THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! I Took My Baby Home

 Taken from a longer previous post, this is not part of my new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE KINKS: I Took My Baby Home

Written by Ray Davies

Produced by Shel Talmy

Single [B-side of "Long Tall Sally"], Pye Records [UK], 1964

For a very brief flash of time, "I Took My Baby Home" was the most exciting track that the Kinks ever released. 

It didn't have a lot of competition for that title, since it was the B-side of the very first Kinks single, and much more distinctive and interesting than the perfunctory cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" on its A-side. The Kinks' second single, "You Still Want Me"/"You Do Something To Me," paired a couple of fine beat numbers, though I'd say "I Took My Baby Home" was still the pick of this four-song run.

The Kinks' third single was the greatest record ever made, and its release ended the short reign of "I Took My Baby Home" as the best of the Kinks.

Nonetheless, "I Took My Baby Home" remains a superb rock 'n' roll track, with its strutting harmonica come-on and its euphoric tale of a helpless chap gleefully seduced by his girl (whose high-powered kisses really knock him out, they knock him oh-oh-over). 

And it was one of the songs I acquired in my first year as a Kinks fan. I started with "All Day And All Of The Night" on a various-artists LP at Christmas of 1976, added "You Really Got Me," the Kinks-Size LP and maybe Sleepwalker before heading off to college the following August, and scored my first Kinks compilation album during the fall semester. 

This Kinks volume of The Pye History Of British Rock introduced me to "I Took My Baby Home," right alongside "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," "Sunny Afternoon," "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Where Have All The Good Times Gone," and "Till The End Of The Day." I knew "I Took My Baby Home" before I knew "Waterloo Sunset," though I would discover that one soon enough. Not a bad way to get to know the Kinks, I say.

(And I still mentally change the song's line "And she put her hands on my chest" to "And she put my hands on her chest." Aggressive girl. I bet her name was Lola.) 

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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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