#6: She's Got Everything -- The Kinks (1968)

The Kinks -- She's Got Everything


This was originally the B-Side of the single "Days" released in 1968, and appears on the album The Kinks--Kronikles. This was the first place that I ran into it, after buying the cassette tape of Kronikles when in my freshman year of high school. I bought it originally for a song that will appear later in the Top 40 list, "Apeman".

This song, however, jumped up and grabbed my ass and never let go. It is perhaps the most catchy song ever written, which is saying something, even for The Kinks. The guitar solo at the bridge is audio diamonds that cut through the usual FM bullshit. Tell me that Ritchie Blackmore didn't steal the lick for "My Woman From Tokyo" from this song.

The Kinks are the most underrated of the British Invasion bands in large part because of an onstage brawl that got them banned from performing in the United States between 1965 and 1969. This coincided with what their Wikipedia entry calls "The Golden Age" and I have to agree. For instance

1. The Album The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society released in 1968 was perhaps the best of this great band's catalogue, but had no "single". This is unfortunate, as "Village Green Preservation Society" is one of the great songs of the 1960s. "She's Got Everything" was a song originally intended as the opening track of a US only release called Four More Respected Gentlemen.
2. The song "Sunny Afternoon", released in 1966, is one of the best 10 songs ever written by anyone anywhere. It, as well as The Beatles "Taxman", takes the UK to task for taxes. However, it goes on to have the great lyric "My girlfriend's gone off with my car/And gone back to her ma and pa/Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty". Ray Davies was at his songwriting height between 1965 and 1969, and the biggest market in the world was not available as a live audience. 
3. The single "Waterloo Sunset" was released in 1967. This could be a 'Nuff Said moment, excepting the brilliant lyrics, references to Terrence Stamp and Julie Christie and the performance of this song at the end of the 2012 Summer Olympics. 
1. Dirty old river, must you keep rolling

But, I digress. This song is just catchy, exuberant and joyful. This is how love is for anyone, and it is about how love is at the beginning of any relationship:


I've got a girl who's oh, so good,
She's got everything.
I've got a girl and she is mine,
She's got everything.
Nothing is wrong, everything is brilliant in every color and every shade. Nothing is dulled, everything is heightened and makes the soul jump in 4/4 time

All other guys just stand and stare,
She's got everything.
I ain't got a dime but she don't care,
I got everything.
This is how I am in those moments when the sun catches Rachel's hair just right. When I do something that I know makes her happy, when she laughs at my jokes and can't stop, which is when she gets that crink in her nose and covers up her mouth just so

And I can't live without her love,
And I can't live without her kisses.

Joy is infectious, as is love. This song is such that I want to listen to it about 400 times in a row. Just like I want Rachel to keep laughing at my jokes and giving me kisses. Ohhhhhhh yeah, I got everything! Thanks, Rachel!