Eric Burdon and the Animals – Good Times
As is inevitably the case with a human race as shallow and self-obsessed as our own, sometimes a song will come along that either speaks directly to us, or we think, “Ay up, lad. They’ve surely written this about me and me alone”.
For some, this uninvited intrusion into our very souls may manifest itself in Led Zeppelin’s majestic ‘Stairway to Heaven’. For others it could be Black Lace’s ‘Agadoo’. For me there is a particular Who song that I believe Pete Townsend pilfered from my conscious, even though it was written four years before I was born. And now I have discovered another, one that ticks all the boxes.
‘Good Times’ by Eric Burdon and the Animals was released in 1967 but could well be reading my mind 42 years down the line.
“… When I think of all the good time that I’ve wasted, Having Good Times…”
Indeed so. There’s some serious regret going on here. A lament for time flittered away in the pursuit of hedonistic activities. “… All that boozin’, I was really losin’ …” And as is the nature of regret, it comes too late as the ongoing list of things done is countered by the now redundant things that should’ve been done, becoming ever more desperate to the point that this relentless melancholy builds to what can only be an outpouring of the bitterness that is eating away inside.
There’s a brief moment towards the end of the song where the grimness is suddenly offset by a jaunty, lounge-room style piano interlude, accompanied by Eric Burdon stating in a faux upper class accent, “… Yes, here we all are having a jolly good time, And everything is working out fine …” harking sarcastically back to the repeatedly condemned ‘good times’ with its exclusive cocktail lounge ambience.
But this levity is short-lived as we are thrust back into the dark, churning tumult of self-loathing.
‘Good Times’ is quite different to the Vox Continental (apparently not Hammond) organ-driven sound of the Animals’ biggest hit, their clipped version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’, with a slightly more uptempo, traditional orchestral arrangement, typical of certain Rolling Stones songs of that era.
Indeed, you can’t beat a spot of self-pity and regret on a Sunday afternoon (as I write this), with the prospect of another week in a life-sapping, soul-destroying job facing you and the thought that had you not pissed about so much in the past, things could’ve been so different. For those moments, ‘Good Times’ by Eric Burdon and the Animals is very apt indeed.
“… When I was drinking, I should’ve been thinking …” Wise words, indeed.
‘Good Times’ was released as a single in August of 1967, backed with ‘Ain’t That So’, and is available on the album Winds of Change from Amazon.co.uk
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