When my buddy Max from the PowerPop blog reached out to me and asked if I would like to take part in his “Kinks Week” feature, I naturally said yes. He told me that I should pick a specific Kinks song and write a bit about it. Easy enough, right? Well, sort of…

They band was formed in London in 1963 by Ray and Dave Davies. The were part of a sort of British R&B and Merseybeat thing that was happening there. Technically, they were part of the British Invasion here in the US, too. They certainly had plenty of hits that still get airplay today.

My introduction to the Kinks came from my dad and from listening to his oldies station. I heard All Day and All of the Night, You Really Got Me, Lola, and Tired of Waiting for You a lot growing up and when I worked in radio. But it was MTV and Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 that I heard them in a way I was unfamiliar with.

In 1983, the Kinks released their State of Confusion album. One of the tracks, Come Dancing, is undeniably an “80’s” song. It has that distinct sound of the early 80’s. When I heard that the song was the Kinks, I actually thought that maybe it was a different band. This song is so different and distant from what I’d call the “classic Kinks” sound. Not to mention that Ray’s accent is very obvious. I suppose that is why it stood out to me.

In one interview, Ray stated that this song was an attempt to return to the “warmer” style that the group had before they became the “arena rock act.” He said, “I wanted to regain some of the warmth I thought we’d lost, doing those stadium tours. Come Dancing was an attempt to get back to roots, about my sisters’ memories of dancing in the ’50’s.”

On the surface, the song sounds fun, but the inspiration for the song and the lyrical content came from a real life tragedy and nostalgia. Davies hints a both of those things in the quote above.

As I began to research the story behind the song the word “nostalgia” came up many times. I suppose, it was reinforcing that the Nostalgic Italian had chosen the right song to write about. Rolling Stone magazine called the song “delightfully nostalgic.” Another article says that the song is basically “the 1980’s nostalgia for the 1950’s” and goes on to say how Davies tapped into that nostalgia as he was inspired by his sisters as young adults going to dance halls in the 1950’s.

The real life tragedy involved Ray’s sister Rene. As a child she had rheumatic fever, which led to some heart issues. She lived in Canada with her abusive husband and would come home to London to visit with her family annually. In 1957, Rene (then 37 years old) surprised Ray with a Spanish guitar on his 13th birthday. He had been trying to get his parents to buy it for them, but to no avail. He was thrilled to receive the gift from her. His joy would be replaced with sadness later that evening, however, as his sister would have a heart attack while dancing at the Lyceum ballroom.

Ray took inspiration from his memories of his sisters dancing at the local dance halls to the music of big bands and wrote Come Dancing. The song is written from the point of view of what he called an “East End barrow boy” watching his sister going out on dates. It speaks of the nostalgia of how they are building a parking lot on the spot where the supermarket used to be. Before that it was where the bowling alley was. Still before that, it was the spot where the local “palais” (French for Palace) dance hall used to be.

Ray said that the song was an easy song to write, because the idea had been in his head for some time. He didn’t start writing it, though, until March of 1982 while on a flight home from Japan. He had just purchased a new Casio keyboard and used it to write the song.

In his book, You Really Got Me: The Story of the Kinks, author Nick Hasted claims that the song was written in an attempt “to reach out to the Kinks’ lost British audience.” This is probably why Ray sang with his British accent despite being asked to sing it with an American one. He has been quoted as saying that he “tried to retain the Englishness” of the song.

The “Englishness” almost prevented the song from being released. Well respected record man and founder of Arista records, Clive Davis really didn’t want to released the song in the US. He didn’t think that the American public would be able to relate to the English subject matter of dance halls. It didn’t help that the song had already been released in the UK in 1982 and did not chart.

In the end, the song was released in the US in April of 1983 and was a Top 10 hit (reaching #6). The video for the song played often on MTV which also helped the radio performance. Come Dancing would go on to be the highest charting US single of their career (tying with 1965’s Tired of Waiting for you). Naturally, because it did so well in the states, it was rereleased in the UK and this time it reached #12 on the British charts.

The Kinks would have one more Top 40 single in the US and that was also on the State of Confusion album. That song was Don’t Forget to Dance, which peaked at at #29. So I guess it is fair to say that Come Dancing was the last big hit for the band. Ray wasn’t done with the song, though.

In 1997, he wrote a musical play with the title Come Dancing. It was set in a 1950’s dance hall and included some Kinks songs and original songs. The play opened in September of 2008, and sadly only ran through the end of October 2008. Ray appeared as the narrator in the play. The show was brought back in 2010, but quickly cancelled again.

As I listen to all of the nostalgia presented in the lyrics of Come Dancing, it makes it feel like a perfect swan song for the Kinks. First of all, it has a happy feel to it that passes from the music to its listener. It is much like Walking on Sunshine, in that I cannot hear it without smiling.

Then you have picture of life progressing. The “out with the old, in with the new” kind of thing. You reach a point in your life or career where you look back on where you’ve been nostalgically. In a sense, that is what’s happening here. Despite where we are currently, we look back at many fond and happy memories. Isn’t that really what Ray and the Kinks are doing here? I suppose that’s the way I see it anyway.

Thanks to Max for asking me to participate and and contribute to his look at one of the greatest, and often overlooked bands in history. Thank you for reading. Now let’s give it a listen ….

Once again, Dave Ruch from A Sound Day has offered up a unique musical topic for his feature “Turntable Talk.” If no one has already, let me give Kudos to him for hosting this every month. To his credit, he can come up with topics that one month I know instantly what I am going to write about and another month I really struggle to come up with something. That being said, Here is our instructions for this month:

“This time, let’s think cheesy, sugary delites… The Jury Says Guilty! (Pleasure That Is).  Be bold and tell us one musical guilty pleasure of yours … it could be one song, or a whole artist’s catalog. Stuff you think you shouldn’t like… but do! Of course, most minds go straight to some of those sappy ’70s and ’80s songs, but it can be anything…. the soft rocker who loves AC-DC or the person with good musical taste who loves hearing The Chicken Dance.“

As someone who loves all types of music, I found this to be a really hard topic to write about. If you were to grab my iPod and listen to it, you would hear a LOT of different genres and artists. If you just hit “next” for a few songs, you could go from Chuck Berry to Barry White to the White Stripes to music from the soundtrack of the movie Stripes. Then you could hear Beethoven, a radio jingle, a song from Weird Al Yankovic, and ZZ Top. Keep going and you will hear songs from cartoons my kids grew up with, TV theme songs, and Big Band/Swing music.

Do you see what I mean? Most people know that I was a radio DJ and that I was exposed to a lot of music. So what type of music could possible surprise them? What would YOU think would be “odd” for me to listen to? Just for the heck of it, please answer in a comment. I’d love to know.

After mulling it over for some time, I almost just caved and went with Polka Medleys by Weird Al. I LOVE those things. He takes hit songs and does a medley of them as a polka. But does that really surprise anyone? I doubt it. I have made it no secret that I think Al is a musical genius.

At this point, I did what I normally do when I need to think – I grabbed my iPod and began to listen. It didn’t take long to find what my guilty pleasure is. As a matter of fact, I tried to convince myself NOT to write about it. Why? Because by admitting this, you will truly know what a nerd I am.

As the Nostalgic Italian, I tend to look back on a lot of things from my past with fond memories. There are some years (under the heading “First Marriage”) that I would rather not look back on. I loved high school. I didn’t want it to end. This was mainly because of band class. My core friends were in band and we have so many wonderful memories of those days in the band room. We would often stay after school and pull out songs we had played before just to play them again.

After I graduated, we’d come back during summer band camp to help our band director with charting and marching techniques. We created the Alumni Band so that us old guys could come back and march in the homecoming parade. We played Christmas carols in the auditorium lobby before the band’s holiday concert. I was there so much, my parents used to ask me, “Are you EVER going to graduate?!”

That is a pretty long backstory to get to my musical guilty pleasure, but hopefully it explains why there is plenty of “band” music on my iPod. When I began to search iTunes for random titles of songs we played in school and actually found some of them played by various bands and orchestras, I started downloading them.

A buddy of mine still had all of the band concert programs and he sent me copies of them. The search for songs brought me to more and more of them. With YouTube, I began to find even more of those songs (often played by other high school bands). I found a way to make MP3’s out of those videos and added them to the iPod.

I suppose the only songs you might know would be the popular ones by John Phillip Sousa or Leroy Anderson. Every once in a while we would play a medley of Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin songs from Tin Pan Alley, and even Beach Boys songs. We played The Navy Hymn when the Challenger exploded a couple days before our concert. I would say that most of the songs we played were things you wouldn’t recognize.

When I was working on midnights, I would often pull up my “band” music, throw on headphones and begin tapping my foot. I can still recall the melody and counter melody lines I had in various marches that we played. I can remember Mr. Shaner, our band director, talking to our trumpet section about this one beat in a trumpet feature where the four parts blended into what he called a “flourish.” One beat in the whole song. We played that “flourish” a few times so we knew how important it was.

I wasn’t going to share links, but after trying to describe the “flourish,” I thought the song might help. I hope it will play for you as it is not a You Tube link. This is the demo created for the song by the music publisher. This was a Trumpet section feature. It featured four part harmonies and each part had a solo. The one note “flourish” is underplayed by this demo, but happens at the :58 second mark

Listening to those songs takes me back to the high school band room. A place that was our headquarters. Our safe place. Those songs bring back memories of the black, metal music stands and all the warm up scales. Mostly, it brings me back to a place where I was happy. I belonged. I was cared about. I was loved. I was creative. I had fun. We shared laughter and tears. We all came together with one purpose – to make music.

There is one song that has always caused me to “get lost” in it. It is a piece by JS Bach. We played this song at a band festival and it is hauntingly beautiful. The song is called “Come, Sweet Death.” When I listen to it, I close my eyes and just “feel” the music. The melody carries me off and I tend to picture something different every time I listen to it. According to Wikipedia, “Bach, by means of melody and harmony, expresses the desire for death and heaven. It is among his most popular works and has been adapted and transformed by several composers.”

Grant me a small favor? Put on some headphones, close your eyes and spend about 4 minutes in the song. If you don’t feel something, well, then I guess I’m nerdier than I thought.

I suppose I shouldn’t end this piece on such a somber note. So, here is one more memory.

While Sousa was known as the March King, one of my favorite marches was one we played at band festival one year. I think every group had to have a march to play as one of their three songs and ours was called Hall of Fame. I love this one because of some great fanfare trumpet parts, a pleasant melody and counter melody, some really great bass parts, and the fact that it sounds happy. The year we played this we got a first division rating at festival. Give it a listen, if you want to…

Maybe I am not alone here. Other band students remember their time in band as fondly as me, right? Maybe they don’t go to the extreme that I do, but, ok, I’m going to just wrap it up. I think I have embarrassed myself enough, so I will close by thanking Dave for taking me out of my comfort zone and for hosting another great topic. I am very interested to see what the other contributors offer up, too.

Thank you for reading. I’ll pass the baton (pun intended) to the next guy ….