Tonight i just feel less e-quipped! N.b. And i certainly don't wish to be photographed by one another.
well If that guy is playing the drums the same way as Mick did, then I guess that confirms this question:
Whip Lady. stereo mix (1:17), recorded 12 Oct 1970, mixed Nov 16-18, 1970 and Jan 1971 at Morgan Studios (1), Willesden, London I like this. The first half is a beautiful keyboard arrangement... It kind of sounds somewhere between the harpsichord and a piano.... Is it doubled? A really nice rolling set of arpeggios, through a nice dreamlike chord pattern. Then out of the blue, we get this savage rock change up..... I guess we are being drawn a musical picture of some sweet lady, and then she gets her whips out and dispels the sweet lady myth. This is short and to the point..... the thing is though, I reckon this could have been made into an excellent full track. The rock section builds into this savage piece of face tearing rock, with the drums going bonkers and the guitars slashing scrapes up and down the fretboard. Ultimately it is a short little blast of music, that I enjoy, but could potentially have been something more.
Phew Mark it's quarter past the hour and I was about to assemble a (still) search (ing) party for you but I can now see you've been under the whip!
"Whip Lady" The opening is kind of like another music box thing, similar to "Just Friends", but then it goes into a crazy punk section that makes you want to pogo around the room! I'd like to have heard a longer version of this.
Dreams. stereo mix (3:41), recorded 13 Oct 1970 at Morgan Studios (1), Willesden, London When I look so far away Please don't wake me from my dreams I'm just wondering who I could be If I lived inside my dreams I could be a king or a football star Drive around in a big sports car An astronaut or a millionaire I could do anything or go anywhere Dream I'm far away Dream I'm far away Racing driver or a great politician A man of power or a man of religion I could be almost anything If I could live inside my dreams Dream I'm far away Dream I'm far away Please don't wake me from my dreams Please don't wake me from my dreams Please don't wake me from my dreams When I look so far away Please don't wake me from my daze I'm just wondering who I could be If I lived inside my dreams Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Coronado Music This is another great song from this soundtrack. It has a couple of distinct sections, that work together really well for me. I totally see the music reflecting the idea of living in dreams. We open up with another really nice piano arrangement and Ray delivering a delicate, reflective vocal, and with the introduction of the acoustic guitar we burst into what I hear as the main hook. For me it is an infectious melody and groove with the guys really rocking it up again. Interestingly again, I have no idea what to call the verse chorus or bridge here. It's like the song just rolls through these different stages of dream sleep. The tempos are a little all over the place, but that is one of the things I like about it. After the first punchy section, we move into another section that is completely different again, and it has this grand kind of feel about it, and again we have this floating melody that works well. Then we move back into a sort of musical box section with the organ swelling in the background and we come back around to the rock section. I suppose this shouldn't really work, and perhaps it doesn't for some, but for me this is excellent. All the different rhythms and textures are just too good for me to ignore..... I don't know why, but it sort of makes me thing of a certain period of the Beach Boys .... Not a song particularly, but just a certain feel. Lyrically we are looking at the idea of the limitless possibilities of dreams and the want to not be disturbed while we roam in this dreamscape. Anyway, I was really busy all weekend so I didn't have any time to prepare something more concise, so this'll have to do. I really like this song and I think it is another highlight of the album...... although we have a few little instrumentals that I suppose don't add up to much, I still enjoy them, and the sprinkling of excellent tracks amongst them makes this work well as an album for me. Thanks to this thread, I now have this album, instead of just assuming it wasn't much of an album.
There's a remix of Dreams on the 2cd Lola reissue with Percy on disc two, but I can't find that version I'm afraid.
The Whip Lady : the return of the music-box intro. It seems most songs written with the script in hand use that trick, doesn't it ? Great drums (it's been a while since they were that noticeable) and angst driven band playing. In the movie, the guy (more or less dressed as Robin Hood) runs away like his life depends on it, while the "lady" slashes everything with her whip saying "oh come back ! it's fun!". But just as Bennett's character in the film it definitely sounds like Ray's not too excited about the idea of dominatrix women…
The Whip Lady: The first part is great…then a bit of bashing out of nowhere. Like the guy in the film, I’d be hightailing it outta there, too! Dreams: a pretty song complete with rather plaintive vocals. It seems straightforward in terms of composition and has a nice organ bridge that I like a lot. The second song from the soundtrack to go onto my playlist.
Whip Lady This tune - just 1:18 long - is one of the shortest the Kinks released. Maybe the shortest. It's an amuse bouche in their discography. A taste of piano followed by a taste of flailing instruments. I guess it was composed for that particular scene in the movie. I don't find the tune unpleasant. Whips, on the other hand... Dreams Now we're talking. We have many classic Kinks elements to this song. The piano, guitars, swelling organ (sorry, it's the movie that made me dunnit ...), great vocals by Ray, catchy chorus. And it's all a very positive vibe. Dated lyrics though: "an astronaut or a millionaire". Increase that by 1,000 for a 2021 update!
I love Dreams. For some reason, I had to wait for its inclusion in the Pye Anthology box a few years ago to realize how great it is. Here comes the music box again, in the disguise of the piano intro. At first, Ray's voice is at its innocent and candid best. How fragile, how gentle, like a lullaby. It's almost like we can see the baby mobile or bedside lamp during this sweet and tender intro. And then the dream itself begins, with the band kicking in, driven by the rollicking groove created by John Gosling on the piano. God, I love this sound and the panning they create in the mix (Dave's guitar on the right channel, piano on the left) is super effective. Fantastic song from start to finish, it's like a river, with torrents alternating with moments of calm, and an ever changing flow. But we know since Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel that rivers and dreams work in a similar way. To me, this is a children song. I know some great children pop records, like Nilsson's the Point, Johnny Cash's Children LP, Donovan's For Little Ones and HSM Donovan or Carole King's Really Rosie, but my secret, ahem… dream has always been to get one of those from Ray Davies. Some of Percy's songs (Animals in the Zoo and Dreams in particular) are about the closest he got to doing it. And no, the whip lady would not be part of it!
"Dreams" This is another hidden gem on Percy, and perhaps one that could have had a place on the Lola album, as it would fit musically and thematically. The tune, the music and the lyrics are all excellent (although all the dreams in the world aren't going to make you a king if you're not born into it!)
Whip Lady is verging on surf rock, almost, which is interesting. Dreams reminds me of early The Who, specifically "I'm A Boy". A quasi-Nursery Rhyme sweetly sung combined with thumping rock.
Whip Lady: Fun little track, I think it could find its way on to my playlist. Dreams: Probably my second favorite on the album behind Animals in the Zoo. I can’t decide between the original and the remix. The original seems to have more upfront guitar but Ray’s vocals seem a bit buried in the mix. The remix brings the vocals forward at the expense of the guitar. Why can’t we have it all? Just turn everything up to 11!
The piano part at 1:25 on Dreams leads directly to Oklahoma USA; which is fitting since the latter is about a dream world.
"Whip Lady" The first part sounds lady-like, while the rest sounds rather whippy. I prefer "The Way Love Used to Be", both the song & the sentiment. As for "Dreams", a very good song w/a great organ that could be seen as a precursor to Soap Opera in its lyrics.
Whip Lady Have been listening to the whole album here and there over the past few weeks. The second half of this song has been randomly popping into my head over the past week, and when it does, I actually have trouble sometimes placing where it came from. But here it is. It's so catchy! It rocks, and I love those guitar sounds and Mick's drumming. The energy here could fit well onto Lola vs the Moneyground. I do really wish they turned this into a full fledged rock song based on those riffs. And it is unfortunate that it is left to this 30-ish second clip. As for the first half, seems similar to some of the other music-box intros and doesn't seem like anything special for me. That said, it is a music-box sounding version of the heavy riff we hear in the 2nd half of the song, right? For that, it is pretty cool. Dreams Another new song for me, and another one from this album that I wish I had known for 20 years instead of just 20 days. It has a bit of that music box sound in the intro and a couple of the dynamic breakdowns. When that heavy full piano rolls in with the whole band, holy cow this is what good music is supposed to sound like. It just surrounds you, drives you forward, and I can't help but bop my head along with that repeating guitar riff under the piano. There's just a bit of that country-tinge to that sound, that would place right with their other albums from 1970-1971. Lyrically, I doubt this was consciously done, but a number of these phrases call back to earlier songs on their catalogue. "football star" evokes David Watts, "big sports car" evokes House in the Country, "a great politician" evokes The Contenders, and "man of power" evokes... well, I'll let you figure that one out. Love this song, and this could find its way (sometimes) into my top 10 Kinks song list.
I've been going through a thread entitled "The Kinks' Diminshing Importance" & I must say that we Avids have defiantly & definitely proved that title wrong in so many ways, including the fact that we are over 450 pages now.
