My Favorite Song -- Till The End Of The Day

As everybody knows, selecting a “favorite song” seems pointless.  Most people, I think, love music (whether they know it or not) and treasure countless songs and melodies.  That being said, my favorite song and record is “Till The End Of The Day”, written by Ray Davies and recorded by The Kinks on November 3-4, 1965 in Pye Studios (Studio 2), London.  When released as a single, the song reached the No. 6 position in the UK charts and the No. 50 position in the US charts.  The song was used by The Kinks as their set opening number for years and concluded  the first side of their magnificent The Kink Kontroversy lp, the group’s first (unacknowledged) “concept” album.

Unlike other “favorite songs” of mine, including “Police Car” by Larry Wallis and “Shouting In A Bucket Blues” by Kevin Ayers, both masterpieces of structure and expression, and different from anything else under the sun in the rock music universe, “Till The End Of The Day” lifts the soul in its several verses by setting the table of life’s opportunities and painting a picture of an original, perpetual and reoccurring morning.  All we need to know and do is to be here and be ready.   We are not alone in the song (there are two of us – “you and me”), but we are and remain free, separate and self-determined individuals.  Without cribbing, counterfeiting or in any way “deriving”,  Ray Davies is stating something that comes very close to  John Keats’: “beauty is truth, truth beauty/that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know".

 

“Till The End Of The Day” is a magnificent song, which apparently resulted from the great American songwriter Mort Shuman’s advising Ray to “work with chords you like” when Davies was beset by his first bad case of writer’s block following the period of the early big hits and prior to the famous “Sunny Afternoon” nervous breakdown.  Dave Davies’ guitar solo is the best of his career and retells the story of the song in a few taut, incisive notes and phrases.  It would be his song as much as Ray’s (as so many Kinks songs are) except for the fact that Ray Davies’ depressive, yet determined, energetic personality is the song’s musical and lyrical fingerprint.

Till The End Of The Day

Lyrics

Baby, I feel good
From the moment I rise
Feel good from morning
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day

Yeah, you and me
We live this life
From when we get up
Till we go sleep at night
You and me we're free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day

Yeah, I get up
And I see the sun
And I feel good, yeah
'Cause my life has begun
You and me we’re free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day

You and me we’re free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day

Chords

D5 C5 A (intro)

C5 D5 F5 C5 D5 (Baby I feel good)

C5 D5 F5 C5 D5 (From the moment I rise)

(feel good)

F G Bflat A ( from Morning, till the end)

C5 D5 F5 C5 D5 (of the day)

Dmin C F C (you and me)

Dmin C F C (we live our life)

Dmin C F A7 (from when we get up till we sleep at night)

Dmin C F C Bflat (you and me we're free, we do as we please yeah from)

F G Bflat A Dmin C (morning till the end of the day)

Dmin C (till the end of the day)

  
Oh – did I mention how much I like “Feel A Whole Lot Better”?