I apologize… I was just tired of the absurdity of the denial and intellectual dishonesty going on in this argument. It’s common knowledge that Keith has had a serious heroin addiction for many years.
While that is true, I feel the lyrics are more a series of images and word salad of bluesy phrases like “monkey man” and “lemon squeezer” that go well together that don’t necessarily mean something coherent. Ear of the listener kind of stuff.
ETA: And, to be clear, my response on the meaning of the term “monkey man” was limited to the comment about it meaning a gay man in blues songs. The Stones were clearly, at least to me, not using that meaning in the song, but rather the phrase to evoke a bluesy argot.
I’ve gotta smile… I think "lemon squeezer’ just might mean the same thing as Zepp’s “Lemon Song.”
Gotta smile; Lemon Squeezer just might be akin to Zep’s ‘Lemon Song.’ Maybe Keith 'Fell out of bed." 
Don’t get what?
I’m making measured comments. Nothing bad. I don’t need anyone to overlook them.
The reason I mentioned the meaning of monkey man is you were placing this drug meaning where I think it’s more impressionistic as Puly said. Maybe you’ll listen to him. I certainly didn’t say you were glorifying them, and I hope you don’t take it that way, but I got a sense of romanticizing it from your post. For me I think that the Stones were not expressing great pain over drug addiction, but were using the imagery to make really timely decadent, funky records to sell to an audience. Keith was of course an addict. Mick, the lyricist in question, was not ever a junkie or out of control in anything he ever did.
The lyrics to the song are not explicitly about anything except a really decadent, druggy, sexualized situation, to me, anyway. It brings up my whole point about obliqueness. It makes the song better, not worse, to me. I don’t mean to offend but only discuss.
Look, we’re not analyzing Shakespeare. It’s not that hard to understand what the song means.
The issue is, sometimes your posts are distasteful. Just scale it back, guy.
OK, let me mediate here. While drad can get a bit, um, passionate about his viewpoint, I do agree with him here. I think the lyrics are intentionally vague and, like I said, impressionistic. I get more a “sex” vibe than “drugs” vibe with them, but drugs are certainly a valid interpretation. I personally don’t think this song was written with a singular meaning, or even any meaning, in mind, but rather is a collection of images, sounds, and phrases that sound pretty cool together.
I’m sorry… but having an understanding of the actual meaning of impressionism via the work of the masters of that period, it’s a bit absurd to compare Keith’s lyrics to impressionism.
We’re not analyzing Shakespeare, guys.
So… you’re saying Keith is possibly ‘coming out’ via the song and thus, is glad he has the company of a lesbian.
Ooookay.
Sorry guys… but that’s enough for me. Thanks though, I’m still laughing!!!
Um, no. Not sure how you get any of that from my post.
“Distasteful”? Are you being a little reactive? At what point?
You said it was obviously about something and everyone who says otherwise should shut up. Who’s taking it seriously? It’s just a song. A bunch of blues lyrics and other things jumbled in to make a trendy song.
If you asked Jagger if it was a drug song he would say, as any artist should when asked to pin down his work like that, “Whatever you need dude”
You have this idea that the Stones LPs are this suite of songs about the ravages of drug addiction or something. Keith(and not mick at all) was a rich gentleman junkie, who never had a problem until he tried to stop.
Is that who they mean when they refer to “The Electric Dwarf” in Long Distance?
Add me to the list of Kinks fans who just don’t see them as coming close to the Beatles. In the space of just 6 years, the depth, complexity and variety of the Beatles’ music evolved at an incredible pace; they were trying anything they could think of and doing really well with most of it. The Kinks had something that worked great and just stuck with it; the 80s Kinks use more synthesizers and sing about video stores, but they weren’t such a radically different band from the 70s or 60s Kinks, IMO.
Couldn’t rule it out, but then I guess you’d have to match the other names in the verse to the rest of the group. I don’t know enough to say if that’s at all feasible.
I don’t think this is fair to the Kinks. It makes it sound like they never experimented or evolved past their early sound, when certainly they did, especially within those same six years that the Beatles were doing so. (Listen to the variety of styles on Face to Face or Something Else.) The Kinks are credited with recording “the first Western rock song to integrate Indian raga sounds” on “See My Friends.”
It’s true, the Beatles “evolved at an incredible pace; they were trying anything they could think of and doing really well with most of it.” They had the advantage of a first-rate producer, a large budget, and the time to experiment with the recording studio without the distraction of touring. While it doesn’t make them as good as the Beatles, it makes the Kinks’ accomplishments during that same period more impressive on their own terms when you think of the quality, variety, and ambition of their output during that period being written and, after a certain point, produced, mainly by Ray.
The Kinks are less exposed than the Beatles, so often I am less likely to be tired of their songs. I don’t enjoy all their material, but the same goes for the Beatles.
This thread has lingered for a bit, so I will add a comment from an off-board conversation I was having with another Doper: a big issue, unfortunately, is that Ray Davies’ voice is okay at best. Having the vocal instruments that the Beatles had opened up options and enabled musical statements that the Kinks simply didn’t have available.
Same with guitar. I have never been a big champion of Harrison as a lead player, but as the guy adding “spice chords” on top of John’s basic rhythm chords? Unmatched! Again, something simply not available to Dave Davies.
Ray’s songwriting is top shelf. But they had built in limits that the Beatles didn’t.
I’m a huge Kinks fan, but I really can’t disagree with this assessment. Not to dis other members of the band, but The Kinks begin and end with Ray Davies for the most part. Writer, conception originator, singer.
There really is no serious competition to the Beatles, in terms of talent, songwriting, creativity, experimentation, evolution, etc. The task gets much harder if you limit a timeframe to a decade worth of work. As much as I like the Kinks or the Who or Queen, I can’t really rank them with the Fab Four. The Stones? Not even close. I just got done listening to their first 10 albums or so on Spotify. Yeah, some good songs in there, but they aren’t in the same ballpark as the Beatles… or the Kinks, for that matter. IMHO, of course.
My department just spent £5000 in the last six months for me to travel to give papers on the Kinks at various conferences (next one will be in Paris!). I’m currently on study leave/sabbatical to finish a book on the Kinks (and a chapter for another collection). I’m also being loaned out to our Fine Arts department, who are in the process of validating a new course in Popular Music (course = major in US lingo) cos the department chair over there wants a coupla lectures out of me on the Kinks for their Intro module; negotiations underway for me to lead an entire upper-level module on the band itself probably in the 2018-19 or 2019-2020 academic year.
So, in my experience at least, the Kinks have been very, very good to me. 
and one hopes to persuade Ray to sign my New Zealand pressing of Village Green Preservation Society when I see him up at the Hornsey Town Hall in June.
that sounds like a great job!