Two "New" Kinks Songs from the 1960s!

I'm a massive Kinks fan. As I've said here before, they're my second favorite band, only behind the Beatles. And I think they were at their absolute best from about 1966 to 1970, when they were writing tons of songs, and when even their "bad" songs were pretty darn good. So I was delighted to discover two Kinks songs from 1969 have recently become publicly available: "Darling, I Respect You" and "Let's Take Off All Our Clothes." 

They haven't been officially released. Instead, a mysterious person or group called the "Johnny Kidd Fan Club" apparently gave them to Prof. Stoned, who runs a great music blog: http://profstoned.com/ He added them to an improved collection of Kinks BBC tracks which he released in mid-August 2026. I don't know who or what the Johnny Kidd Fan Club is, but they're doing some great work. In recent years, they've made public unreleased music from the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, the Animals, and much more. May they keep up the good work!

Here's the known history behind these two songs. Ray Davies, the main songwriter for the Kinks, was commissioned to write songs for a six-episode 1969 BBC series called "Where Was Spring?" Apparently, he did five, and his versions (backed by the Kinks) were broadcast on each show weeks with animations made to fit the lyrics. All of the episodes have been lost, apparently, although some stills from the animations survive. Two of the Kinks were later officially released: "Where Did the Spring Go?" and "When I Turn Off the Living Room Light." The other three were considered lost, mostly. A version of "Darling, I Respect You" did make some bootlegs, but the sound quality was truly terrible, to the point that I found it unlistenable. Now, somehow, 56 years later (!), we have very good sounding versions of "Darling, I Respect You" and "Let's Take Off All Our Clothes." Only "We Are Two of a Kind" still remains completely unknown and unbootlegged.

There was a little bit of audience applause at the starts and ends of these songs, even though they're clearly studio versions. I surmise that's because each skit or scene in the BBC TV show ended with applause, and trailed into the next one. I used the MVSEP program to wipe out most of the clapping. 

Instead of posting links to just these two newly discovered songs, I've added them into a compilation of non-album tracks I made called "Where Was Spring" (named after the long-lost BBC TV show). You can find them here as tracks 3 and 11:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-kinks-where-was-spring-1969.html

You also can find them at Prof. Stoned blog, with lots of other top quality Kinks BBC material. 

Are these two songs long lost masterpieces? No. They're pretty slight and light. Each of them is only about two minutes long. But, as I said above, in the late 1960s, even "bad" Kinks songs were pretty good. So I'm very psyched to finally be able to enjoy these.