This famous Pete & Dud sketch references ducks on the wall - though they seem to be talking about paintings of ducks.
In what will soon be only Dave's 1st autobiography, 'Kink' (btw HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE, 75 TODAY!) he makes the extraordinary claim that Ray Charles wanted to record 'Ducks On The Wall'! I'm fairly skeptical of the veracity of this claim while at the same time hoping it's true (and hoping he did get around to it and and it will one day surface from the vaults!)
I have both that one and X-Ray by, well, Ray. Haven't gotten round to reading either. Getting the finger out recommended re: this?
Yeah definitely. Even though both are a quarter century old now, (and in the case of Ray's, has a fictionalised self eulogizing framing story which some will find off putting) they're both still packed with first hand insight and details I've never found anywhere else. Definitely primary texts. Ray's second autobiography 'Americana' is also worthwhile.
Yeah, think reading about that was what clouded my judgement on these. They cost me about 1 euro each in a flea market years ago, so perhaps silly beggars shouldn't be choosers.
Ducks On A Wall: Ladies and Gentlemen….The Kinks. Two thumbs up. To me, this is in the humorous-as-hell ‘Hot Potatoes’ category and I’m happy that it clearly is a Kinks (the rock band) number. The first song to go onto my Chapter II playlist. Alejandro Escovedo has a marvelous song entitled ‘Dearhead On The Wall,’ spelled as “dear” but clearly a take-off on seeing trophy deer heads mounted on the wall. It’s not a full-throated rocker, though, and is more brooding and dark…though very clever (as is Ray’s song).
Well I worked for Mrs Macs for 10 years, and they are my choice of beef pies..... there are certainly some dodgy products out there though
But I can imagine a 5 year old may call RDD "Way Davies" He may not have done a full Kinks style pastiche, but he did do Y-O-D-A Yoda, yo-yo-yo yo-yo Yoda.
Ducks on the Wall: Another very fun, funny song. I don't think it's quite to the same level as Ordinary People or You Make It All Worthwhile, but it stomps and boogies with credibility. I'm a big fan of John the Baptist ripping it up here; I'm sure it must have been cathartic for him to really let loose with the fun stuff after an album full of mostly non-rock keyboard stylings. The Supersonic Rocket Ship borrowing used to annoy me, but I guess I've mellowed, or something? I can't think of any link between the two songs that wouldn't be tortured (i.e. the couple taking the rocket ship ride are old and boring now, and such flights of fancy are replaced by... flights of ducks? Yeah, that's a sweaty premise). Anyway, a nice pen-penultimate song before the album starts to wind down.
Ducks on the Wall. The Kinks go all-in on a true comedy song. I love it. The lyrics got me thinking of a sexual euphemism that nobody uses any more: ball. When I was a teenager--which coincided with the era when the RCA stage shows appeared--that locker room expression was all over the place. To "ball a chick" was every hormone-fueled teen heterosexual boy's goal. But nobody talks like that in the 2000's. Come to think of it, I don't know too many who still used that expression in the 1980's. It's presence in these lyrics firmly fixes "Soap Opera" with a period time-stamp. It never occurred to me until now that the line "I love you baby but I can't ball..." might confuse anyone who came of age in a generation later than mine. Maybe that shouldn't surprise me, but it does....just as I'm also surprised to learn today, on this thread, that Ducks on the Wall decorations is not as widely known and understood as I assumed it was. Like paintings on velvet or lawn jockeys, it was the sort of poor-esthetic-decorating one encountered without batting an eye where I grew up.
Ducks On the Wall Not my preferred mode of tuneage, but in the context of the album, far too much fun to just dismiss. An oddball keeper.
From p. 172 of Kink by Dave Davies: "I recently met a black musician from LA who had worked with Ray Charles, He told me that he persuaded Charles to rehearse [ "Ducks On The Wall"] with the intention of using it in his set. Evidently Charles is a tremendous fan of the Kinks. The guy went on to say that he was ashamed of the way the music industry in general had treated us, in his words, 'Like Cockney *******' I laughed, but I knew exactly what he meant. I would give almost anything to see Ray Charles perform 'Ducks' or hear a recording of it. Please Ray, do it - the other Ray, I mean." "Ducks On The Wall" is comic relief from the tensions between Norman and Andrea, with probably between the Starmaker and Norman as well. The ducks on the wall in this song serve the same purpose as the title plant in George Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying, a symbol of comfortable home life which is in contrast w/the Starmaker's (Norman's) boho pretensions. By the way, the description of Norman's & Andrea's fight that I posted last night was based on the bootleg of the Philly show that I listened to recently. Ray was really sounding very angry dropping those F bombs. I'm sure that Avid stewedandkeefed can back me up on that.
I agree. No to the corn and the peas. I don’t think it’s about folks loving it. It’s about it being a cheap and abundant ingredient that’s added to everything. I grew up surrounded by corn fields. I guess I can enjoy an ear of corn a couple times a year, but that’s as far as it goes for me. Even that I can live without.
“Ducks On The Wall” The opening quack is so ridiculous and annoying, but it makes me laugh every time. I never thought much of this song. I knew it was a heavily ridiculed Kinks song by many fans. It’s just a fun little slice of rock n roll with some humorous lyrics. A couple of you already picked up on the similarity to “Supersonic Rocket Ship”. After I listen to this song I have a duck and rocket ship hybrid playing in my head. I always assumed ducks on a wall would be like stuffed ducks over the fireplace. Now I realize I have seen these other wall ducks before. What an odd decoration, and it makes me remember that even my childhood may have had a duck on a wall somewhere. Quack Quack!!
Ducks on the Wall I don't have much to add regarding analysis here. It's a silly joke song, and it's good fun and it rocks as a throwback 50s/70s hybrid R&R song. I can see how these can divide some fans, but if you don't take it seriously and just bop your head and listen to the lyrics, it's a good laugh. Every summer I spend a week in Cape Cod, and there is a rubber duck store in Chatham called "Ducks in the Window", and we have made it a tradition to go in there with the kids every year. So thanks to this thread, I will now be singing this song as I look at all the ducks. I apologize in advance to all the other patrons that will bear witness to that. Last year, I was on the Cape during the Kinks are Village Green Preservation Society, so now I wonder which album we be at in July 2022....
Ducks On The Wall Oh, come on Ray! I've not yet stopped laughing about Shepherd's Pie, and now it's straight into Quack Quack Quack Quack... Quacking up here! Of course, when I first heard this (perhaps 1990) I thought 'what on earth is this. Embarrassing!' I was 18 at the time. Hilda Ogden still had her ducks on the wall back then. But I can't imagine many still hanging across the nation's walls by the 1990s. Now, thirty-odd years later, its another great song, which rattles along nicely. Still hilarious though. I wasn't listening to music in 1975, but who would consider releasing this as a UK single? Unlike ABBA from the '70s though, the ducks don't seem to be making a comeback.
"Ducks on the Wall" - Rollicking good fun, for at least 2:37 (the length of my edit); sounds like the band was having a ball (despite the ducks on the wall). Oh, to be a fly (or duck) on the wall to spy Ray's reaction the first time he observed wall ducks in domestic captivity!
Indeed, the Norman/Andrea relationship made me think of this Orwell novel too. I read it some 30 years ago, at the same time I was discovering the Kinks, and living in a boarding house in Kensal Green, in north-west London, on a street very poetically called "All Souls Avenue". I'm also thinking of how far astray a woman can lead a man. I'm sure of it now, I used to be a good person, abiding by the laws of nature and cooking his garlic together with his onions. Now I find myself cast away beyond the fringe of humanity, among those who throw negligently their garlic at the very end of the cooking process, eating it nearly raw, like a brute. And I even like it. Decadence. I used to dislike Ducks of the Wall, not actively, because I have little confidence in myself, somehow I felt excluded from the society of those who liked the song, and who I guessed were cool people (maybe wrongly). I have grown since, and I appreciate the song now. Even if the duck sounds still annoy me a little bit.
There are no cool people It is a trick, don't be fooled. Anyone who says or thinks they are cool, is by definition not. Anyone considered cool by the majority, must be way too compliant to the will/whims of the masses to be considered even remotely cool.... anyway, warm and comfy is better
Ducks on the Wall This is a newer one to my ears. When I first heard it...and I mean the first initial seconds with that loud duck quacking, I was...annoyed. Maybe memories of Disco Duck, a novelty song from 1976, came flooding back and not in a good way. But I have endeavored to get beyond the quacking and dig into this goofy song. It's fun and funny. And has that 50s sound rockin' it. I don't mind it, but I'm not losing my mind over it. And I think this song crosses the line into novelty...and maybe purposely so. after the big revelation from yesterday's song was just so real and warm and honest, perhaps Ray thought the musical needed a comedic break. A lightener. Here he served it up with orange sauce.
