AllMusic

New York Dolls

Looking for a Kiss

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Song Review by Stewart Mason

Along with "Personality Crisis" and "Trash," "Looking for a Kiss" completes the trilogy of essential New York Dolls songs, the three songs on which their reputation was built. From the spoken word opening brazenly plagiarized from the Shangri-Las' "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" to Johnny Thunders' equally shameless copping of Keith Richards' signature riffs, "Looking for a Kiss" is built on stolen parts. It's what the Dolls do with their influences that matters, and what they do is infuse the song with the insouciant brattiness of David Johansen's sneering vocals. Furthermore, the oft-quoted line "Everyone's going to your house to shoot up in your room/Most of them are beautiful but so obsessed with gloom" is an acidic putdown -- over half a decade beforehand -- of what punk and its attendant sub-scenes would become. It's like Johansen and Thunders knew that Siouxsie and the Banshees were coming.

Appears On

		Year	Artist/Album	Label	Time	AllMusic Rating
		1973	New York Dolls New York Dolls	Universal	3:18
		1981	New York Dolls Lipstick Killers (Mercer St. Sessions)	Combat Records / ROIR	3:42
		1999	New York Dolls Glam Rock Hits	Cleopatra	3:26
		2000	New York Dolls Hard Night's Day	Norton	3:35
		2003	New York Dolls 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the New York Dolls	Mercury	3:20