03 - The Kink Kontroversy

The Kink Kontroversy (1965)

01. Milk Cow Blues
02. Ring The Bells
03. Gotta Get The First Plane Home
04. When I See That Girl Of Mine
05. I Am Free
06. Till The End Of The Day

07. The World Keeps Going Round
08. I'm On An Island
09. Where Have All The Good Times Gone
10. It's Too Late
11. What's In Store For Me
12. You Can't Win

I've woken up earlier than usual today to listen to it because I don't know what time I'll come back home tonight and I didn't want to miss any album.

So what do we get here? The first BIG Kinks album.

It starts with Milk Cow Blues, a song I didn't like at first because I considered it unusually long for 1965. But now I've learned to appreciate it in some way, for example I love the fact that Dave and Ray swap vocals. But I still expect to hear "Batman" every time I listen to the studio version!

Again we have a lot of relatively simple but great sixties songs: Ring The Bells, The World Keeps Going Round, I'm On An Island... These particular ones are very special for me because they are the kind of songs that made me a fan, all the rest came later.

Till The End Of The Day is absolutely brilliant. It has the energy of YRGM and ADAAOTN but it goes one step further, and it has what could be my favourite guitar solo ever. Its b-side, Where Have All The Good Times Gone gives us the best songwriter, the observer, at one of his best moments. It's good to see him thinking about what life would be like being a few years older.

Apart of these two songs, my favourite in the album is When I See That Girl Of Mine. If it had been written one or two years earlier I think it would have been a very big hit.

It's great to finally have a Dave Davies composition in the album (I Am Free) and he also does a great job singing What's In Store For Me, another great song. And also on You Can't Win, which marks the discovery of another of the best Davies points: The terrific harmonies. Yet one more brilliant song and a fantastic way to end the album, I'd put it between my favourites too.

Songs that don't really get me: Gotta Get The First Plane Home (we had It's Alright and I Gotta Move which are better songs and the idea is pretty much the same) and It's Too Late (did Macca listen to it before writing Flaming Pie?). I still like them though, I think they are funny but just not as good as the rest.

This is one of those albums I listen to at least once a week. I just love it.

I agree with almost everything Iñaki said. This is their first BIG album. I heard it for the first time after learning by heart my most favorite albums (VGPS, Something Else and Face to Face). I didn't like it in the first place. But now...

I love almost every song here: I'm on an Island is a very special one for me, Where Have All the Good Times Gone is one of my all time favorite songs, I absolutely adore When I See That Girl of Mine (I especially love demo-version), Till the End of the Day always makes me feel better, Ring the Bells is sooo sweet and pure that I just can't help listening to it again and again.

I like Milk Cow Blues and the way our favorite brothers sing it, I especially love I Am Free, I was listening to it now and thinking that Dave had a great voice, the song is stunning.

I can't say that I dislike any song but Gotta Get the First Plane Home is one of those Kinks songs I can skip listening to the album. For a very long time I couldn't define my thoughts about You Can't Win and What's in Store for Me, now I can say I love both songs. It's Too Late is one more special song for me, it's kinda personal. That's why I love it.

I may be in the minority, but I feel as if the Kinks were losing steam here. In some ways I like the demos better than the main album (at least the demos that appear on the UK CD, like Tell Me Now So I'll Know and A Little Bit of Sunlight and Time Will Tell).

I feel as if Ray is trying too hard, and it shows. Ring the Bells, The World Keeps Going Round, and You Can't Win are three songs I have never really warmed up to. Wasn't this a period when Ray was having writer's block? I recall reading that Shel Talmy sent veteran US songwriter Mort Schuman around to Ray's house to talk him through it. "Till the End of the Day" was written right after that visit, so I guess it worked! (Although I thought I had also read somewhere that Ray has never really liked that song, which is why he plays it so rarely). It's probably my least favorite of the big mid-60s hits.

And yet amidst all these are some of my favorite Kinks songs ever. I do love When I See That Girl of Mine -- it's so exuberant, one of the few Kinks songs in which Ray actually sounds simply in love. (Maybe because Ray's channeling Buddy Holly here.) And things get more in gear on Side B. I think if I'd owned this album back in the vinyl days, I would most have played side B -- and might have set the needle down on track 2 to start. I'm On An Island is the first song where Ray really indulges his campy side, and it's glorious. Where Have All the Good Times is superb, how it combines the power chords with a draggy tempo, Ray's pseudo-Dylan delivery, those great backing harmonies -- a song that really says something. It's Too Late is loose and funny, with that slow hip-swiveling rhythm. I think What's In Store For Me is a livelier, more fun song for Dave to sing than I Am Free.

In so many interviews around this time, Ray talks about wanting to take time off and just work on his songwriting. It's as if he wanted to do more complex psychological stuff, instead of the simple love songs that everybody else was still writing, but Talmy may have been pushing him to stick with the tried-and-true. I recently heard a lecture by a musicologist about the early Beatles, and he pointed out that the Beatles consciously did songs where the refrains used the words "me" and "you," because they felt that established an intimate bond with the listeners. On both this album and Kinda Kinks, Ray has a lot of those "me" and "my" songs (fewer "you" songs ). But for a private guy like Ray, those may have been hard to write. What he needed was to switch to being more of a storyteller and an observer (later even his "me" and "you" songs are often written in character....).

I'm putting it on right now.

I just listened to it twice, and I think that most of the songs on this album are top notch. I feel that The Kinks here had really hit their stride. Ray's writing overall is quite contagious. His songs have a simplicity that could maybe be interpreted as dull to some people, but on second listen are quite catchy -- the more you listen, the more they grow on you. Gotta Get the first Plane Home is probably the weakest on the album.

This albums contains a few gems, of course Dedicated Follower of Fashion, but also Ring The Bells, Till The End Of The Day, Where Have All The Good Times Gone. An all-time favorite Kinks song of mine is Sitting On My Sofa (which I think is a bonus track). I can just see Ray sitting there trying to come up with a song, strumming the guitar and slowly coming up with this riff. I think it's very humorous.

They really sound a lot like the Everly Brothers on When I See That Girl Of Mine. I have heard that Ray and Dave absolutely LOVE the Everly Brothers. (Good taste, boys).

Just listened to it, and I am listening to it again right now. There isn't really any song that I don't like on this album. Lots of quirky, catchy songs...I forgot how much I LOVE Till the End of the Day, it's one of my favorites. As for Gotta Get the First Plane home...I actually kind of like it. Not my favorite on the album by any means, but I enjoy it.

That's interesting, I hadn't really thought about that before.

Here's a link to my blog post today --

Where Have All the Good Times Gone