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 Took My Baby Home

    Here we have a short and to the point Ray written track.
    I guess it has a sort of La Bamba type of feel to it, although not directly.
    We open with a nice "up" sort of beat with some harmonica

    Well I took my baby home
    She said don't you leave me alone
    She kissed me on the cheek and I moaned
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't

    Well, she said, baby I know what's best
    She said I could do with a rest
    Then she put her hand on my chest
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't

    She had some pile-drivin' kisses
    They really knocked me out
    They knocked me oh-oh-over
    She had a hug like a vice
    She squeezes once or twice and I moan

    So when I took my baby home
    She said don't you leave me alone
    She kissed me on the cheek and I moaned
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    Wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    Wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't

    She had some pile-drivin' kisses
    They really knocked me out
    They knocked me oh-oh-over
    She had a hug like a vice
    She squeezes once or twice and I moan

    So when I took my baby home
    She said don't you leave me alone
    She kissed me on the cheek and I moaned
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    I said I wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    Wo-wo-wo-wo-won't
    Wo-wo-wo-wo-won't

    Songwriters: Ray Davies

    When the vocals come in, we have a nice ensemble kind of vocal, and again I think it works pretty well.
    Lyrically we are still in My Baby is pretty awesome territory, but the lyrics are pretty cool for what they are.
    I think the Wooooooon't bit is a pretty good hook, and a pretty clever piece of writing.

    Although a short track, and although it can be seen to be like several other songs of its type of the era, I reckon it works well.
    Not a single, but a pretty decent album track, that keeps me in the picture.

     
  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I'm A Lover Not A Fighter

    I guess producers writing songs was a big thing in the sixties. This was written by Jay Miller, and like Talmy, he was an American producer.

    We come in with a nice guitar riff .. it somewhat reminds me of a variant of Slow Down, the Larry Williams track that the Beatles were covering around this time... certainly not the same, but similar.
    We launch into this bouncy and quite punchy track. and everything is racing along.

    I assume again that Dave is doing the vocals.
    It's funny actually when I pulled this album out for a listen, I was wondering why Ray was singing in this way, but of course that was just my ignorance of the early material.
    I think he does a pretty decent vocal, but I will be happy when he moves to using his natural voice.

    This track doesn't set my world on fire, but I think it is a pretty solid track, that comes over pretty well.

     
  3. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Probably the slightest of the Ray originals on the album - fine and inoffensive, but not something I would seek out.

    Followed by another cover with Dave on vocals.... it's reminding me how many of them we got on disc 1 of the BBC box, and how I would reach for the skip button!
     
  4. FJFP

    FJFP Host for the 'Mixology' Mix Differences Podcast

    I Took My Baby Home is a fun pairing with Long Tall Sally on the first single, and I'm glad it was carried over here. Dumb R'n'B fun, I can slap it on and have a little jig to it without trouble! Sounds like it would be fun to play live too.

    Lover is pretty similar in that regard, another R'n'B rave-up that would be a blast to play live. They all work well together here, but I'm not pulling them out as standalone tracks that often.
     
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  5. Fred1

    Fred1 Stuck in the past with one eye to the future!

    Location:
    Zurich

    I Took My Baby Home

    • My favourite pick of the whole album! It was the first Kinks tune that I had ever heard in July 1964 (I was 11 then) while being on my summer holidays in a children’s camp. I didn’t know that it were The Kinks, but I immediately took to the carefree song which introduced me to The Kinks Music. It has a certain Latin happy-go-lucky touch. Still listening to it today! - Legend has it that one or several versions of the song was/were already recorded by The Ravens in Q4 1963. The Kinks' first producer, Shel Talmy, said that they re-recorded no songs which the Ravens have recorded before. Because if "I Took My Baby Home" was definitely recorded in January 1964, it runs counter to the thought that it was recorded in Q4 1963.
    I'm A Lover Not A Fighter
    • Good fun energetic cover with Dave on vocals. Prefer however Lazy Lester's original.
     
  6. wore to a frazzel

    wore to a frazzel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dala, Sweden
    I Took My Baby Home is maybe the most bland of all Ray's songs ever, but I guess he was pretty inexperienced when he composed it.

    I'm a lover Not a Fighter is one of a few really cringeworthy songs on the album. I don't even want to analyze it! And Dave's vocals brings out the worst in it.
     
  7. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    I Took My Baby Home is another nice early “original” (I use comas because I don’t find it that original, of course). Dave’s high harmony is very light and smooth, Mick’s break is exciting, and I enjoy the harmonica riff. It’s funny how everybody in british rock used harmonica up until 1964 then stopped altogether in 1965.

    On I’m a Lover not a Fighter, Dave’s vocals are anything but light and smooth, I’m afraid.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  8. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Much the same as yesterday really - a so-so Ray-penned song, which only offers fleeting glimpses of what is to come, and a negligible cover sung by Dave. "I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" does have an extremely upfront kick drum, though - if that's what it is.
     
  9. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    Kind of an antecedent of Lola, about a girl who delivered "pile drivin' kisses" and hugs "like a vice" that "knocked over" poor hapless Ray. Another fluffy, pleasant early composition that has something a little unusual beneath the surface. Thumbs up.
     
  10. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    You forgot Mick!
    (Laughs)
     
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  11. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Shindig, 1965.

    Just a brief version here, presumably to lead into an ad break or something. There is a separate full length version from Shindig too, but I can’t find it on a cursory look at YouTube.

     
  12. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    [​IMG]

    There you go!
     
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  13. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    I Took My Baby Home

    Okay, this doesn’t sound like the Kinks. Yes, I know there is a deliberate Beatles aping going on here, but I’m referring to the recording. Something seems off in the way it’s mic’ed or engineered. I’m not well-versed in such technical stuff to put my finger on it, but there is a “flattened” feel to it. Every sonic element seems compressed together. Maybe one of you audiophiles can enlighten me. I mean….am I wrong about the way this one sounds compared to the rest of the tracks? My guess is its characteristic of the nature of its recording session, which, like A-side Long Tall Sally was months before the rest of these tracks. And yet Talmy claims in interviews that no old recordings were used on the LP, but this sure does sound exactly like the flip side of the earlier single.

    Anyway, if the goal is to get to noticed, making a record inspired by the Beatles sound was not a bad thing in 1964. The raising crescendo as the vocals transition out of the middle eight (“….and I mooooooaaannnn…”) is perhaps the song’s most overtly Beatlesque moment. The harmonica accents and session man’s Bobby Graham’s drum fills are nice, if somewhat predictable. It’s a better number among the 3 or 4 Ray originals recorded prior to YRGM, but considering what came after, that’s faint praise.

    I’m a Lover Not a Fighter.

    Three decades after acquiring a CD version of the 14-tack debut album, I still think of this as being a cut from the Kinks second album, the US bastardization of the first one, released as “Kink-sized.” That was the last of the previously issued vinyl albums I acquired after discovering and buying anything Kinks in the late 70’s/early 80’s. It was among the last Kinks songs I finally got around to hearing (not counting, obviously, those mid-80’s/90 tracks yet to be created) so for that reason this has always felt like an unreleased bonus track that is buried on a special edition re-release. I know that’s not true, but that’s how it feels in my head.

    Unlike a lot of comments earlier in this thread, I don’t mind Dave’s bratty, sandpaper vocals on this and his other lead vocals elsewhere on the LP. It fits the persona he was projecting as the wild teenaged rocker. And I dig the hand clapping accompaniment. It introduces a texture otherwise missing on the tracks so far in the line-up. Otherwise, this song doesn’t leave much of an impression. With it’s clipped, syncopated delivery (well, that’s what Dave is aiming for, I think) it seems like a Chuck Berry cover even though it’s not. And I already feel like there’s enough Chuck Berry-sounding stuff on this album.
     
  14. Steve E.

    Steve E. Doc Wurly and Chief Lathe Troll

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    OK, now do I get to post this? Sorry for having posted it prematurely a week ago, Mark... I didn't understand how you were doing things:

    I Took My Baby Home

    This song is a VERY quirky and interesting take on things which in some ways predicts the character and experience of the narrator of "Lola", if without the same payoff:

    She had some pile-drivin' kisses
    They really knocked me out
    They knocked me oh-oh-over
    She had a hug like a vice
    She squeezes once or twice and I moan


    On an otherwise flop single, it's a sign of things to come:

    Well, I'm not the world's most physical guy
    But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
    "Not a single..." Except, of course, it was a single, if a flop B-side... the first song by Ray that was put out there as the Kinks. So, someone thought that was the best thing he had, at the time, and maybe it was.

    Great minds think alike, Zack?
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  15. Steve E.

    Steve E. Doc Wurly and Chief Lathe Troll

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    One last thing.... This might be a stretch, but the harmonic turnaround from the II to the V at "Without you, without you" reminds me of the "you don't need me, you don't need me" section of the Foundations' 1967 debut hit:




     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
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  16. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Yes a poor article with no concern for innacuracys!
     
  17. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Good observation. There's quite a bit of future composition foreshadowing on the obscure tracks if one looks hard enough.
     
  18. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Except by Ray when it came to learning Herman's Hermits did Dandy.
     
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  19. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    "I Took My Baby Home" is a lot of fun and a good album track.
    "I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" is another Dave-sung cover I can live without.
     
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  20. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    I knew a lady that actually knew Dave in the 60's and was for a time Eric Burton's girlfriend. I hadn't even thought to mention it as I don't have any concrete stories about him but she said fondly that he was great fun and he must have done right by her as she wouldn't take crap from anyone!
     
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  21. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    It's all good mate... I barely know what I'm doing half the time:)
     
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  22. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus

    "I took My baby Home" is a lot of fun, very much based in a sort of classic R&B tradition but with that English spin. Great melody and the lyrics, while hardly deep or profound, are clever and charming. There's a real strong energy to it.


    "I'm A Lover Not a Fighter"-- urgh.
     
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  23. Steve E.

    Steve E. Doc Wurly and Chief Lathe Troll

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    Yes, it's the same track as the debut single, recorded in January 1964. And it sticks out like a sore thumb, because the sound is tame. It's not wimpy, exactly -- sonically, it reminds me of "I'll Get You" or "Thank You Girl," which were 1963 Beatles' B-sides -- really, just a few months old.

    The sound of YRGM (recorded July 1964, released early August 1964 ) was a bold move, which set them apart from the pack. One might hear it and presume that this was a pack of dumb horny cavemen: Guys doing the only thing they knew how to do, as opposed to something they had arrived at after starting out too polite and derivative. (Of course, YRGM isn't really dumb at all -- it's complicated enough that Leonard Bernstein praised it and performed it on TV a few years later, calling it both "terrific" and "barbaric.")

    12 songs on the album were recorded a couple weeks after YRGM was released (in mid-August 1964), and show signs that they were encouraged by the initial success of that bold single. The debut single, on the other hand, recorded 8 months before the rest of the album....tiptoes. No distorted guitar, a little bit cute. I guess you could say the same about a couple of Ray's other originals on the album, soundwise. Success had come SO fast, I'm sure they barely had time to calculate and react.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  24. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Pretty sound thoughts Mark!
     
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  25. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Which compilation is this Guvnor?
     
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