I thought I read that Dave(?) shouts "England!" - something to do with football and a World Cup. I am not a football(soccer) fan so haven't a clue if that lines up time-wise.
I hear you, but this song is just a snapshot in time. It doesn't mean she doesn't get up the next day and feel frazzled because junior just broke her favorite vase. Human emotions can be all over the place due to circumstances, but maybe she has an overall feeling that even in the darkest moments, she's still better off.
Harry Rag This is one of the songs that immediately grabbed me the first time I went through the album a couple weeks ago. It's infectious, catchy as all hell, and I was singing along by the 2nd verse as if I'd known the melody my whole life. It's obviously based on some sort of old drinking song or standard kind of format, but it is such fun and I think it acts as a bit of comic relief after some pretty (emotionally) intense songs. At first I thought it was a military song (in the vein of "Yes Sir, No Sir") about a solder named Harry Rag, but not to worry, a song about a military man surely would come up soon after on this album, right? Ray's delivery is incredible, and I can only imagine the smile on his face as he was writing these verses and recording them. The way his voice bends in the verse about the "smart young ladies of the land", as if he's imitating how they talk. I love the "she'll be pushing up the grass" about Tom's old ma. Just hilarious. There was a show in the US about 10-15 years ago called "Pushing Daisies" that had a similar kind of dark humor to it. I also enjoy how it starts as a story song about Tom and his ma, but when the "tax man" verse comes, it's all about the narrator! I do think it is a celebration of smoking, but with a bit of a "isn't it sad that this is what we need at the end of the day?" vibe. I can see how it can be interpreted as anti-smoking, and looking back at it 54 years later, sure. Where was this song 20 years ago when I was drinking with my fraternity brothers in our house basement? Of course, it was easily available for over 30 years at that point, but just never knew it existed. This would have been a perfect song to add to a playlist while playing some drinking games. But it's not only a great drinking song, you can also sing along to it while playing Patty-Cake Patty-Cake with your 6 year old daughter.
Harry Rag Became familiar with this song fairly recently, and like Mark, I was like "huh, not sure what to make of it", but upon a few more listenings I have become a big fan of it. To me, this is a folk song...around a roaring campfire someone has an acoustic guitar and maybe someone fashions a drum out of something laying around and the singer tells this tale. Is it a tale where you learn a lesson or is this just a big singalong about the joys of smoking? I think however you take it is the right way. And I'm certain Ray would agree. The lyrics are hysterically funny. And again, a song that you wouldn't expect to come from the guys who sang You Really Got Me...or even Stop Your Sobbing. Ray is on fire with his writing. So far side one is a corker!
There are more than a few pics of Ray holding a big cigar, so yes, he did smoke. Not sure how regular he was with it though.
"Harry Rag" I've been struggling about how to convey my feelings on this song. Well, I'll start of by saying that I absolutely love this song. It hit me right away, just something vaguely familiar about it even though I am positive I'd never heard it before getting this about a couple of years ago. I knew of rhyming slang from some books and movies I read/saw respectively while growing up. I was born in 1969 so I'm young enough to remember having a black & white TV, variety shows with a vaudeville/English dance hall leaning to them, and I definitely remember everybody smoking. I have bad asthma but still smoked for a few years in my early 20s, until the asthma just got too bad and I couldn't anymore. To me, this is another one of Ray's many songs about the working class/working poor but, unlike some others, this song celebrates them and their slang and their (bad) habits. It's a great joyous song from the beginning to the very end and I think it was a combination of the vaudeville/dance hall music and the people the song is about that made me love it. I grew up decidedly working class and the cast of characters vaguely reminds me of so many people I knew when I was very young. Or I think it does. And here we come to the main reason this song clicked with me so quickly and deeply. I think this song makes me nostalgic for a past that I was too young to know what exactly was going on, a longing for a past that I really only have a tenuous connection to. It somehow makes me extremely nostalgic for a time that I didn't even really experience. It takes a special song to do that. This is one of only a few I've heard that brings up this exact feeling. It's truly a song that only Ray Davies could write and right towards the end of the only time period he could write it in. I might like some Kinks' songs better than this one but none of them make me feel the way I feel when I listen to this song.
I completely understand and relate to this. Being English born but leaving at five, I really only have book knowledge of it... But so many Kinks songs, and Ferry Across The Mersey reach somewhere so deep into me, that I can taste the coal dust
Exactly. I was singing it aloud this morning as I washed the breakfast dishes. And then shook the dish towel vigorously at the appropriate point.
Funny you should mention "Ferry Across The Mersey", as I've always thought that it reminds me of "Waterloo Sunset." Both songs get me emotionally the same way. It was Gerry & The Pacemakers' moment of greatness on par w/the Beatles.
Fist of all, I'm going bring everyone's attention to the obvious inspiration for this: I would consider this to be perfectly appropriate fodder for either The Incredible String Band's 2nd album or The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's 1st album, both of which were released around the same time as "Something Else." I simply don't like putting on a Kinks album and in the middle of the listening experience, hearing something not far removed from "Theme From Gilligan's Island." The format here is Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus, which I might find tolerable if the chorus at least had a chord progression that was different from that of the verses...but it doesn't. I've said it before and I'll say it again. This should've switched places with "Mr. Pleasant," which would've fit like a glove on "Something Else" along with all the album's other character portraits. If "Harry Rag" had been placed on the flipside of "Autumn Almanac" instead, I wouldn't have this sort of negative attitude towards it. It would've served the same purpose as The Beatles' "You Know My Name." Something that you throw on every now and then for a laugh, or something that pops up when somebody accidentally pushes the wrong button on a jukebox, causing the whole eatery to sing along.
I am envious of anyone who can write a tune like "Harry Rag". There seems to be a consensus that the music is not original - I'm not convinced. I think it's just one of those tunes that seems obvious once you've heard it. But no, it's Ray's song through and through, imo. It is its own thing, also, arrangement wise. Not quite Sea Shanty, not quite folk song.. Mick's military drum rolls make it something else again.. a marching song? But it's also another raucous music hall/pub singalong number. And perhaps there's a spot of Eastern Europe in there again too. I'm with the posters who say they don't buy rock n roll to hear vaudeville. Back in the 'one album a month' teenage days, when you've scrimped and saved, you generally want "bang" for your buck, not whimsy, eccentricity or humour. A lot of unusual songs over the years I've only come to love later on.. "Harry Rag" though I unabashedly loved immediately. Singles aside, on some days it may even be my favourite on the album.. oh yes. I'm a sucker for Bonzos style stuff, but there's more to this song than a rib tickling joke.. My take is that the lyric is, like the vast majority of Ray's character-ish songs at this point, it's slightly ambivalent. Nevertheless I'd say it leans towards NOT being 'pro' tobacco. I reckon it comes down to the 'curse himself for the life he's led' lines, and the woman with the sagging skin. These characters are hooked right on those bad boys, wheezing, hacking, dry mouthed, cough cough cough. I've been a smoker, lived with smokers, was conceived and raised by smokers, I was probably breathing smoke in the womb. I recognise the desperation in this song, the drag on a soggy dog-end, the scrabbling around for spare tobacco strands. I worked with a woman once who looked about 90, 5 foot tall, thin as a rake, a smoker's cough like a spade on a gravel path.. she'd be out the door fifteen times a day, rain or hail, chugging on the tabs like a good 'un. These are the characters I see in this song, holes burned in nylon sheets, yellowed curtains, rummaging desperately in coat pockets, dashing to the off licence at 11pm cos they've run out.. do anything to get a Harry Rag. .
Well, you made me laugh. I don’t think “ho ho ho and a bottle of rum” is quite the ticket but it is funny.
Nice. I agree. Again, I agree. I was going to write something similar specific to Harry Rag (because I didn’t agree on the earlier “vaudeville” tunes). If I had heard this in real time, or close to real-time...say in 1970, no, I wouldn’t have spent my allowance on it. Now? I think it’s great. Brilliant!
Beautifully put mate... Pretty much exactly how I see it. You can't explain to someone the conundrum of hating the things, but being desperate enough for some nicotine, that you pull all the fag ends out of the ashtray so you can roll one, because somehow you ran out. I understand the opinions of the pro-smoke debate, but I think that ignores Ray's wicked sense of humour. The military march (funeral march?), the vocal delivery, and the whole song, in spite of its graveyard humour is delivered in an almost desperate tone, with a melancholic minor tilt. and the chorus has an almost mocking tone
Harry Rag One of my favorites from the album. I really love all of their music hall songs, and I think the transition from Harry Rag to Tin Soldier Man is perfect. (Come to think of it, this album has some of the best sequencing I've heard outside of a concept album). I know the Kinks' (and their contemporaries) interpretation of the genre is a bit controversial, and critics will usually deride it as being "granny music" or goofy, but I think the Kinks' take on the genre was incredibly earnest. And songs like Harry Rag and End of the Season go far above and beyond Hermann's Hermits' "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" cover or Cream's lackluster closer to Disraeli Gears "Mother's Lament." The Kinks (and the Beatles and everyone else doing it at the time) have encouraged me in the past few months to really explore the genre seriously... I even contributed a music hall disc (which includes some Kinks) to Rate Your Music's Ultimate Box Set project. What I think drew me to the genre (aside from my favorite bands incorporation of it into their work) is how similar it is to pop music. Ray doing a bossa nova tune (No Return) seems rather contrived, but music hall is effectively just British pop music. It made sense that Ray and others in 1967 were drawn to it. And overall it's a fun track. It perfectly balances a pop melody and catchiness with a dark atmosphere and satirical lyrics... which is exactly why it and Something Else is so great. My favorite part musically is Pete Quaife's bassline that menacingly slides in after the guitar intro.
"Harry Rag" I had no idea this would be a song that some were not familiar with or a song that is disliked. @mark winstanley summed it up perfectly. This is along the same lines of what I was going to say. It's a festive song that could be played at any number of celebrations. Arms all hung around each other while holding a giant mug of beer while dancing together in a circle. When the dance is over you can roll yourself up a "Harry Rag". You can practically smell the smoke and taste the ale. A humorous song that should even get your old great aunt onto the dance floor.
It just popped into my head. The HMS Pinafore. “Then give three cheers, and one cheer more, For the hardy Captain of the Pinafore!”
Harry Rag I’m heartened to see all the love for this. I said earlier it’s one of my most listened-to Kinks songs. It’s not just the working class who enjoy their Harrys - the “smart young ladies of the land” love to “boast and brag” with a “Harry in their hand”. Apparently no one can resist. The words are all so sharp and darkly funny and evocative and empathetic (well, maybe not so empathetic concerning the young ladies), and the knees-up singalong is irresistible. I don’t really see the comparisons to McCartney’s “granny” music or the Hermits’ vaudeville. Ray’s lyrics were contemporary, and for me of a piece with something like Dead End Street.
I must protest your dismissal of “Mother’s Lament”. After an extensive meal of rich and complex musical dishes, who doesn’t appreciate a wafer thin mint of a song to cap off the musical meal.
I thought it was performed with a bit more enthusiasm by Ian Whitcomb several months earlier: Ian Whitcomb / Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plughole
