As someone who regards artists first for lyrical content then the musical side (though the best naturally complement each other) this text is the pits...ZaSu Pitts. Dave’s guitar, the only decent element of this ‘song’, sounds stuck between floors. Fitting that a song about elevators should be Muzak. Oh well, maybe some apologists will chirp up and say that’s what Ray was going for (a concept!). Who was it, a Mr. Steele, who left us in high dudgeon? (as opposed to Gus Dudgeon) Come on back to the five-and-dime, friend.
“Elevator Man” I believe this was recorded on a Saturday night when Ray had a fever. The Kinks suddenly turn into the Funk Brothers! I doubt they ever meant this to be released, and if they did, it wasn’t to be taken seriously. They are goofing around with some funky dance music. I like it. The “Everybody goes up and everybody comes down” gets a little repetitive and can be annoying, but it’s got an infectious groove going on. @Fortuleo is not hallucinating. The “Walk this Way” riff is hard to miss. Aerosmith would later get in on their own elevator action with “Love in an Elevator.” Maybe The Kinks should have done a remix of “Elevator Man” in 1986 with Grandmaster Flash? The best place for this song would have been as the B side to “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman”. It could have been another dance floor hit.
I'm not really a dance/funk music expert, on any level at all really, but it's funny hearing folks talk of it as repetitive, because from my knowledge/exposure, most dance styles tend to lean towards repetitive lyrics.... so it probably makes it more authentic. It certainly isn't Rockafeller Skank by Fat Boy Slim though
Around the time I was getting into early Kinks, punk, and obscure Chess blues, the DJs at high school dances were playing Earth, Wind and Fire, Chic, KC and the Sunshine Band, Kool & the Gang, etc. & I'd go to the dances, of course -- best opportunity to test whether that magical girl you saw in the halls every day was open to holding you close for a few minutes -- and mumble in the corner with my friends, what a bunch of meaningless, slick, empty, consumerist crap for little conformists. & then something like Get Down on It or Le Freak would come on, and we'd all start twitching, then moving out into the disco lights, then dancing our hearts out. & I remember the bass players of multiple punk cover bands I was in or hung with, who would go into disco riffs while everyone else was tuning up, the reluctantly return to thumping out Ramones bass lines. All to say, disco was a compulsively compelling musical genre that became a "guilty pleasure" for a bunch of teens who professed to believe that music should do more than make you want to dance (and who took ourselves far too seriously to say, well, after all, it's only juke box music). The beginning of my turning point on this self-imposed musical exile was Graham Maby's bassline on Joe Jackson's Fridays, and the way Jackson used all the disco cliches to simultaneously embrace and sneer at Studio 54 culture. Elevator Man may have accomplished something similar a couple of years earlier. Good old Ray. No matter how much he may have wanted or been forced to "sell out," he was incapable of writing a We Built this City or Owner of a Lonely Heart, he had to surround a perfectly serviceable disco chorus (up/down) with observations about pimply misfits, madness, depression and insecurity. And onto the playlist it goes.
"Good old Ray......, he was incapable of writing a We Built This City" That's true, Avid Brian X, but his kid brother surely did! ("Rock and Roll Cities")
Elevator Man A character piece from the shelved concept album? The riff sounds like the extended intro Earl Slick played on Bowie's "Stay". The song is much more funk than disco and surprisingly though a bit stiff, the Kinks give up the funk pretty well. Only Ray could write a song about an elevator operator. Is it really that far removed from his many, often barbed, character studies set to music than his 60s? Instead of harpsichords and music hall instrumentation he funks it up. The weakness is this makes it more timely than timeless. People barking about the Arista years maybe both want Ray to stay stuck in the 60s and also possibly revere that era a bit too much. Were the Kinks Arista years really that much of a decline or does the rose-colored glasses effect play a role here too, as well as the type of music we gravitate to and when we form our music foundation. I really like this song because it does remind me of 60s Ray but he's outfitted in '70s switch blade collar shirt and sansabelt polyester pants. It could have made for an out of leftfield standalone single w/ The Poseur in the summer of '77.
What an insightful post. Your closing thoughts remind me of Randy Newman and "Simon Smith and his..."; he was asked to write a sure-fire big hit for... the Alan Price Quartet (?), and paraphrasing, he said something like "I came up with a song about a dancing bear. That's when I knew I'd never be that guy". Sounds like our man Ray and this track here.
… which should be put to Clive Davis's credit!! In the pure & easy Redbeard interview posted by @ThereOnceWasANote, Ray himself does say so ("the head of RCA changed all the time, we never knew who it was", "Clive Davis I could relate to, in a musical way"). On to a very different matter. After reading @Martyj's convincing post about his gay interpretation of the Artificial Light lyrics the other day and following yesterday's discussion about On the Outside, I was thinking he/we should keep count of the gay-themed Kinks songs for reference, just as @Wondergirl presumably does for the sunny ones and @Brian x said he'd do for the friendly ones. I myself completed my Karibbean list some time ago (there may be a new controversial contender early next week), which leaves us with the "Man" songs list someone mentioned weeks or months ago. An interesting EP in the making. A Well Respected Man / Session Man / Tin Soldier Man / Plastic Man / 20th Century Man / Artificial Man / Mr Big Man / Elevator Man. Let's see : my two least loved sixties A-sides, my least loved Face to Face, Something Else, Preservation 2 and Sleepwalker tunes, now my least loved outtake (at least to date)… There’s something there, some weird logic I don’t quite understand, with the 20th Century bloke being the sole exception to my rule, a Kinks-man song I actually love! Anyway, we can wrap this up, since Elevator Man effectively concludes the collection (Superman doesn't count, as it's in one word. Solo tune Imaginary Man will apply for bonus tracks status). Mmm, no later than tomorrow, we'll see what a certain Christmas song will have to say about that!!
I'm still on it! But I may have missed references to "friends" in the past week or so, caught up in the debate about what sounds like the Kinks and distracted by the war news. Plus it's a lot of work to come up with anything original or insightful to say about these songs when I wake up to analyses as good as yours & others on this thread.
That dog probably had better taste and knew more about music than the carousel of clowns running RCA during the Kinks tenure.
That dog probably had better taste and knew more about music than the carousel of clowns running RCA during the Kinks tenure.
For Rockafeller or Elevator? If Rockefeller, I completely understand. If Elevator, I'm disappointed brother
Re RCA in the 70s, here’s the head guy: KENNETH GLANCY, RCA RECORDS CHIEF IN '70S He “helped foster the careers of such disparate artists as Woody Herman, Pierre Boulez, David Bowie and Cleo Laine,” and had a role to play in Lou Reed’s career: Lou took Metal Machine Music straight to the top, to Kenneth Glancy, President of RCA Records, and worked his way down from there…” Biographer Victor Bockris recounts, “On getting home he told friends he had to run to the men’s room, after presenting this highly unusual product to the RCA people, in order to explode with laughter.” - Noise alloys: The gory story of Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' » We Are Cult
Yea, it definitely isn't any disco I've heard. I reckon it could have actually gotten some traction if released as a single, but perhaps release it under a different name than the Kinks, purely so it got heard.
We Bulit This City is so far away from rock n roll it would need a map to find it. As horrible as Rock and Roll Cities (everything about the backing track and song production screams Give The People What They Want era) it is still a rock song. Though one that is both cliched and pandering to the AOR radio of the early 80s. But more on that dud later.
We may have to add the title track to this list. In one of Doug Hinman’s two indispensable Kinks bibles he notes that in January 1977 Ray is at Konk editing out a verse from Sleepwalker. In this verse the song’s character claims he is gay.
Elevator Man Wow.... I no idea the Kinks did a song with enough double entendres to make ZZ Top blush! Some funky fun to be had there, musically. Solid bonus track material.
Does anyone hear a sped up Where Have All The Good Times Gone in Sleepwalker? Speaking of Where Have All The Good Times Gone seemed to had partly arisen as a rockier update musically of Tired of Waiting For You.
Elevator Man Not a great track, but definitely interesting. I have to give Ray props for trying different things. The bass line sound very much like the riff from "Burning Sky" by Bad Company.
Elevator Man The Kinks are funkin' it up here. Today is the first time I'm hearing this one. It's ok, but I don't think it's a stand out. It's a bit dull, in fact. Ray is a full-time walking elevator man. he's the observer here in this song and in general. I just assume that the ups and downs of the elevator is a metaphor that no one stays on top - be it your businessman or rock star. When you're #1, the only way is down. this is a miss for me. 4 out of 5 winners for me on the extras. Not bad.
uh oh...was I supposed to be keeping track of the sunny songs?! Headmaster, my assignment may be late.
