The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. idleracer

    idleracer Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    :kilroy: I've always loved this goofy hodgepodge of Pete essentially playing Little Richard's "Lucille" on bass while Nicky Hopkins pounds on the piano in the exact same manner that he did a couple of years earlier on Cream's "Wrapping Paper." That saxophone that comes out of nowhere at the very end is also a hoot.

    The opening "September In The Rain" quote always had me wondering if that's where Randy Newman got the idea to open "I Love L.A." with a "Lady Is A Tramp" quote.

     
  2. Jon H.

    Jon H. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Raleigh, NC USA
    What a great gateway compilation to their early output, @skisdlimit! Spotlight on the Kinks sounds quite good overall, though some tracks are better elsewhere. Overall a great and affordable comp.

    I must buy the Well Respected Kinks 2 LP set, but I want one in great condition without having to pay $100 USD! On the hunt…

    Looking forward to more posts from you.

    Cheers!
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2021
  3. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Berkley Mews
    I love everything about this song. Anything positive that has already been posted, I agree with. I can't add no more. :love:
    :laugh:
     
  4. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Aha! Yes, thank you. No doubt that's not her real name.
     
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  5. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    I always thought that Ray's string of marriages and attractive girlfriends were clues that he wasn't gay, but I guess the gay community saw that as an elaborate ruse. It reminds me very much of efforts to 'prove' Bob Dylan was gay: The lyrics to Ballad of a Thin Man being Exhibit A. All total bollocks of course but everyone can have an opinion.
     
  6. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    I agree with this. I first heard this on Kronikles in 1977 and I've always enjoyed its swagger...or maybe "stagger" is a better word. I also agree that it feels like a cross between 60s and 70s Kinks.
     
  7. zipp

    zipp Forum Resident

    BERKELEY MEWS

    This song doesn't need dodgy lyric mis-hearings or gay interpretations to be a good song.

    One thing also is sure. This doesn't take place in some shady back alley.

    In the sixties very rich people bought mews cottages (now called houses) because they could afford one. The mews were in quiet exclusive areas, and situated in historic, central parts of London.

    The theme of the song would seem to be, as often when Ray talks of the rich, an expression of his whacking great disappointment with these people.

    He gets invited to a fancy, swinging London mews cottage, perhaps already drunk, thinking he's going to find some intellectual warmth and conversation.

    He ends up having champagne forced on him (Don't these people ever drink anything else?), having his conversation ignored, and passing out on the floor. As for the swish surroundings - it's cold and full of dirty dishes.

    To illustrate his disappointment, Ray dresses up the song in several amusing ways.

    The reference to September Song at the beginning (announcing the pain to come) in a bar-room atmosphere suddenly being upended into a rock song.

    The reference to the kitchen sink (a drama movement in the early sixties depicting the working class) which shows that deep down the rich are really no different from the poor except for their money and their pretentions.

    And finally the ridiculously big overblown ending with the floods of tears.

    Incidentally, as we are to hear in a few records' time, if you want sex (straight, gay, or otherwise) you go to Soho.

    Musically a joy .

    Geographically and lyrically, many, many miles from the village green.
     
  8. Pawnmower

    Pawnmower Senior Member

    Location:
    Dearborn, MI
    "Mr. Songbird" - A lovely little ditty if I ever heard one. I can understand those saying it is slight and B-side worthy, but it's really well written, catchy, and positive. Nothing but good vibes with this one. And I never noticed before how that bass just does some crazy stuff in the last verse ('Cause I've nothing to dream). I can hear the Simon & Garfunkel connection now that somebody else pointed it out. "59th Street Bridge" and all.

    "Berkeley Mews" - I've loved this song since I first heard it. When the band kicks in at 0:23, it's one of those 'hell yeah' moments. You don't see that coming. (Is it a UK thing that he is obviously singing BARK instead of berk??) This is one of Ray's brilliant pocket symphonies of the time. The piano intro before the rock, the aforementioned rock, that wonderful breakdown of those stabbing piano chords before the "flood of tears" section, wrapping up with the grand finale "you know that you left me broken hearted." Introduce some saxophone at the very end. All in 2:35. This is most impressive. You don't even notice the song has no chorus. Embarrassment of riches. What a year they were having.
     
  9. Scottsol

    Scottsol Forum Resident

    Location:
    Evanston, IL
    It is indeed. Another example is nineteenth century physicist James Clerk Maxwell- pronounced “Clark”

    About 2/3 mile from Berkeley Mews is the more well known Berkeley Square.
     
  10. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    ...and indeed the county of Berkshire, pronounced Barkshire.
     
  11. Scottsol

    Scottsol Forum Resident

    Location:
    Evanston, IL
    I hear it’s going to the dogs.
     
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  12. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Indeed the word "clerk" is always pronounced "clark" in British English, not just in people's names.
     
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  13. Safeway 2

    Safeway 2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manzanillo Mexico.
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  14. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    The there is the horse race Derby, which a lot of folks pronounce Darby ... One of those many quirks in the English language
     
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  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Rosemary Rose.

    mono mix (1:43), recorded Jun 1967 at Pye Studios (No. 2), London

    Rosemary Rose,
    Nature sure gave you such a beautiful nose.
    'Though you're not beautiful as someone would know,
    That Rosemary Rose,

    Has eyes of blue,
    And someone is treasuring a picture of you,
    Taken on a holiday when you were just three,
    My sweet Rosemary.

    You look nothing like a child,
    Yet you're such a little baby.
    Chewing on your liquorish gum, and cigarettes.
    Rosemary Rose,

    Carefully sewing on your buttons and bows.
    Hoping that someone will be wanting to know,
    Of Rosemary Rose.

    You look nothing like a child,
    Yet you're such a little baby.
    Chewing on your liquorish gum, and cigarettes.
    Rosemary Rose,

    Carefully sewing on your buttons and bows.
    Hoping that someone will be wanting to know,
    Of Rosemary Rose.

    Written by: Ray Davies
    Published by: ?

    This is another song that I am less familiar with. It is also another song that aside from appearing on some deluxe editions and a few anthology-like compilations, didn't make much of an appearance on album or single releases.

    This is an interesting little vignette. We have the lady being sung about being stated as having a beautiful nose, but not being beautiful even with her eyes of blue, yet someone is carrying a picture of her, even though it is a picture of her at the age of three.

    We also get this idea put forward that she looks nothing like a child, but is childish or child-like, and also that she is dressing herself up hoping that someone will fall for her.

    This is quite a vague track lyrically. The lyric isn't pointed in the sense of telling us the exact story. It's like a sketch, that leaves the listener to fill in the colours.

    Where this song works for me is the music.
    We come straight in with the vocals, guitar and rimshot drums. As we move into the second half of the first verse, we get this lovely arpeggio that sounds somewhat like a harp coming in to accent the music beautifully.
    Then in the change section we have a harpsichord sounding instrument, but it could be an effected 12 string guitar.

    This is quite an interesting song in and of itself. We have a couple of minor chords, and in the change (which again sounds like a bridge more than a chorus to me) we get those minor chords modulating into the major chords. It is an effective way to keep the interest in this track.

    We get an instrumental break, that is interestingly a series of staccato chords, with a full blooded drum kit. Here we can hear that it is a harpsichord.

    Ray's vocal delivery here is very tender. It seems he has a soft spot for Rosemary, because he isn't making fun or being sarcastic here, he delivers the vocal with a genuine tenderness which suggests and affection. The vocal may be among the highlights for me here.

    This isn't an amazing song, but it is a very pretty song, and it could easily have been included on the album, but only if we view the album in a different way. This is an in the moment song, not a reflective or nostalgic memory.
    It somewhat seems like a lot of the songs that have been left off, may well have been left off because they don't fit the nostalgic theme of the album, and are more in the moment, than in the memory.


     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

  17. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Another great track - further evidence that VGPS could have been a very good double album.
     
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  18. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    You look nothing like a child / Yet you're such a little baby. How great is this line? How sublime are the little harpsichord arpeggios? While it’s clear he doesn’t sing about his sister this time, Ray is back in a Rosie Won’t You Please Come Home mode. Melodic chamber verse with a bluesy bridge/chorus, and some sumptuous Nicki Hopkins flourishes before the guitar chords take over. This doesn’t sound 100% finished or fleshed out (especially the lyrics), but unlike Berkeley Mews, it’s definitely in a Village Green vein, as evidenced by the pastoral feel of the music, the reference to “pictures taken when you were just three”, and the overall old-fashioned sensation. I’m a big admirer of John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, a superb 1987 film chronicling a summer in the countryside for an english kid during the London bombings of WWII. A lot of the Village Green-era songs make me think of that film, especially this exquisite little vignette. Yes, the lyrics are rather vague, but they create this feeling of looking at the girl from afar. She must be a neighbor in a nearby elegant house or something. The protagonist gets glimpses of her, but my guess is he’s never even talked to her. Rosemary Rose… If I was 12 or 13, I’d certainly fall in love with a girl with such an enigmatic iconic name.
     
  19. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Rosemary Rose

    'Mystiqueful' is the word (if it's a word!) I'd apply to this one, to describe the oblique yet evocative character sketch of the lyrics, that intoxicatingly baroque accompaniment, and the fact that it was one of those once unknowable Great Lost Kinks song that I used to read the lyrics of online and imagine what it sounded like before I was finally able to track down a CD bootleg of the GLKA. (And it did not disappoint to put it mildly!). It such an enigmatic track that for me it's like the poster child for all the mysteries and fascination of the whole VGPS/GLKA era.

    Something else I read about this track online before I heard it that bears repeating here it was how pungently Doorsian it is, as in the Doors when they were playing to their strengths and not the Mr Mojo Whining excesses: those brilliant little harp drenched poetic pop songs with Jim M intoning at his most cryptically succinct: this is like an peculiarly English parochial parallel to that kinda strange LA scene-setting. And I don't think there was anyone intentionally lifting from anyone else here, more like they ended up in similar places by their own routes.

    Unlike Fortuleo I think there's still a possibility that this song was inspired by Ray' sister Rose, and that this track is a kind of expressionistic portrait of memories of an sibling delivered with the peculiar affection and intimacy only found and totally understood among family members. I could be miles off though!
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2021
  20. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Love it! I tend to take what I like from the Doors and disregard the rest, and what I like is the "harp drenched poetic pop songs".

    Rosemary Rose
    Like "Berkeley Mews" and no doubt other songs we're about to cover, I know this well thanks to my local library having a copy of the "Picture Box" box set and me taping the songs I liked from it. I think it's a great song, the kind that leaves me shaking my head in amazement that it could just end up disgarded and unheard. Extremely catchy. Very characteristic of VGPS musically, and preferable to a bunch of VGPS songs to my mind.
    As usual I have nothing to add to the discussion of the lyrics. I think they're very sweet.
     
  21. Adam9

    Adam9 Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй.

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Rosemary Rose is another gem from The Great Lost Kinks Album. I get a picture of wistful loneliness from the lyrics, "hoping that someone will be wanting to know of
    Rosemary Rose". The "chewing on your licorice gum (I never thought of it as liquorish) and cigarettes" line reminds me of "the smart young ladies of this land" from Harry Rag and the line "a picture of you taken on holiday when you were just three" evokes "Picture Book".
    It's good that this song has been made more widely available after having languished for some time on the hard-to-find GLKA.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2021
  22. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    "Rosemary Rose" was one of my favorite songs on The Great Lost Kinks Album due to the harpsichords, which are real & not Memorix, erm, Mellotron. At the time I got the album (when I was 15 back in 1978), I also started to get into classical music & my first classical purchase was a Bach harpsichord album at the Strawberries Records in downtown Boston on my first trip there. Anyway, I also dug (& still dig) the use of harpsichords in pop/rock music & this song caught my fancy. To me, "you look nothing like a child, but you're such a little baby", reminds me a bit of Dylan's "Just Like a Woman", a portrait of a woman who thinks she's sophisticated, but isn't really mature enough.
     
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  23. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    Rosemary Rose
    I'm not that familiar with this song. Again, it sounds too good to have been left on the shelf though not quite good enough to match the songs that ended up on TKATVGPS. Still, I'd be very happy to listen to this as part of the second LP that never was.
     
  24. FJFP

    FJFP Host for the 'Mixology' Mix Differences Podcast

    It's worth noting Rosemary Rose comes from June 1967, likely the same period as Death of a Clown, Lazy Old Sun & Funny Face, at least going by the liner notes in the 2CD Something Else and the 5CD VGPS. I can see how, like Village Green, it could be held back for this project, as it does have some very decent sonic ties to it, but like Berkeley Mews, it also feels disconnected from any Kinks album specifically.

    As for the song, I agree that it doesn't truly sound finished, but I don't know what I'd add to it. It's real value lies in the vocal melody, and especially the little baby line, which is just fantastic. I also like the echoes of You Really Got Me in the bridge, which I didn't notice until earlier in this thread.

    In short, certainly nothing grandiose and monumental, but a nice piece of the puzzle I'm very glad to have.
     
  25. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Rosemary Rose"

    This is another one that I'm hearing for the first time, and yet another great song of the kind that Ray could seemingly come up with effortlessly and throw away. It sounds unfinished - seems like there should be something other than the instrumental break in the middle. It sounds more suitable musically for Face To Face for me, but obviously would have fitted lyrically on VGPS, with a couple of lyrical overlaps with that album.
     

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