very likely too expensive for the working class during the war, and very likely for a while after the war. So my guess is that is some kind of connection. One thing about English and Australian put downs..... I don't necessarily think they are always supposed to make sense. I think they are generally over the top, in order to get maximum effect, and at a stage prior to this new millennium, they were very likely designed more to offend, than be any kind of constructive criticism. I think in Australia we may have have perfected this particular form of put down, after taking the motherland's lead. I reckon we will probably get into Cockney Rhyming slang too, in the not too distant future, at the very latest, the album after Face..... Cockney Rhyming slang developed particularly so outsiders had no idea what they were talking about... I think Australia took that to another level as well lol, though some traditional ones still fly about every now and then
I love rhyming slang, can't wait! (That doesn't mean I know any more than the very basic 'come on up the apples an' 'ave a butchers at me new whistle' ) I can only imagine the Australian ones..!
I forgot to follow this thread since about May 19th. Some great have gone by: I Am Free Sittin' On My Sofa A Well Respected Man Mr Reporter And I Will Love You Sunny Afternoon I'm Not Like Anybody Else
I remember when I was fairly young (probably 6 or 7) and my musical tastes were firmly "just The Beatles and The Monkees" my cousin had The Kinks' Greatest Hits album. It's a very striking album cover. It was a few more years before I delved into The Kinks' but my older cousin definitely tried to get me into them earlier with that album.
One thing I'm starting to notice more and more.... Frank Zappa had a thing called conceptual continuity, where themes, personalities etc crop up over the years on various albums. It is quite thick on the ground with Zappa, but I notice the Kinks have a bit of this going on in their catalog also...
The five songs that make up the entirety of side one run a total of 11:39, which is only 18 seconds longer than Bob Dylan's single song "Desolation Row," which was released 3 weeks later, and shared an LP side with three other songs! I wonder if this is the briefest duration of any side in the Kinks vinyl LP discography?
Pye sure was leaning on The Kinks to milk a sure-selling riff for all it was worth, weren't they? I suppose the fact that Ray gave them far superior variations to chose from is what kept this from being taken any further. Strange how record companies--believing rock and roll was a soon-to-be-extinct fad--encouraged their artists to just repeat the sure fire stuff. I'm not super familiar with everything Chubby Checker did, but from what I have heard it seems like all his record company asked of him was to keep re-doing The Twist.
It's amazing that, after the deluxe 2 CD sets for each album, 5CD 1964-71 Anthology set, and three SDEs so far, there's still some unreleased original songs from this period!
Re: "toffee nosed" It was always explained to me like this: An upper class person likes to look down on lower class people. If he cannot do this, because the lower class person is the same height or even taller than him, he has to tilt his head back so he can still look down the length of his nose at the lowly person. Hence "stuck up", and "toffee-nosed" (because toffee is sticky) for someone with his nose in the air because he considers himself superior to everyone else. (If "toff" comes from "tuft" I'm inclined to think "toff" and "toffee nosed" are actually unrelated linguistically)
Yea, that's how the budget releases rolled. Camden was exactly the same. Make an album 10 songs instead of 12 or 14, and sell it in the supermarkets and such. Low price, super short albums
Your analysis of Sunny Afternoon is interesting. I've always intrinsically believed Ray is gently attacking a real aristocrat who he's probably overheard complaining about Wilson's tax squeeze. I don't hear him using much of a posh voice which he would surely have done a lot if he'd really wanted to put the knife in. One word that leans in favour of your interpretation is (and Marc's going to like this) the use of the word 'dough' at the beginning. Cockney slang gives us 'bread' for 'money' (bread and honey/money) and 'bread' is made of 'dough' so this is actually some secondary Cockney slang being used by a toff. On the other hand we have our impoverished aristocrat "Sipping at my ice cold beer". In the sixties and for quite a few years later an English worker would down a pint of bitter at the pub at room temperature. Is the toff used to drinking his beer ice-cold because he's got a fridge? Fridges weren't all that common in the sixties in working class households. WELL RESPECTED KINKS This was the first Kinks record I bought back in the sixties. I've already said that the Kinks were considered a singles band. This budget compilation was a godsend to people like me who were having a hard time finding enough money to buy Beatles singles and albums, Stones and Who singles etc. It's because of this album that I always more or less considered Well Respected Man and Where Have All The Good Times Gone? to be singles, even if at the time I undoubtedly knew they hadn't been.
I have nothing constructive to add, but I just want to say this is my favorite thread in my 10+ years on the forum. Greatly informative and I’m loving playing the music and following along.
That is Manfred Mann's "As Is" album (click HERE). It was their first for Fontana records, and their first with Mike D'Abo and Klaus Voormann, who replaced Paul Jones and Dave Richmond (on lead vocals and bass, respectively). It's very much of the period, and would actually be great subject matter for your podcast. Of course, I haven't scrutinized all the differences between the mono and stereo mix the way that you are an expert at doing, but one thing is for certain...The stereo mix is extremely wide. Click HERE and then HERE to listen to a mono and stereo mix of the opening track for comparison. It isn't quite as fully realized an LP as their "Mighty Garvey" album would be a year and a half later, but it has it's moments: The Morning After The Party
To be fair, record companies exist to make money. And in the 60s, overexposure wasn't seen as a bad thing. There were a lot of demands on these artists for a steady stream of product and some were more up to the task than others. We have to remember in 1966, the Kinks only delivered 1 LP and 3 singles. The year before, they did 2 LPs, 2 EPs, and several singles. Most importantly, they didn't release anything between early June 66 and late October 66. That's no big deal in 2021, but in the 60s, labels wanted some summer cash. With "Face to Face" taking longer to wrap up, these compilations came out. Not unlike "A Collection of Beatles Oldies" coming when no 2nd album was coming from them in 1966. Also in 1966, we have Capitol waiting a long time for "Pet Sounds" so they get the guys to do "Party!" and then once "Pet Sounds" doesn't get the sales they want, a "Best of the Beach Boys" was rushed out too. All these bands that were dependable for constant product started taking their time in 1966 to produce more ambitious work and compilations fill in the gap. In fairness to the Kinks, the tracklisting of these two 1966 compilations are quite good. There are no obvious WTF moments like we got with the Beach Boys. Of course material like that didn't exist for the Kinks. But these discs are packed full of great songs and EP/singles tracks. They are quite resourceful, "Best of the Beach Boys" ignored many hits and stuck their lame cover of "Louie, Louie" between two majestic productions: "The Warmth of the Sun" and "Kiss Me Baby." "Best of the Beach Boys Vol. 3" features such achievements as "God Only Knows," "Good Vibrations," "Heroes and Villains," and... ... ..."Frosty the Snowman"? In comparison, these Kinks 60s items are quite tasteful. It wouldn't always be that way, but it started off good. The Beatles only had 1 UK comp while they were together because they were constantly producing product. In the US, there was no need to make best of's because they were already turning every UK release into two while adding singles and other stray tracks. In the US, they got 3 songs from the "Revolver" sessions months early for a new "Yesterday and Today" album instead of just a simple best of package. Of course Beatles comps became normal with four 2LP sets alone in the 1970s. Dylan's recording career is still going on and he's had way more than 1-2 hits compilations. Other 60s bands that have been overpackaged to death include The Who and The Doors.
Nice post. Yeah I like the way with The Beatles, and to a lesser extent Dylan, there are definitive compilations albums. In The Beatles' case the red and blue albums from the '70s and and Bob's Greatest Hits album, which I think was first pressed in the late '60s, perhaps to fill the gap after he released Blonde On Blonde? There are some bands whose Greatest Hits album becomes the default album to get - Squeeze: Singles 45's and Under, The Fall: 458489 A Sides to name a couple. Anyway I take your point - bands were expected to put stuff out every 5 minutes back in the day.
A not particularly good rock history book I read once suggested "Sunny Afternoon" "could almost be about Jagger". I don't suppose it's specifically about Mick Jagger, but any newly wealthy young man of the time would fit the bill.
Hmmm... the plot thickens! Your tax squeeze theory is entirely plausible and likely, I like that idea. It hadn't crossed my mind that the ice cold beer would be something a working class guy probably wouldn't have had access to (having been born into an age of fridges... ). Perhaps the Mick Jagger/newly wealthy young man thing as @Vagabone mentioned makes sense of the beer - he's drinking beer as he's working class, but he's rich enough to have a fridge so is having it ice cold. I am now rethinking my interpretation! Perhaps a little of all the interpretations offered might nail it...?! (Don't worry, I'll keep any additional theories to myself so we can move on... )
