Kinks – Where Have All The Good Times Gone

I haven’t had a Kinks post in quite a while so I thought I would have one today. It’s always a good day to have a Kinks song. I’ve said this before but one of my favorite concerts was The Kinks in 1983 at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Ray Davies and nostalgia go together. He often writes about his past, the past, or preserving the past as in The Village Green Preservation Society. That is one of the many reasons I always liked his writing. I think of him…or should I say I think of Bruce Springsteen as the British Ray Davies. They write about the every day way of life in their respective countries.

The band was going through a rough time in 1965. Guitarist Dave Davies and drummer Mick Avory had an on-stage fight which resulted in Avory nearly decapitating Davies with a cymbal, Dave was left unconscious in a pool of blood. Avory ran away, terrified that he had killed him.

This was thought to have led to them getting banned from touring America. The other theory was The American Federation of Musicians delisted the Kinks not because of any rowdy behavior… It was simply because the band wanted to use non-union help during a concert tour. I tend to believe the latter.

This song was the B side to Till The End of the Day. The single peaked at #8 in the UK, #36 in Canada, and #50 on the Billboard 100 in 1965. The song was also released in 1973 with the flip side of Lola. The single didn’t chart. It was originally on the album The Kink Kontroversy.

Van Halen covered this song on their 1982 album Diver Down. David Bowie also covered it on his album Pin Ups.

Ray Davies:  “We’d been rehearsing ‘Where Have All the Good Times Gone’ and our tour manager at the time, who was a lot older than us, said, ‘That’s a song a 40-year-old would write. I don’t know where you get that from.’ But I was taking inspiration from older people around me. I’d been watching them in the pubs, talking about taxes and job opportunities.”

Ray Davies: “I wanted to write a song my dad or relatives could sing, they always talked about how great it was before or during the war – I think every generation thinks that way.” “It’s got that hard edge The Kinks had, but at the same time, it’s got a reflective, poignant lyric.”

Where Have All The Good Times Gone

Well, lived my life and never stopped to worry ’bout a thing
Opened up and shouted out and never tried to sing
Wondering if I’d done wrong
Will this depression last for long?

Won’t you tell me
Where have all the good times gone?
Where have all the good times gone?
Well, once we had an easy ride and always felt the same

Time was on our side and I had everything to gain
Let it be like yesterday
Please let me have happy days
Won’t you tell me

Where have all the good times gone?
Where have all the good times gone?
Ma and Pa look back at all the things they used to do
Didn’t have no money and they always told the truth

Daddy didn’t have no toys
And mummy didn’t need no boys
Won’t you tell me
Where have all the good times gone?

Where have all the good times gone?
Well, yesterday was such an easy game for you to play
But let’s face it things are so much easier today
Guess you need some bringing down

And get your feet back on the ground
Won’t you tell me
Where have all the good times gone?
Where have all the good times gone?
Where have all the good times gone?

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

35 thoughts on “Kinks – Where Have All The Good Times Gone”

  1. VH was the first version I had heard and they made it sound like they wrote it back in 82 lol. I watched the live version you posted Max. Good version but I can’t get Ed’s playing out of my head lol. Guess thats what happens when you hear a song one way for 42 years and the same song that was originally done for the first time 5 minutes ago. Good stuff!

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    1. I agree man…it’s like You Really Got Me….I heard the Kinks first as a kid so that is the version I’m more accustomed to but I do like the Van Halen version. Sometimes its which version you hear first.

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      1. Good call I also heard YRGM first by VH as well which I’m sure doesn’t come as as a shock to you

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  6. Another good Kinks song. I think that like Deke, I may have heard Van Halen’s before I heard the original but I like both. I thought it was a single (not a b-side) maybe that’s why radio rarely touched the Kinks version.
    Nostalgia, eh. Like Jim says over time we tend to remember the good days more than the bad …but on a society-wide level, it does seem like things were better in the pre-social media, pre-smart phone days.

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    1. These days…yea I’d take the past lol…just one trip to a grocery store says it all…and yes a more simpler time….
      I don’t think I ever heard the VH version of this….I’ve only known the Kinks. Maybe I have and didn’t know it.

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      1. I sound like a broken record, but back to the days when right-wingers and left-wingers could hang out together and watch a movie or game and get stuff done in politics; when kids would go out and exercise having fun on weekends instead of sitting alone playing video games all day long…

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      2. Yes! That was it…before extemism came in to play.
        Yea the neighborhood thing has broken down completely. No one is getting to know one another in the real world.

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  7. I was literally just listening to the Kinks while working in the kitchen last night! Definitely one of my favourite Kinks songs but it’s more of a song a sixty year old would write I think. He was an old soul from a young age.

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      2. LOL…I just wasn’t in step with my generation…why I don’t know.
        You are right…pre-1976…I could handle that!

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  10. The Kinks had an edge, even compared to the heavy hitters like, oh, let’s say Peter and Gordon and Hermans Hermits. Tying in with your other post today Ray is not a songwriter but a Song Writer. A rhyme like toy/boy sounds facile and obvious but the ‘Mummy didn’t need no boys’ subtext speaks volumes. Great songwriting has more than first meets the eye.

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  12. Pingback: Kinks – Where Have All The Good Times Gone – MobsterTiger

      1. I’m surprised Mick wasn’t arrested and charged for that. It’s aggravated assault, assault with intent to do great bodily injury, or attempted murder. That’s really effed up! Did he stay in the band after that?

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      2. Well it’s no telling what Dave did to him earlier…I mean they hated each other….and guess what? He is STILL considered their drummer…they all worked together in a studio.

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