The 1966 Kinks song Ray Davies longs to re-record: “I’m still waiting to do a new vocal”
Art is never truly finished, if the fabled quotes attributed to Da Vinci are to be believed.
Even after the records are pressed and the recordings are committed to our collective memory, many musical artists continue to adapt and develop their old material over the years, while others – like The Kinks’ Ray Davies – yearn for an opportunity to go back and re-do certain aspects of their output.
Very few artists, particularly those who were around for as long as The Kinks, can boast a truly perfect discography. Within the mod rock realm of the band’s early days, though, their rough-around-the-edges approach to rock and roll formed a key part of their appeal. Beautifully capturing the rebellion of post-war Britain, the distorted guitars and distinct lack of polish of ‘You Really Got Me’ was what gave the song its power.
Unsurprisingly, though, as the band developed and Davies grew older, those artistic sensibilities changed, and on 1966’s Face To Face, The Kinks moved away from that youthful mod rock entirely, pursuing something far more polished and expansive. As with any transitional record, though, Face To Face had some teething problems, at least in the eyes of Ray Davies himself.
During a Q and A in a 2005 edition of Q Magazine, the songwriter was asked about Brian Wilson and Smile, the album that the Beach Boy abandoned in the mid-1960s and revisited in 2004. Specifically, Davies was asked whether he would go back and revisit anything from his past given the chance, to which he rather glibly responded, “Yes, having a life. I was enjoying that before all this started 40 years ago.”
“Creatively, yes, I don’t blame Brian,” The Kinks frontman continued. “I could spend my whole life redoing my work.” In particular, though, the songwriter plucked out a rather unlikely single that he wishes to rework. You might assume that he would go back and tighten up some of the band’s much-maligned 1970s material, or even polish their more abrasive earlier material. Instead, as Davies declared, “I’m still waiting to do a new vocal on ‘Sunny Afternoon’.”
An undisputed Kinks classic, that 1966 single needs very little in the way of introductions – or, indeed, overdubs. Not only did it mark a particularly innovative period in Davies’ songwriting talents, but it also ushered in a new era for the group, introducing the kind of satirical music hall flavour that typified records like The Village Green Preservation Society in the years that followed.
As if that wasn’t enough, 60 years on from the first release of ‘Sunny Afternoon’, it has yet to lose any of its appeal, begging the question of why Davies longs to re-record it.
Rather disappointingly, the songwriter did not expand upon why exactly he wished to record new vocals for ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and, to date, he has yet to release any kind of re-recorded version. Perhaps the simplest explanation for his resentment of the song is that Davies, like many other artists of his ilk, is plagued with a sense of perfectionism and a tendency to be hyper-critical of his own work.
Alternatively, there is a case to be made for ‘Sunny Afternoon’ simply arriving at a rather stressful period in the songwriter’s life, juggling the stress of being in one of Britain’s premier rock outfits with the stress of being a father to a one-year-old child. With that added context, you can’t really blame the songwriter for wishing to redo it all in more relaxed circumstances.
