The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Pictures In The Sand

I can hear bits of other Kinks songs here such as Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street & Act Nice And Gentle.
Not sure i am completely won over by Ray's delivery but if he claims it was for his daughter and not meant to be recorded well fair enough.

 

What the...



I'm hearing this for the first time and that instantly jumped out at me. I don't have a whole lot to say about this except that it only consists of three chords, G, D and A, and since it appears to be in the key of A (which it takes awhile to get to), I guess we can safely call it mixolydian.

 

I believe I recognize that high-hat pattern.



They Might Be Giants / Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes

 

Love this song. This was one of the first records I ever bought.

Not much to say today about these instrumentals. First time I have heard "Egg Stained Pyjamas" It might have made a good song with some vocals. It's interesting to hear it, but it's not gonna be on regular rotation. I feel the same way about "Easy Come, There You Went". It doesn't make a huge impression, but I do think this one would have made a great tune with vocals. Sounds like a Dave song to me. I like the piano on it and it sounds pretty much ready for a vocal. Anyone want to give it a go?

 

I look away for a day and now have to make up four pages! You folks are relentless.

 

Substitute “medieval” for old and you might have made the sale!

 

I’m assuming Quaife is still playing on all of these? Wiki says he rehearsed some of the Arthur songs so that’s why my assumption.

 

I love Easy Come etc. Usually I don’t dig on instrumentals too much unless they are virtuoso type stuff (as an old school Maiden head, think Ides of March or Transylvania by way of example). Unless the guitar, drums and bass are going gonzo, I usually get bored pretty quickly without lyrics. This is different though, short enough to hold my attention and a cool groove that gets me bouncin’ in my seat. I wasn’t likin the PJ song at first, but thanks to the whole dialogue about silent films, I saw some three stooges action in my mind as it played and thought it was a fun little piece of music.

EZ Come is a keeper as is, but wouldn’t it be fun if Ray went back and added lyrics to this great little instrumental (I know the purists got all up in arms about Jagger adding the vox later on the Stones deluxe sets, but I thought they took some great leftover musical pieces and finished them off [and his voice sounds fine IMO] and I enjoy them, so I guess I am just not a purist) (and really, is it that big a deal? I mean Tattoo You is a great later stage Stones release and that was all old songs dusted off with a new coat of paint added and no one bitched about that at the time, so what’s the fuss?)

 

That's my understanding

 

You assume correctly, Avid Zeki. I believe Peter Quaife left the Kinks sometime around March/April 1969.

 

Silent films in their day were indeed seen at natural speed, although sometimes either sped up or slowed down for dramatic effect, hand cranked by cameramen who had to function as human metronomes. They filmed them generally under 20 frames per second.

Why they look so fast these days was caused by the advent of sound pictures requiring the standardization of 24 frames per second movies were filmed and projected so they would synchronize with the natural speed of recorded sound. For practical purposes, everything moving forward—whether silent or sound—would be projected through sound projectors (and silent hardware was phased out anyway.) Because silent films were shot at fewer frames per second they looked faster when projected at the new sound standard speed.

In our modern digital times they don’t have to hew to projection speed, so you can actually watched them at the pace they were intended—and many DVD re-releases feature them in such a way—but because they had fewer frames per second they look kind of blurry and unnatural if not done right. Guys like Peter Jackson, though, got it on the money with that WW1 documentary.

I actually prefer the imperfection of the speeded up quality of silent film, much in the way I prefer the hiss and pop of old vinyl records. They provide a veil of sorts that give the whole experience an ethereal feel that appeals to me.

Anyway...to keep this on track for a Kinks thread, Ray mentions 3 silent movie actors in what song? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

 

Celluloid Heroes

 

Yeah. That was too easy. A slow, underhanded lob over the plate. And I now realize Ray mentions 4: Valentino, Garbo, Lugosi...but I forgot Micky Rooney got his start in silents as Micky McGuire. Anyway...waaaaaay too early to be discussing that song.

 

I decided that Mickey didn't really qualify!

 

Wow, have I got a lot of catching up to do!

Been on vacation the latter part of last week/weekend and been busy with work these past few days, so wanted to take the time to get my thoughts right because in my opinion, many of the VGPS outtakes are just as good as the songs that made the cut.

I could probably write a whole novel on each of these songs since just about all of them are very dear to me, but I'll do my best to keep it brief.

Mr. Songbird

This one almost made it on the album. It made it onto some of the international editions. I like it, but I think cutting it was an okay choice. I'm not sure what I would have cut instead. My favorite part is the mellotron. Surprised they didn't release it as the B side or Days or something.

Berkeley Mews

Love this one. Is that a marxophone? Or piano maestro Nicky Hopkins playing fast trills? Apologies if that had already been discussed... love that saxophone ending too. I recall an old thread on these forums about that ending, and whether or not it was a mellotron sample. I also remember a Nirvana song being mentioned in that thread because it used the same ending sound.

Rosemary Rose

One of the few that feels like an outtake. Still like it of course, it's just rather short. Gets me thinking that if Ray wanted to really expand the VGPS concept he could have written 32 1 minute songs instead of 16 2 minute songs... sounds more like a Something Else track with that harpsichord sound and exotic undertones.

Misty Water

I like this one a lot. I like the rockin' guitars in the chorus, a bit unusual for this time but definitely a sign of things to come on Arthur. In fact, it kind of reminds me of Brainwashed a bit. And that thumping tom drum part is great too.

Did You See His Name?

Great lyrics. So much condensed into such a short song. The organ tone gets me thinking it was recorded in the same session as Days. Would have made an excellent B side.

Till Death Us Do Part

I love this song so much! I wanna keep my thoughts to it brief since I have a lot to cover, but this one is really something special. And it wasn't even released! If I wrote something that good I would be happy to retire off of it. I love how the trombone just chugs along in the middle part where it goes to G# to G. The chords are weird too; C -> Cm and then it does Eb at some point. I think this is the culmination of all of their music hall rock and British 60s music hall revival in general. Simply incredible. I have a bootleg somewhere that has the film version sung by somebody else (again, sorry if this has been brought up already, haven't read through all the old posts yet). Top ten Kinks song for me.

EDIT: Looks like ajsmith beat me to it! Chas' version doesn't do a justice imo, but still an interesting listen for sure.

Lavender Hill

Another really strong outtake. Hot take, but people don't use oboes enough in pop/rock songs. It's kind of the secret weapon of baroque pop. I'm glad Autumn Almanac was the follow-up to Waterloo Sunset, but I wouldn't have been disappointed with this instead.

Pictures in the Sand

Probably my favorite outtkae from the era next to Till Death... Isn't that bridge incredible? Probably their best bridge. The song is worth it just for that break "I'f I didn't have a dime, would you still be loving me? ..." And this one wasn't released either! At least Till Death kind of made it's way onto television.

Egg Stained Pyjamas

Usually the instrumental outtakes don't do much for me, but I would have loved to hear some lyrics on this one. Same with Little Women. Great music hall inspired song. I remember how excited I was hearing it for the first time when the box set came out haha

Easy Come There You Went

Actually had to listen to this one again because I forgot what it sounds like. Fun studio jam, like the piano/mellotron and clapping. Not sure how seriously they worked on this one, but even if they were just messing around it still sounds somewhat developed.

 

If you listen to the Pictures backing track it becomes clear that Dave’s lead work during the first half of the track is echoed by his lead line in People in Gray.

 

That may account for Frank Smythe's term Daviesland?

 

Maybe it's the 5 decade rather than approximate 5 year gap between drinks?

 

You my friend may be a Celluloid Hero!

 

You beat me to it as i responded way late.

 

Being really anal here, but I’m not sure if Frank Smythe coined the term ‘Daviesland’.., Smythe wrote the liner notes for ‘Face To Face’ whereas the notes for ‘Something Else’ where ‘Daviesland’ originated are uncredited, and don’t seem in the same style. A bit twee er I would say. Smythe was a somewhat Rabelasian journalist and friend of Ray’s who the latter devotes a page or two to in his first autobiography.

 

Lavender Hill

Things are moving so fast I can't recall if I passed any comment or not on this one?

The gist seems to be that it's ambitious with a little of Waterloo Sunset on show (In Ray's vocal melody in parts for mine) and it should have been a single according to some.
There is a lot going on and I agree with most comments but I don't find the hooks for a top 5 single here and feel they made the right call.

 

May well be, I know he used the term and I actually thought Ray may have been more likely to have coined it but iam very impressed by how much you know about the late gentleman!

 

Mick Avory's Underpants.

mono mix, recorded 29 Mar, 1968 at Pye Studios (No. 2), London
Written by: Ray Davies/Dave Davies
Published by: Carlin Music Group


This kind of makes me think of Motown, or Stax or something like that. I imagine that riff being played by horns and then Sam and Dave or James Brown or someone coming in with some solid soul vocals or something along those lines.

Essentially this is just a sketch to me. I can see some promise of something they could have done with this, but not really something on the Village Green album.

 

Spotty Grotty Anna.

stereo mix, recorded around 1968 at Pye Studios, London

This moves back into the older style rock and roll that the guys had been doing on the first three albums.

Listening to this now, it sounds like the guys just jamming in the studio, and having a bit of fun, shaking off the cobwebs.

Often times when you are working on music that is a bit heavier, or more deep, you need to step outside of it for a bit to shake the dust out of your mind, and that is what this sounds like to me.

Certainly nothing wrong with that, but again, it is hard to envisage anything this would have been turned into being part of the Village Green album. It seems more likely that if either of these tracks had become anything, it would have been b-sides for non album singles.