Tag: She’s Got Everything

I’ve been visiting Cork’s site for years and it’s one of my favorite blogs to visit. I’ve read posts about Eric Clapton, Sasquatch, Frozen Pizza, Iron Maiden, movies, blues songs, and many more. Take a visit to his site at https://mojohorizon.home.blog/ it’s totally worth it. 

Made you look! This isn’t an exploration of the erotic — sorry, if you’re disappointed. It’s a comparison of recordings. The song is called “She’s Got Everything”. It’s a pretty generic title, but it’s definitely in the hidden gem category. I came to know The Romantics’ version of this song when I was a college student. (You might be more familiar with “What I Like About You” which precedes it on their self-titled release.) Both songs are in the world of three-chord-or-so garage rock. I used to hear the songs back-to-back at college parties when enough people were feeling loose enough to dance.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and yell, “It’s a TWIN SPIN!!” in the middle of them. I can honestly say I actually saw people doing “the monkey” to this song in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The song rocks! It’s got a great feel to it. Loud, fast, raucous. What more could you want?

If I’m not mistaken, I had The Romantics album on vinyl and discovered “She’s Got Everything” was actually written and sung by The Kinks’ Ray Davies from the liner notes. It took me awhile to find it or find it in a collection I wanted. It was apparently the B side to “Days.” The original version of “She’s Got Everything” by The Kinks is worth a listen.

I’m biased towards The Romantics version, but I love The Kinks and the songwriting of Ray Davies. Naturally, Ray’s brother Dave Davies plays an aggressive-sounding lead guitar solo on the track. “Pretty ringlets in her hair” is my favorite line from this song. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word ringlets used in song outside of this example. (I always pictured a ringlet as a ribbon or something, but it’s a style of “princess curls” a la Shirley Temple.)

I recently listened to The Kinks’ tune again and dialed in the little instrumental bit around the 1:30 mark. When I listened to it, I heard the first few seconds of Deep Purple’s “Woman from Tokyo.” Listen to the DP tune around 8 seconds into it.

Deep Purple’s song didn’t come out until 1973. Did they own a copy of the 1968 Kinks release “She’s Got Everything”? I don’t know, but it’s just what I hear. The two songs are in different keys, but both feature the same chord changes of I to V, which is a distinct feature.

Till next time, keep your Mojo on the Horizon!

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