Psychedelia reigned in the mid-60s, as rock stars experimented with both mind-altering substances and music that reflected that psychic expansion. Turn on, tune in, drop out was the mantra of the era, and the pop and rock music scene, for the most part, was on board with it. Just based on its sound, “Kicks”, a 1966 Top 5 hit in the US for Paul Revere & The Raiders, seemed to fit in with that trend. But a closer listen to the lyrics finds that the song actually warns against the drug culture.
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Revolutionary Rock
It wasn’t unusual for bands to use gimmicks to set themselves apart in the 60s. Paul Revere & The Raiders took that tactic to the extreme. Named after their keyboardist and founder (real name Paul Revere Dick), they leaned into his famous moniker by dressing up in Revolutionary War costumes when they performed live or on television.
At the beginning of their career, The Raiders stuck to instrumental music, even scoring a US Top 40 hit with one such song (“Like, Long Hair”) back in 1961. The British Invasion then came calling, which indirectly led to a burst of rock activity on the West Coast of the US. Revere and company, who originally hailed from Idaho, tried their luck on that West Coast scene.
Terry Melcher, one of the top producers of that era, helped them to reconfigure their sound to meet the times. A gig as the house band on the teen music TV show Where The Action Is raised their exposure. After the breakthrough hit “Just Like Me”, “Kicks” came along and did even better.
Lust for “Kicks”
The Raiders mostly utilized outside songwriters for their material. And no pair in that era was any more productive and successful than Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. They originally wrote “Kicks” as a possible vehicle for The Animals. When that outfit passed, Revere and his Raiders scooped it up.
You might not notice it as you get caught up in the song’s Byrds-ian guitar swirl and the powerhouse vocals of lead singer Mark Lindsay. But “Kicks” is actually a cautionary tale against drug excess. Mann and Weil apparently wrote it to try and counsel a friend they thought was getting in too deep.
Whatever the motive, the song worked. It landed at No. 4 on the Top 40 charts in 1966. And it would be the biggest hit for the band until, rechristened as simply The Raiders, they hit No. 1 in 1971 with “Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian)”.
Behind the Lyrics of “Kicks”
The narrator of “Kicks” attempts to advise a female friend of his that her drug excursions aren’t doing her any good. “Girl, you thought you found the answer on that magic carpet ride,” he says. “But when you wake up in the mornin’, the world still gets you uptight.”
He suggests that temporary fixes won’t solve her inner turmoil. “Don’t you see? No matter what you do, you’ll never run away from you,” he explains. “That road goes nowhere,” Lindsay admonishes. Eventually, a cycle of diminishing returns occurs: “Kicks just keep getting harder to find.”
It’s fascinating how the charging chorus contrasts the somewhat downcast message within the verses. The combination of it all allowed “Kicks” to charm many listeners who likely had no interest in the advice it was giving.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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