Super post! This is the thing with Ray's writing : it's so precise, deliberate and masterfully crafted that I'll find merit even in songs that I don't care too much for. Top of the Pops is a case in point, both musically (Louie Louie, Wilson Picket, early Kinks etc.) and lyrically, as you pointed out so well. Oh yes you do ! Everybody does (and that's obviously why Ray decided to put it there) ! You might know it under the alternate title "Naaa Nanananaaa Nanananaa nanana nanana !"
Thanks DISKOJOE. I enjoy your avatar as well, which, I assume, is an homage to Mr. Black, who we will be meeting soon!
Side note; I’ve been simultaneously going through a feverish Dylan binge and have been putting together my by now infamous playlists. I’ve been playing my 80s list this a.m. and, just now, ‘Seeing The Real You At Last.’ And the lyric “in the land of a 1000 dances”! I pressed pause and ran to the Kinks thread to report.
While we're logging versions of Land Of A Thousand Dances.... Although Wilson Pickett's version would be my go to, J Geils Band did an excellent version, but I love the J Geils band
That bit was an extemporaneous creation by Cannibal & the Headhunters, a group of Latino kids from East L.A., in 1965!
I was going to mention that this version is one I know well growing up in the Boston area. It was always on the radio.
Dave's TOTP guitar solo here comes off as a bit rudimentary, but the live feedback one on Everybody's in Showbiz is wonderfully exciting.
The Kinks had worked very hard for commercial success in the US. That ban meant they had to start all over again at the beginning of the 1970's, when bands not fit to wash Ray's socks were filling their boots. It was a hard slog for them and I was delighted the Arista years finally paid off for them.