I heard they reissued this as a double album? I picked up a very clean original US copy from 1971. I also have that Into the Afterlife CD and the Zombies vinyl box , In the Beginning, by Demon Records. Not a bad song in the bunch.
"Good Day" I have been mixed on this one up until today. It has a lot going for it and tries to "Look a Little on the Sunny Side", just like a previous favorite Kinks song of mine (not many shared in my enthusiasm!) This song has grown on me, but it has never struck me a great song. Maybe for someone else, but for Ray it's a pretty average tune. Then the bridge comes along and I have to reconsider my notion that this is a weak song. Ray reels me in once again, and I start seeing the sunshine in the distance, and realize "Today is going to be a good day". It seems I am not as mixed on this song as I thought. I don't mind the drum machine. I actually think this 80s production works pretty well. At the end of the day, this is yet another good Kinks song.
Good Day The first few seconds really bug me. Almost too 80s, especially with that Casio watch alarm starting the day. That, and in the first few seconds, you can tell its a drum machine -- which may have been Ray's intention.. but it's so 80s that it reminds me of the beginning of such 80s classics as The Whispers - Rock Steady.. But once those few seconds are over, the rest of the song is great and I can't even tell it's a drum machine anymore (also may have been Ray's intention). The melody is nice, Ray's vocal is classic, the song's got twists and turns, a great bridge. Some of the verses really describe a Complicated Life with the holes in his socks... and the problems all around, but he just wants less complicated days, perhaps just sitting in the midday sun, better days. Actually, not even good days. Just a good day. Just one good day. Note the added "...today" at the end of "Hey baby, if you come back home it'll be a good day.... today". As in, all bets are off about tomorrow... after all, "have a good day today because it could be your last" Not bad life advice, actually. Thanks, Ray. Now to have a good read of the day, which will turn into an incredible night seeing Paul McCartney at MetLife Stadium tonight.
Good Day I was able to recall this song when it started. I like the optimistic feel of the music and lyrics at the start. I like it overall, though it seems like a 3 minute song padded to 4:30 length. Not as good as "Do It Again", but more enjoyable than "Word Of Mouth".
Good Day A very good song. I tend to like Ray's songs when he brings the weather into a song! The drum machine doesn't bother me a bit, but maybe it's because it was '85-'86 when I started properly listening to music, so drum machines were part of the scenery by then. The song is exactly what you'd want from The Kinks in 1985, enough of the present, and enough of a hark back to previous triumphs from earlier decades. Another favourite from the Arista years. A shame it never got a promo video.
Pretty sure I read or heard an interview where Ray was talking about how he had gotten a new digital watch and used a couple sounds from it at the beginning of Good Day.
I think it does bring some Gone Troppo hawaii songs to mind, with the Caribbean keyboards' hook in particular. McCartney & Lennon, you mean ! (I'm thinking these little B******s side notes are allowed today because Diana Dors is the atomic blonde featured on the Sgt Pepper cover) I think this is a complete revelation!!! Clearly that's what the song's about, from beginning to end : he's in bed, depressed about the Kerr thing, trying to make sense of things and deciding to put on a brave face. Reading the tabloid press, he uses this Diana lady as a precedent because she was able to go through the hell that he expects he'll have to endure now, with the high profile Simple Minds/Pretenders marriage. And of course, in the face of this debacle that is the end of his world, he's still hoping his girl would come back and make everything right again. Once you hear this biographical context and the dates, it's super obvious. Thanks to the above posts, it's a rare case where we end up having all the biographical clues (with dates!!) which gives us an invaluable insight into Ray's ways as a songwriter, how he responds to ultra-specific personal events and set backs in slightly oblique ways to turn them into magic songs that nobody (if not for @pyrrhicvictory's insight) would think were autobiographical at all. Most of us would debunk the Diana Dors reference and think "hey, I've broken down this song", never suspecting there could ever be anything more to it!! Ray Davies' ways are inscrutable but not if you take our Thread's detective work into account!!
Good day is a great song. It's my favorite on the album. Love the breezy feel to it and the intro I always found cool as an 80s artifacts.
Avid Zeki, the article says that both the Kinks and Happy End both had an ironic detachment from their native societies. In Happy End's case it's the fact that they were the first major Japanese rock group to refuse to sing in English, but they didn't sing in ordinary Japanese either. Also they sang about the Toyko slums and other subjects like the Kinks sang about London. The article quoted several Japanese rock critics who noted the simularities in both groups. Another interesting point that the article made was that while the Kinks were known in Japan almost from the beginning and their records were available there, there were no covers of Kinks songs from any of the Group Sound (GS) groups, although several of them used elements of Kinks songs in their own songs. The author explained that at the height of the GS popularity (1967-68), the Kinks had no releases due to a gap of product licensing . There was also the fact that Japanese pop music was still in the sway of American pop, where the Kinks had no hits, so that the US ban effectively crossed over to Japan.
Very interesting. Thank you for the summary. Edit: re: sing in ordinary Japanese. I guess it’s referring to accentuation because the words are perfectly ordinary. Nowadays, that kind of singing is common. Well, I’ve been away from Japan for 15 years so ‘relatively recently’ it was common.
Fascinating info re: The Kinks presence (or lack thereof) in Japan in the 60s @DISKOJOE. They did end up touring Japan twice, in 1982 and 1995 I believe, so they must have ended up accruing some degree of popularity there. Were any later (70s/80s/90s) Kinks songs or albums hits in Japan?
I don’t know about that but, as I think I related when I first came on board, my introduction to The Kinks was from my close Japanese friend who gave me the Village Green and Muswell Hillbillies cd’s. When I lived in Tokyo.
They may be somewhere, but I can't find any sales or chart figures for Japan. It brings up an interesting thought regarding how much the US musician's union ban actually hurt the band.
Good Day: Another poppy number from the kinks. This would not have gone over particularly well with me at the time of its release, but with the aid of many years of accumulated wisdom and experience, I can enjoy this now. As usual, ray delivers a super catchy chorus and that, plus the (somewhat) upbeat sounding music, disguises the rather morose meaning of the lyrics. It’s not my favorite on the album, but it’s certainly not a skipper either. The fact that I have been walking around singing the chorus tells me this will make the playlist. I like the extended version on this one. I always prefer the longer versions when they are really the band playing a longer version then what made the album. Contrast that with cut and paste remixes they just use technology, those types of remixes or extended mixes generally hold little interest for me. Up until the 90s, you really didn’t have the full song by Prince unless you had the extended version. INXS also had quite a few extended versions where it was quite clear that it was a longer version of the song that was then whittled down for inclusion on the record. I like this song enough that I want the full version originally recorded by the band. So my playlist will most likely contain the extended version of Good Day.
Good Day ah, the power of positive thinking. After the prior song, this is, I guess, a pretty positive song...if you can get beyond the world ending in a blast at any minute. "the sun is out" - another Ray sun song for those keeping track. I have no particular song I'm thinking of, but this song feels like a McCartney song. The drum machine doesn't bother me, which is surprising as I'm not a huge synthesizer lover. It works here somehow. And good use of the harmonica. I think this is a catchy and pleasant song. I'm not sure about it being a single though. It's a very strong album track though. I'm surprised I didn't figure out that Diana is Ms Dors. It flummoxed me as Princess Di didn't die until the late 90s, so I vaguely wondered who he was referring to. Had I really thought about it I would have come up with it...since I'm an Adam Ant fan, I know of her existence (as Mark alluded to in his write-up).
Décent album track. Not spectacular, but pleasant enough. If I bought a T-shirt on this tour I no longer have it. I do have the 12 » of this though with Don’t Forget to Dance? And Too Hot on the flip side. I also have the 12 » of Do it Again with Guilty and Summers Gone
The article does mention their Japanese visits, all of which were warmly received, according to the article, especially by the younger audience, who were part of the Japanese "Indies" movement, the most well known example to us being Shonen Knife.
Good Day: apparently I’m unable to tell the difference between Henrit, Avory, and a drum machine. Nor do I have any sense of the timing of historical events, as I thought it was about Lady Diana. Glad y’all can set me straight on these matters! In any case, lovely song. I like how he starts with a consistent rhyme scheme and then gradually begins to alter it, a good technique to keep the song interesting as it moves forward. And like @markelis I’ve been walking around singing GOOD DAY!, GOOD DAY!, GOOD DAY! throughout this pretty good day lol. Thanks Ray, hope it’s not my last!
No, more exaggerated. Personally, I would have thought it might be s Dylan influence if anything. The Southern Allstars (who continue on and on forever) are probably the most prominent band that use that type of diction. I just searched now and played 30 seconds of this clip and my wife knew who it was immediately.
