The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I'm kind of surprised, in some ways, that more don't hear that..... but that's the interesting thing about threads like this, we get to hear other perspectives that can often be vastly different to our own.
    Sometimes they leave us scratching our heads, and sometimes they provide the click that was missing.
     
  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    That's fair.... from the first listen that's what I heard.
     
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  3. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Look A Little On The Sunny Side"

    Yeah, I like this one, although I can see why some would find it a bit annoying, especially the way Ray pronounces "little". The lyrics are brutally honest yet amusing and the music has a nice oom-pah bounciness. I certainly wouldn't have appreciated this one when I first heard it back in the 80s, but I'm fine with it now. And it's essential to be able to appreciate something like this if you're going to get much out of the next three albums!
     
  4. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Uh oh!
     
  5. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Look a Little on the Sunny Side

    @Fortuleo beat me on the Python reference. But what has always been the elephant in the room with this song, to me, is the musical proximity with "Sitting by the Riverside". The first line is litterally the same notes, with a sligthly different diction, over the same chords, in the same key. Maybe it was mentioned back then ? This helps me to establish the chronology of my discovery of Kinks Album: I distinctly remember thinking "Riverside" looked a lot like "Sunny Side" when I heard it, which means I definietely bought Showbiz before VGPS !

    Anyway, I love this song, and it was one of the 3 tunes I listened to when putting that record on (with the next one and Sitting in my Hotel). In fact, Celluloid Heroes end up being the only song not fitting the "Lola pt2" theory, since it deals with cinema instead of music. Today's song fits the bill perfectly.

    There is something fascinating with the relationship between a public person and the critics. You would think it should be easy for the artist to simply ignore the bad critics, especially when you have a devoted public and sell enough stuff to make a nice good living off it, but apparently it's not that simple. I remember a book in which French writer Michel Houellebecq and essayist/philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy exchanged their views about celebrity. Different as they are, they shared this feeling of being outcast, runaway victims of ferocious critics, standing alone against the crowd... The guys are extremely rich and famous (Houellebecq internationally, Lévy only nationwide), sell a lot of books, talk in the media whenever they feel like it, but somehow the fact that some people don't like them, which whatever you do happens as soon as you show the tip of your nose on the public scene, makes them miserable. I suppose you have to get there to understand.
     
  6. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I understand what @ARL is saying, but I don't think it means what you may think lol
     
  7. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I understand this perspective, and I often hear it stated, in various ways.

    I think the thing is, for many writers, they are putting a little piece of themselves in everything they do, and sometimes an assault on a song, ends up being a personal attack.
    It probably doesn't make sense to someone just hearing it as some music, but as someone who has experienced a critic taking a crap on something I did, that was very personal, in some ways, it ends up being something a little more than that.
    In 95 our band recorded an album, and I wrote the songs. Eventually a critic reviewed the album.... he stated that whoever wrote the songs didn't believe in anything they were saying, and that they were a spoiled little rich kid, and the album was over-produced lol
    I was a working class kid on the bones of my ass, intentionally wrote somewhat cryptically, and we recorded 13 songs in one day, and mixed them the next lol.... so being so far off the truth, and so deep in personal attack, I went to the magazine to punch his face in :)
     
  8. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I love it ! Did you get to see him ?

    Reminds me of a scene in Martin Eden, when he goes to the publisher to retrieve his money with his fits. Great novel, by the way.

    (I recorded an album in 95 too, when I think of it ! I only had nice little reviews in minor papers, or maybe I forgot the bad ones. I even drunkenly used a gay slur with a guy who happened to write for a gay paper, but I didn't know it at the time... He didn't hold it against me though, the review was nice.)
     
  9. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    At least you didn't write a song about it. Or a concept album.
     
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  10. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Look a Little on the Sunny Side: I am flying as I type this, several days in advance, as I will be taking turkey with my future in-laws so I doubt I will have time to type my thoughts up each day this week. I will post what I wrote without looking at what others here think or say on the day of, so I will be interested to see how this song is received. I didn’t like it at first, too much emphasis on the horns and no Dave. ..but as with so many of Ray’s songs, it ends up drawing you in. More self analysis of the direction of the Kink’s career and their relationship with the critics, their fans and their record label, so maybe of interest to a limited audience, but still a good song. It’ll make my playlist but I am guessing towards the tail end.
     
  11. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Lol
     
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  12. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Loved Mr Cantona too and once saw him play in person at Old Trafford
    I have no axes to grind nor politics or hatred to keep fanning but I do enjoy reminiscing about sport I enjoyed watching in my younger days.
     
  13. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Nah, it was a freelance reporter.... so there was no recourse.
    The editor of the magazine met with us.... and I was very polite, the bass player went with me to make sure I wasn't arrested.
    We all came to the agreement that they would send someone to review our next gig, because the critic had also stated there was no way we could possibly play this stuff live.... even though we had been gigging the material for six months before recording, to pick the best songs and tighten arrangements.
    Oddly enough, even though we had been gigging around Perth for five years prior, after that meeting we couldn't get a gig anywhere lol .... I guess it could be coincidental, but it didn't really seem like it.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2021
  14. GarySteel

    GarySteel Bastard of old

    Location:
    Molde, Norway
    But of course. As it should be and I would have loved to see Cantona in the Theater of Dreams :)

    For me, the OGS travesty is rather personal as it meant that he has been manager of my city's team twice and both times he has dropped out mid-season. First to Cardiff in january of 2014 and then after returning with his tail (another sign of Devilry) between his legs after a few months there and getting his old job back, he did the same again in December 2018. Less than a month after signing a new three year deal with Molde FC. Great player. Not that great at being loyal.

    Sorry about being OffTopic, gang. But to quote Bill Shankly: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

    Also funny to see that @mark winstanley was a amateur pugilist in his younger days.
     
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  15. Northernlight

    Northernlight Forum Resident

    Great song! Lyrically, it could be just Ray's fantasy song about jetting off to a new world, writing off the current world and leaving everybody's problems behind. It could be about drugs, but that's a bit of a cliché, isn't it? When in doubt, put it down to drugs.

    The mandolin part is a great hook, the steel drums and the brass are wonderful colouring. I love this track.
     
  16. Allthingsmusic

    Allthingsmusic Forum Resident

    And I think he follows with "out of sight man, far out"!
     
  17. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Lol .... nah, I fought most of my battles with my razor sharp tongue, and highly offensive mouth :)

    I'd be lying if I said I had never wanted to punch someone's lights out, but thankfully it rarely ever came to that.

    Back when office faxes were how folks sent oddities, instead of emails and social media posts, I got one that really resonated with me....
    "Stress - the effect of repressing the need to choke the living s**t out of someone who desperately needs it" :)
     
  18. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Look A Little On The Sunny Side
    I can find no logical reason to like this song. On paper, it seems a sort of thing I'd avoid. But I love it. Lyrically, musically, and especially the matching of lyric with tune, this is a delight.

    Yeah, I hear Shirley Temple, but this morning, I couldn't help but be reminded of Monty Python.

     
  19. Allthingsmusic

    Allthingsmusic Forum Resident

    This one is "showbiz Ray" and I like it. A friend of mine in high school loved this type of song and had our "crew" from school visiting Broadway to see "No,No Nanette" which was in revival during this time period.
     
  20. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Look a Little on the Sunny Side

    I'm in the camp of Ray's voice here is a bit much. The pronunciation of "little" and the odd (to me) accents on "SUNny SIDE of LIFE". I really like the music though. It has that New Orleans meets Music Hall (sidenote: it's an incredible coincidence that there is a live music venue in New Orleans called "Preservation Hall" because that is probably the perfect name of this genre of Kinks music).

    I also really like the lyrics. It is a bit "woe is me the artist" and unless you are an artist, it is a bit hard to relate to, but that whole verse about the rhythm & blues and smiles back and forth and back and forth is so good!
     
  21. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    That explains a line of lyrics in Ray's solo track "Imaginary Man", where he says "went down to Preservation Hall". I thought he might have been making an oblique reference to his back catalogue!
     
  22. Pawnmower

    Pawnmower Senior Member

    Location:
    Dearborn, MI
    "Look A Little On The Sunny Side"
    This is one of those tunes that I like immediately. The bounciness, the positivity, the horns, the old-timey on display. Lovely. Of course it conjures up thoughts of "Keep on the Sunny Side" by the Carter Family. So far side 2 is owning side 1! And that explanation point is showing up tomorrow.

    Off topic: but I keep seeing whinge and whinging around here lately. I always thought it was a misspelling of "whining" and wondered what was up with that G. I just looked it up and I get the impression it's the UK version of whining but I don't know how it's pronounced with that G in there.
     
  23. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Thanks for explanation. I thought it was a prolific amount of misspelling! And I don’t know how it is pronounced if it’s a legit spelling. (But then it wasn’t until I was a teen that I figured out Geoffrey was pronounced the same as Jeffrey).
     
  24. LX200GPS

    LX200GPS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Somewhere Else
    I'm assuming the BBC, in their infinite wisdom, deleted the tape which this edition of TOTP had been recorded to? They also deleted, amongst many other programmes, their coverage of the moon landings with Patrick Moore and James Burke. Plonkers, the lot of them!
     
  25. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I'll let the Aussies here explain Whingeing Poms to you.
     
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