"Permnent Waves" Another outtake-like track with a promising playful melody in the verses. However the chorus again fails to deliver, or is there a chorus at all? The production is remarkably stale, though that deep fuzz (guitar?) shakes the picture up a little. It made me think something's wrong with my speakers. The piano motif reminds me of a bit David Dundas "Jeans On".
"Permanent Waves" is the most Woody Allensque song in an album which to me was full of them. Again, it's a nebbish who's advised to get his hair done in order to "score with the chicks" as they said in the vernacular of that time. So he does and he's feeling great until he gets caught in the rain and he's a nebbish and a misfit again. This could have been a scene out of any Woody Allen movie. Musically, it's a nice, jaunty, tune w/a nice synth riff and a great chorus. Another great song that continues the "misfits" theme running through the songs like a connective tissue as the previous album's theme of the nighttime.
Permanent Waves: One of Ray's dumb songs that actually works. I didn't pick up on the T. Rex reference at the time, but that intro, I can now hear "Bang a Gong" before the song shifts gears. I like ajsmith's Sparks reference, a band that made an art form out of silly songs (along with 10CC, to a lesser extent). For one of those class reunions, I gave myself the assignment of tracking down old yearbooks and turning them into PDF files we could then share with old classmates. I got 1978 through 1982, and I still find myself referring back to these incredible documents, especially when someone "our age" passes on (which keeps happening more and more). The hairstyles in these yearbooks are unbelievable, surely the golden age of hair perms. I'm sure that was the angle I came at this song in real time!
This was in the Kinks edition of the My Generation mini-doc series that was put out by UK's Channel 4 as part of its arts program in the mid 1990s (I believe that Avid Ajsmith would have more details). There were also shows about Herman's Hermits, the Animals, the Yardbirds and the Troggs which are all on YouTube and are recommended.
I’m convinced of it! After the dig at the notion of “fever” in the aftermath of the disco craze, this one has to be a joke about “new wave” or, rather, new waves in worldwide popular culture (I’ve lost count of how many of those there’s been). Here’s what I think (hope!) happened: people started talking about this new music style, New Wave, Ray or someone made a crack at the idea a band like the Kinks would rather not be labelled “old wave” but “permanent”… And off he was! The play on words was too obvious to miss. If you’re Ray Davies in 1978, you don’t do a synth-inflicted track with this title without something on your mind. I could swear it happened that way. I want it to be true, I want it so bad that I’ve just decided it is! Yes, definitely, the song is funny as hell but it’s also a substantial satire in disguise. It reminds me of a little-known John Carpenter segment in his omnibus flick Body Bags, in which balding Stacy Keach undergoes some hair implants to battle depression. He becomes this obnoxious long-haired douche bag showing off his long hair everywhere. Except hair implants turn out to be an alien invasion in motion, each hair being a long-tailed blood-thirsty alien, sucking the life out of the people getting implants ! Try to see it, it’s a hilarious piece of filmmaking. A brilliant satire of the industry of physical vanity and, like Ray’s song, a deceptively funny but acute commentary against the delusion that one single external change could ever be the solution to all our inner repressed problems.
Avid Jasper Dailey, I believe that some guy named Brian Wilson did those type of songs. Also, I think that Ray was a bit more, shall we say, sane......
Permanent Waves This is another mid tempo rocker with some clever, interesting lyrics. Musically it is a bit less engaging than Hay Fever or In A Foreign Land as the solo is kind of bland for a Kinks song, but it is still a decent song. Perhaps 30-45 seconds too long.
Permanent Waves Is this a lost Beach Boys song from 1977 that didn't quite make the cut for Love You? It's got that fat synth that's on Let Us Go On This Way, I'll Bet He's Nice, and Mona. Very 1977/1978, it seems! So unique in these band's catalogues. I know that album is pretty polarizing in BB fandom, with many seeming to either love it or hate it. Me, I love it. It shows an embrace of more modern equipment and trying to something a little different or experimental. Overall, again I hear heavy Beach Boys vibes, and perhaps less of a tongue-in-cheek reference to "New Wave", but rather the kinds of waves that the Beach Boys would sing about catching. The intro verse melody (which sort of becomes like a chorus near the end of the song?) sounds like a B. Wilson/M. Love kind of verse pattern, almost sounds surf-ish to me. I'm sure Dennis Wilson would have loved to find a permanent wave, like the goal of that great film The Endless Summer. All of this adds up, to me, as another great catchy song on this album. I've said it before, but if we had gone from Face to Face to Misfits, I may not think it was the same band. But seeing this slow evolution, it is clear it is all the Kinks, and very Kinky indeed, with the sense of humor in the lyrics. I will second @Fortuleo here: The main hook here seems like a synthesized version of Dave's lead guitar hook from that song. It's very memorable, and just lodges itself in your brain. Perhaps that was another one of those "hummable" melodies...
Permanent Waves Another near novelty song, but a clever and catchy one. I think I picked up this album around 1984 or 1985 and this is one of the songs that hooked me in spite of its light weight. I also thought it amusing that this British group was singing about a trend that I had no idea went beyond American shores. And they nailed it pretty well.... so many lost young lads with bad hair thought a perm would help them get chicks. Some things are truly universal, I guess.
Way beyond America. Per wiki: A punch perm (パンチパーマ, panchi pāma) is a type of tightly permed male hairstyle in Japan. From the 1970s until the mid-1990s, it was popular among yakuza, chinpira (low-level criminals), bōsōzoku (motorcycle gang members), truck drivers, construction workers, and enka singers. —-end—-
"Permanent Waves" Many great observations already. I never picked up on the T. Rex bop of "Get It On" or the McCartney riff, but now I can clearly hear it. I love @donstemple comment about it being a lost Love You song. I'm a big fan of that synth sound on "Let Us Go On This Way" which is used here to a lesser extent. The last great Beach Boys record for me. I even have the album cover hanging on my wall. I'm not sure what band was first called New Wave, but this is even more brilliant if Ray was using this song in the same manner as "Hay Fever". It's only when you listen closely to the lyrics that he is talking about hair! Ha ha. I love this song. I use to call my grandfather "The Wave" because his hair looked like the sea. You wanted to sail your toy boat on his head. I inherited these waves and curls, and as a child I looked like I had a Harpo Marx wig on. Over time the curls and waves mellowed out, but as a teen I always wanted straight hair. Like @mark winstanley mentioned you always want the type of hair you don't have. Now I embrace every last curl that is left on top. @DISKOJOE is onto something with his Woody Allen comparisons. Getting caught in the rain after a perm would have made a funny scene in one of his movies. Frequent Woody side kick Tony Roberts had that natural perm look. Woody should have went with a perm in one of his films in his attempts to pick up a chick. A brilliant song all around and one of my favorites on the album. This and the next song kind of point in the direction of the next album.
I'd agree with that, with a mild emphasis on "kind of" It's quite surprising how different all three of the first Arista albums are..... I had never really noticed it that much previously.
Don’t know how relevant this is, but it’s worth noting that at no other point in their career did they put out 3 consecutive albums with 3 different line ups. (EDIT: well I guess VGPS/Arthur/Lola counts too so maybe scratch that!)
Really? My initial impression is that the next one is from a different planet. I like ‘Misfits’ while I …don’t care for ( ) the next.
I listened to that one this morning and while oddly sequenced it is a very fine album indeed. Can't say I have an issue with any song on it. Wish I could say the same about its follow up two years later.
I've always wondered this myself. Or at least the Kinks as a band. They again did the same thing with their very next studio album with a title from a track on the Kink's next studio album. I've never seen a comment one way or the other from a member of Rush, but I'd be very surprised if it was just mere coincidence.
On the live clip you can see Low Budget era Ray emerging when they play “Live Life”. I hear a slight similarity in the direction these songs take with new wave leanings and riff rock. Maybe you will come around to at least a couple songs on Low Budget? “You gotta let out the tension”. Don’t blame it on “National Health”!
Good point. I never considered that. Also, I guess, Rush somewhat changed direction not long after the Kinks.... From the more proggish albums to the... somewhat more accessible albums... Something I had never thought about.
There always seems to be a song, or a couple, that point ahead. It's interesting seeing it all this closely
