This post is by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com . John’s blog has different subjects and he will post songs that I had completely forgot about. I like talking guitars with John also…He is an internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.
I’m not a huge Kinks fan, as I told Max, but there is one song I’m familiar with that I’m rather fond of…
Back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Warner Brothers Records would advertise sample albums on the inner sleeves of their albums. They were cheap as chips (maybe $2 for a double album), and had songs from albums they were trying to sell. That’s where I first heard this song, “When I Turn Off The Living Room Light.” At the time, the song was marked as “unreleased,” but it later appeared on the band’s 1973 Reprise album, The Great Lost Kinks Album. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Lost_Kinks_Album), which, as everyone knows, is The Blogger’s Best Friend (trademark), tells the story of that album…
On 2 July 1969, Ray Davies and manager Robert Wace delivered numerous tracks to Reprise Records’s offices. Most of them were for the Kinks’ 1969 studio album, Arthur, as well as a potential Dave Davies solo album. They delivered an extra reel of twelve songs, marked as “spare tracks” and not assigned a master tape number, indicating they were likely not planned for an immediate release. Author Doug Hinman suggests the additional songs’ delivery was likely due to a contractual obligation that the Kinks provide the label a set number of songs over a scheduled period. Ray Davies later expressed he was hesitant to deliver them because he did not feel they were up to standard and wanted to include a note explaining, “please, we’re just fulfilling our contract, just put it in a vault somewhere.”
In 1971, the Kinks’ seven-year contract with Reprise was set to expire. Disappointed with several clauses in the band’s contract, Davies opted to instead sign the band with RCA Records. The same year, Reprise rejected the Percy soundtrack album for US release, finding it lacked commercial potential in the American market. Because they did not release Percy, executives at Reprise determined that the Kinks contractually owed the label one more album.
All that said, here’s the song. I will warn you that the first line implies that Jewish women aren’t attractive. At the time, I was in high school where a significant number of my classmates were Jewish girls, many of whom were VERY attractive, so I don’t know what he was talking about… Anyway, the lyrics are in the video…
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