The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    The ‘One For The Road’ live video version, 1980:

     
  2. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Ray at Glastonbury 2010:

     
  3. seanw

    seanw Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Everything in Victoria comes together so well. The band is on the top of its game, and there's a great use of horns too.

    But knowing what's following, amazingly, Victoria isn't a highlight--not because it isn't fab, but because the bar set by all the songs on the album is so high. On almost any other record it would be an absolute standout track!

    I've just noticed that the voice Ray uses on Victoria is carried over to the first verse on Yes Sir. Makes sense, of course.
     
  4. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Reference guide

    Oct 1963 - Nov 1966

    1967

    Apr 1967 Mr Pleasant - Alt version - Beat Club - live - beat club - instr (whistling)
    This Is Where I Belong - Ray live - Ray with Francis Black

    May 1967 Mr Pleasant EP
    Mr Pleasant
    This Is Where I Belong
    Two Sisters - Ray live (with chat)
    Village Green - Instrumental - Ray

    May 1967 Waterloo Sunset - instr. - live 73 - Ray live 78 - live 94 - Ray and Damon Albarn - doco excerpt - Ray and Bowie - Ray live (Peter dedication)
    Art Nice and Gentle

    May 1967 Waterloo Sunset EP

    Documentary

    Jul 1967 Death Of A Clown - Dave Live - Dave live 2002

    Sept 1967 Something Else By
    David Watts - Live 84 - Dave live 97 - Ray live 2010 - Alt mono - alt version
    Death Of A Clown
    Two Sisters
    No Return
    Harry Rag - BBC - Ray 2010 - alt version
    Tin Soldier Man - Sand On My Shoes (original) - Alt backing track
    Situation Vacant - mono
    Love Me Till The Sun Shines - BBC - live 69 - Dave 97 - stereo
    Lazy Old Sun - alt version
    Afternoon Tea - German Stereo - Alt stereo - Canadian Mono
    Funny Face
    End Of The Season
    Waterloo Sunset

    Little Women backing track

    Dave And Ray interview sixties

    Echoes Of The World - The Making Of Village Green Preservation Society

    Oct 1967 Autumn Almanac - stereo - Top Of The Pops - live fan jam - Ray - breakdown

    Nov 1967 Sunny Afternoon LP

    Nov 1967 Susannah's Still Alive - stereo - video

    1967 BBC sessions - Sunny Afternoon
    Autumn Almanac
    Mr Pleasant
    Susannah's Still Alive
    David Watts
    Death Of A Clown
    Good Luck Charm

    Jan 1968 Live at Kelvin Hall
    Part 1

    Part 2

    Jan 1968 Wonderboy - video - Top Of The Pops - stereo mix
    Polly - stereo mix

    April 1968 The Kinks EP

    June 1968 Days - stereo mix - Glastonbury 2010 - live 1969 - video edit - Basil Brush - Alt stereo - Acoustic - 1991 EP version

    Aug 1968 Lincoln County - stereo mix - Dave live
    There Is No Life Without Love

    Colour Me Pop Medley

    She's Got Everything Promo film

    July 1968 Colour Me Pop - Dedicated Follower Of Fashion A Well Respected Man Death Of A Clown Sunny Afternoon Two Sisters Sitting By The Riverside Lincoln County Picture Book Days

    Nov 1968 The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society - the gold disc award
    The Village Green Preservation Society - Alt mix with studio banter - Live 73
    Do You Remember Walter - Euro Stereo - Backing Track - live 94
    Picture Book - real stereo - live 69 - live 73 - Ray 2011
    Johnny Thunder - alt mix - stereo - original stereo - Ray (+VGPS) 2008 - Ray 2010 - Crouch End Chorus
    Last Of The Steam Powered Trains - alt ending - live 69 - live 70 - Dave live
    Big Sky - alt stereo - live 69 - Crouch End Chorus
    Sitting By The Riverside - Stereo
    Animal Farm - alt stereo - Ray 2004 - stereo
    Village Green - alt vocal - backing vocal
    Starstruck - alt vocal - video - stereo - Ray 2008
    Phenomenal Cat - alt mix - stereo - stereo US link
    All Of My Friends Were There - stereo
    Wicked Annabella - stereo - Dave 97
    Monica - stereo
    People Take Picture Of Each Other - Euro stereo (big band) - stereo - live 73
    extra tracks
    Mr Songbird - stereo
    Berkley Mews - stereo - single mix
    Rosemary Rose - mono
    Misty Water - stereo - alt stereo
    Did You See His Name? - mono
    Till Death Us Do Part - stereo - Chas Mills vocal - Anthony Booth vocal
    Lavender Hill
    Pictures In the Sand - instrumental
    Easy Come, There You Went
    Egg Stained Pyjamas
    Mick Avory's Underpants
    Spotty Grotty Anna
    Where Did My Spring Go? - video
    When I Turn Off The Living Room Light
    Darling I Respect You
    Village Green At The BBC
    Days

    Waterloo Sunset
    Love Me Till The Sun Shines
    Monica
    Village Green Preservation Society
    Animal Farm
    Last Of The Steam Powered Trains
    Picture Book
    Do You Remember Walter?
    Dedicated Follower Of Fashion/Well Respected Man/Death Of A Clown
    Picture Book
    Preservation Overture
    Ray in Denmark with the Denmark Choir And Orchestra
    Colour Me Pop

    1968 International EP's

    1968 Four More Respected Gentlemen

    Pete Quaife - interview - Kast Off Kinks - I Could See It In Your Eyes - Dead End Street

    67-69 Dave Davies Solo Album
    This Man He Weeps Tonight - mono - acoustic
    Mindless Child Of Motherhood - mono - live 69 - BBC
    Hold My Hand - demo - mono - acoustic
    Do You Wish To Be A Man?
    Are You Ready?
    Creeping Jean - stereo - live 99
    I'm Crying - better master
    Mr Reporter
    Mr Shoemakers Daughter
    Groovy Movies

    Climb Your Wall
    Dave Live various

    Rasa Didzpetris Davies

    March 69 Plastic Man - stereo - beatclub 69
    King Kong - stereo - video

    Oct 1969 - Arthur
    Victoria - mono - live 69 - live 73 - live 1980 - live 2010


    Preservation Live

    Starmaker Tv Play
     
  5. Paul Mazz

    Paul Mazz Senior Member

    To me, this is the quintessential Kinks opener. Kinks Kronikles was one of the first Kinks records I had, and it was a great opener for that kollection as well. They also opened with Victoria at least the first couple of times I saw them live, for the Preservation and Soap Opera tours.

    I don’t really have anything unique to add. What an infectious song. As an American, I had originally found the whole concept of monarchy repugnant, and I enjoy the satiric parts of the song, but even though I have no Anglo ancestry, the amount of enthusiasm in this song let me feel a little of the affection some must have for their monarch.
     
  6. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Love the big choir. Some of them appear to be having a genuinely good time.
     
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  7. joejo

    joejo Well-Known Member

    Location:
    toronto
    I don't know if you can raise my enthusiasm for this album to the level of the previous 3, but it looks like you all are trying. Once upon a time I thought Something Else was the best album I had ever heard. One time after that when I listened intently to VGPS I was wow the whole thing perfection. But, there is something about maybe the simplicity of Face To Face that always reminds me what it is all about for me. Or maybe that is only because that is the leap, a tantalizer of what came after. Plus Reprise deleted it, has anybody mentioned this?
     
  8. jethrotoe

    jethrotoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    This song sets the stage for the album. From the get-go, we get some history, social commentary, yearning for the past, but also sarcasm:

    “Long ago life was clean/sex was bad, called obscene/and the rich were so mean”

    These lines should be the entire lesson for teaching the Victorian-era to high schoolers. It totally sums up the modern stereotypes of the late-19th century in 3 lines. Really brilliant.

    “Stately homes/for the lords/croquet lawns/village green/Victoria was my queen.”

    I also love the line “where the sun never sets.”

    We come back to that Imperial Great Britain motif in “Arthur” when Arthur watches “his children sailing off to the setting sun/where things will be more equal and there’s plenty for everyone.”

    Ray made the album’s closer the opposite of the album opener. Absolutely genius.

    And talk about social commentary, the full line “When I grow, I shall fight/for this land, I shall die/where the sun, never sets.” I guess it was a forgone conclusion that the narrator (Arthur?) would die for Britain considering he lived through multiple wars. It must have felt that way for that generation.
     
  9. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    Great posting, everyone. I feel like I'm in the best English class I never took in college. Your suggestion @Steve62 that if Victoria was a statue on a campus, people would be protesting it is spot on! But because they didn't closely enough. The whole point of Arthur is the postwar ideas of patriotic nostalgia -- and what living well or success and happiness actually look like -- all ring hollow.
     
  10. [​IMG]
    Single by the Kinks
    from the album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
    B-side

    Released
    • 15 October 1969 (US)
    • 12 December 1969 (UK)
    Recorded May–June 1969
    Studio Pye (No. 2), London
    Genre Rock
    Length 3:37
    Label Pye (UK, 7N 17865) Reprise (US, 0863)
    Songwriter(s) Ray Davies
    Producer(s) Ray Davies

    stereo mix (3:38), recorded May-Jun 1969 at Pye Studios (No. 2), London

    Long ago life was clean
    Sex was bad, called obscene
    And the rich were so mean
    Stately homes for the Lords
    Croquet lawns, village greens
    Victoria was my queen
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria

    I was born, lucky me
    In a land that I love
    Though I am poor, I am free
    When I grow I shall fight
    For this land I shall die
    Let her sun never set
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria

    Land of hope and gloria
    Land of my Victoria
    Land of hope and gloria
    Land of my Victoria
    Victoria, 'toria
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria

    Canada to India
    Australia to Cornwall
    Singapore to Hong Kong
    From the West to the East
    From the rich to the poor
    Victoria loved them all
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria
    Victoria, Victoria, Victoria

    Written by: Ray Davies
    Published by: Hill & Range Songs BMI
    [/QUOTE]
    I hate to be Mr. Pedantic, but one minor quibble about these lyrics - As quoted above, we have
    When I grow I shall fight
    For this land I shall die
    Let her sun never set.

    That should be Where the sun never sets, as in "The sun never sets on the British Empire"
    In this live clip you can hear it clearly at 0:58:
     
  11. jethrotoe

    jethrotoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    This album is more like The Final Cut than The Wall.
     
  12. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Well! At breakneck speed, that’s for sure.
     
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  13. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I started to count all the individual songs we’ve covered...and gave up (some are listed as tv performances, etc. and would take some serious time to avoid duplication). Anyway, the number is A Lot.
     
  14. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I copy and pasted the lyrics from the Kinda Kinks site. I hadn't noticed that. My understanding has always been "Where The Sun Never Sets"
     
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  15. Geoff738

    Geoff738 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Cracking opener to my favourite album!
     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Ray Davies
    "I was in a bit of a vengeful mood when I wrote Arthur, because we couldn't go to the America and Village Green had not done well commercially.
    Looking back I am very pleased with Arthur. at the time we were fragmented as a band. Pete had just left,Nobby had just joined, and we didn't know how we felt about each others playing.
    Village Green was perfect for the band with Pete. Now with a new bass player, it added a different energy.
    The connection's there, all of Arthur merges with Village Green because of my childhood. I'm constantly in an innocent child-like state, I couldn't write otherwise."
     
  17. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Mick Avory
    I's rank Arthur among my favourite Kinks albums.
    We were excited because these were different types of songs, they followed a story.
    Ray was always progressing, which made things interesting. There were some new challenges which I liked."
     
  18. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Dave Davies
    "I loved the songs, I loved the idea even though the TV special didn't happen, we still had all this wonderful material.
    There's a lot of sarcasm and hurt on the album, like the line " Arthur maybe you were right, all along, don't you know it?"
    Sometimes some of the most sardonic or sarcastic things really help get the emotions out."
     
  19. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Ray Davies
    "Things happen for a reason. The whole focus at the time was on getting back to America so it didn't seem to affect me that much.
    I put my emotions on backburn, something I have learned to do over the years.
    Mo Ostin (head of Warner/Reprise) really wanted us over there because they helped us with Village Green. Arthur was the second of the two England themed albums we were going to America on the back of.
    It was important to the rest of the band but the thought of going back scared me. Once banned, always stay banned. My head wanted me to do it, but my heart was terrified. Literally terrified."
     
  20. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    John Dalton
    "Mick said, 'Ray's asked me to ring you.'
    Mick told me that Pete was quitting and would I come back. First of all I wasn't too sure because of what had happened before, but when Mick said Pete was definitely going for good, and because Mick and I got on really well, I thought, OK then."
     
  21. the real pope ondine

    the real pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    usa

    agree, great solid track, but some that follow are transcendent, a rare album where it all works
     
  22. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    John Dalton
    "Half the songs were still in Ray's head so we'd work it out between us.
    Ray would run through chord changes, you'd write them down, and we'd go through it together"

    "In the studio Ray would set the tempo, and we'd try out different things. You just played along.
    A lot of the time Ray wouldn't sing, but perhaps that was because he was still trying to develop the arrangement of the song.
    We couldn't afford much studio time so we would go in at nights to record when we could."
     
  23. idleracer

    idleracer Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    :kilroy: I'd like to draw everyone's attention to an even more obvious comparison than "Going Up The Country"...



    Both songs were big hits here in Southern California, and to this day, when I hear the intro of "Time Is Tight" on an oldies station, I frequently expect to hear "Victoria" (and vice-versa).

    The structure of the song is extremely interesting. The verses and choruses are purely diatonic, but then we suddenly get that completely unexpected bridge with the slowed tempo and the musical tip of the hat to "Pictures Of Matchstick Men."

    I would imagine that part of the reason this managed to do well in certain regions of the U.S, mainly had to do with the song's easy hummability. Certainly the lyrics, which are actually difficult to make out in places, wouldn't be of too much interest to most yanks. It's also easy to dance to.
     
  24. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Thanks for taking all the time to copy this all out for the thread participants. Much appreciated. I know it’s quite a task.
     
  25. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I just came across a bizarre album that is a cover of the Arthur album.....
    I was sort of torn about whether to post it .... but I figure folks can listen to the first couple of minutes, and either be enthralled or shake your head and move on.

    I know nothing about this band, but I gather they are somewhat avant garde, sort of punk, and certainly present this album in their own unique way.

    Mainly I just found it very interesting that a band like this would go to the trouble of learning and recording the whole album..... It's quite different to the Kinks, it isn't something I would buy personally.

    So for thirty seconds of most folks time, if any, here's Connie Voltaire, and their version of Arthur
     
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