The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Just you......Do It Again, Do It Again!

 

It's typical that on Ray's birthday we're discussing a Dave track - Dave finally got his revenge!

 

Sounds Instrumental!

 

Well, I have seen Leicester Square from the top of Highgate Hill, looked up at the big sky, gazed on a Waterloo sunset, and people assure me I’m not like everybody else.
On the other hand, when it comes to exams I easily passed the lot, all the women I met at a clip joint in Soho were women, I have avoided Hollywood Blvd. and I still can’t figure out all the places the phenomenal cat had been.

 

Something Else by the Kinks
Right now I think it's their best album, a pop masterpiece from start to finish.

 

Happy birthday Ray! Now onto the Dave track...

Love Me Till the Sun Shines

I always thought the lyric in question is "you can't leave such a helpless guy," but he kinda slurs everything and there are two voices so I'm not certain. I do like the sort of lyrical continuity between LMTtSS and Funny Face.

Definitely the weakest Dave track on the album, but I still like it a lot. I agree that it does sound a bit like a throwback, but it's also a lot heavier than most things they did before 67... and the drum fills are a sign of things to come on Arthur.

I like that each Kinks album from their golden age had at least one heavy/dark rocker (usually with Dave on vocals). Face to Face has You're Lookin Fine, this one on Something Else, Village Green has Wicked Annabella and you can take your pick of about four different ones on Arthur.

 

That CD has the original mono mix, so Rasa is on there completely.

 

I'm trying to follow you two... like a Yo-Yo.

 

+ Rats on Lola.

 

I think we're taking the lyrics to LMTTSS more seriously than Dave did. It's a dirty, naughty, funky jam. Another example of the Kinks sounding like almost a different band on the Dave songs. In this case, I feel a Hendrix influence.

I didn't weigh in on this with Dave's unreleased "She's My Girl," but typically I feel that the band is doing more complex riffy stuff and interplay on Dave's songs; in "She's My Girl" I even had some doubts it was a late 1965 song because of all the fancy stuff the band was doing. Interestingly, I think this sound finally shows up on Ray's songs in VGPS -- things like "Big Sky."

The original stereo mix of the song has a startup issue that I notice once in a while with old albums, especially, for reasons unknown, on side openers (which would imply it happened if master mixes were dubbed to a final album reel). Thelonious Monk's "Panonica" on "Brilliant Corners" has it much more severely -- a gradual ramping up of the speed of the track. In LMTTSS, it's really just the first go round of the riff that's almost a half-step key flat. Either the source deck was running a little slow, or the recording deck ran slightly fast, before locking in. The mono mix rocks out a lot harder, and I agree that the 1968 BBC performance is the best one.

I gotta say, with the last three songs on Side 1, and this one, the Kinks are succeeding on something I just have to call "magic." These are thoroughly enjoyable performances.

Some may disagree with me and I respect such disagreements. I certainly don't mean to threadcrap or start a flame war: but I do not feel these are masterpieces of songwriting. "Tin Soldier Man" is a hit-you-over-the-head satire, "Harry Rag" is a delightful, well-wrought folk novelty, "Situation Vacant" feels like slightly flawed story, and LMTTSS feels deliberately stoopid. And yet, and yet.....

Might "Something Else" be more charming, more enjoyable, and therefore subjectively better, than hundreds of thousands of other albums, anyway? Yes, for me personally, I think so; at least given the numbers of times I've played it over the decades. It's mysterious that way. The Kinks as a unit could do little wrong at this point of time. They were in a state of grace that I have trouble dissecting.

 

"Love Me 'Til The Sun Shines"

Fuzzy, dirty, great drums, good vocal by Dave, 60s organ, count me in! A song that sounds like 1967 and The Kinks knock it out of the garage. I may like it enough to place it in my top 5 Dave songs, but thats's hard to say since all three of his songs on here could make that list, and we have not even gotten to my favorite yet.

I will be on the road for the next ten days. The Kinks are coming along for the ride, so I will try to keep up!

 

And by the way.... I didn't weigh in on "No Return." That little song, I think IS a masterpiece. A perfect melody that goes almost avant-garde nutso with the augmented chord arpeggio at the phrase "There.... is no return." Beautiful and unexpected chord changes. I've never tried to take apart what he's saying in the lyrics, but they suit the music perfectly. I'm a little surprised there wasn't more love for it when it came up.

 

Here's the weird stereo mix of LMTTSS:

 

Thanks for addressing that.
Every time I restarted it this morning, I kept thinking, when does it modulate.... but I was so busy trying to figure other stuff out I forgot about it.

You gave me the answer right there, cheers

 

Please note that the "Something Else" "stereo" versions that have been posted on Youtube , supposedly from the Deluxe Edition, are in fact redundant uploads of the mono mixes. So we have not had the original stereo Situation Vacant or Tin Soldier Man in this thread yet, as far as I know. I'm not sure if they are uploaded anywhere to YouTube.

 

Happy Rayday everybody! I remember Mick Avory in the documentary Imaginary Man saying that if Ray's birthday was a holiday, than everybody would have to work harder!

As for "Love Me Till the Sun Shines", in the middle of what Mike Stax of Ugly Things calls the "crushed velvet" period of the Kinks, comes this unhinged, unapologetic rocker courtesy of kid brother Dave. As some of the prior posters have pointed out, the BBC version that first appeared in the BBC 1964-77 album is even more and intense & is my favorite version. The prior posters are also spot on on the lyrics & Dave's motivation behind them, which will pop up in a song or two.

 

Here's a cover version by the Boston garage legends the Lyres:

 

Sums up my thoughts, thanks guys

I'm slightly alarmed how many Dave songs/vocals coming up have been named, that I did not realise were him.. some knockouts too. This one is clearly Dave to its very core though. Must say I've never analysed the lyric, always assumed it simply means what it says. And yes the "sun" is everywhere in this era isn't it.. lots of lsd fuelled sunrises? Jack Bruce staying up all night writing "Sunshine Of Your Love"? Wasn't it a super hot summer in 67? Or was that 66? Or was it just the shiney bright 60s, aaaah...

 

I always thought it just reflected the gloomy, cloud covered, foggy, smoggy, environment you limeys lived in back then.
Didn’t Noël Coward say something pithy about mad dogs and Englishmen?

 

"Love Me Till The Sun Shines" - On the vinyl, this begins side 2. On the CD, it comes right after "Situation Vacant" and that's kind of interesting. Because after we think "SV" ends, it fades back in, then fades out, and then this song fades in so you briefly think it may be "SV" coming back yet again! The organ is way too low in the mix, only becoming more prominent about 10 seconds before the song ends! It's slightly louder in the stereo mix and really upfront in the mix on Anthology! Repetitive song, a lot of "you don't have"'s... then "baby, you can kiss my friends"? Huh? Man this guy sounds desperate if he's going to put up with that! Anyways, a good rocker.. nice job by Dave.. I like that drum breakdown in the middle and really wish that outro kept going... with the organ coming back it sounded like they were going to continue the full rock assault.

 

Just as Neil Sedaks's "Laughter In The Rain" borrowed a big chunk of it's melody from "Waterloo Sunset," there are a couple of key measures throughout this that would pop up in Cat Stevens' "Moon Shadow" four years later. It was definitely an influential track. A very similar lead guitar lick would re-appear in this a couple of years later (at 0:30, 0:54, 1:36 and 2:17):

 

LOVE ME TILL THE SUN SHINES

Doubt no more.

The first time he sings "Please don't leave such a helplesss kind" and the second time it's "You can't leave such a helplesss kind".

And the helpless guy is, of course, Dave.

I love this track and it's even better in the BBC version and other live version already posted.

I'd never thought too much about the lyrics before, but it's true they show a certain out and out desperation to get this girl to stay.

As for the meaning of the specific title line, I've come up with a few different ideas:

1. Till the sun shines is until the next morning when the sun comes up. So it's a one night stand.

2. Till the sun shines 'in his life', meaning when he's got over his personal problems. This could take a long time!

3. Or it could mean forever because in the big smoke the sun only makes fleeting apearances and never really shines much.

I think the answer is maybe somewhere between two and three.

 

Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread. Here is a Hoffman Forum discussion of the various stereo and mono mixes of the last two tracks of side 1, from 2009. There may be more mixes out there now.

Kinks, Something Else & Arthur

 

Welp, wish I knew this when I made my Mixology episode! Ah well.

 

"Love Me Till The Sun Shines"
I'm having some health issues so I'm having problems with reading and replying on here which is why I've been absent the past few days. Just wanted to say that this is my favorite Kinks' song on my favorite Kinks' album so I love this. Hopefully I'll be better soon and can concentrate more and go back to listening to music.