Big Sky One of my favorites from the album. I love anything that has a bit of jangle to it, and the lead guitar line is spot on. The almost spoken delivery in the verses is great too. As is the "one day we'll be free section." The whole thing is great.
Awwwww, you're no fun. Can I put the Grim Reaper up instead then? "It was the Salmon Mousse!" "but I didn't have the Salmon Mousse"
So annoyed.... After waiting patiently for 6 weeks, my still wrapped Arthur box set arrived.... The anticipation had been killing me.... Open the unusually thin box.... and inside was Dream Theater Metropolis 2: scenes from a memory.... the double record...... Which is a fine album, that I already have.... Groan.... I guess we'll see what happens
BIG SKY You look up at the sky and see shapes and faces in the clouds. It's comforting even though you know it's an illusion. I think the same duality is here in this song. The universe is our home but at the very same time it's overpoweringly indifferent. This indifference can help us be detached from our problems. When we achieve this detachment, we ourselves are the big sky. Now this is heavy stuff and nothing to do with the nostalgia trip this album was on up to now. However, Ray puts all this across with a good dose of humour. We have the TV commentator-type voice describing the human condition. Then you have the personification of the big sky as a big boss figure. It's as if he has a secretary saying "Sorry Mr Sky is too occupied to see you today". And this is also comical also because the big sky is obviously too occupied - he's got a whole universe to keep going! Musically inspired. The vocals are first rate (both Ray's and Rasa's). This should have been the last track on the album.
Great post. I agreed with everything you said except this. The last track is a great closer, in my opinion. With this one and the next couple albums, the closers are all just top notch.
Don't you fret Mark, last night I got a 3LP Live At Leeds with the whole set curved like a bowler hat.....ashtrays anyone?
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/members/palisantrancho.55822/ The sky is filled with billions of other stars and we are really a tiny speck in the vast scope of space.
Sorry mate... I won't buy records online... This one was well packaged though!..... it just had the wrong thing in it...
Big Sky- My goodness, what an album! Most artists would love to kick off a disc with two or three keepers and here The Kinks have rolled off an assembly line six killer cuts (with more to come). It’s easy to consider “Big Sky” a rumination on theology; is the title character “looking down on all the people” some kind of deity, or simply an astronomical entity incapable of emotion? Or is it a song where Davies satirizes the willingness of the masses to maintain faith in the indifferent power at the top (which could be God, a CEO or the Prime Minister). As is “Big Sky”, an enchanting, mostly spoken recitation of how the Big Sky looks down on the people below.
Markelis : Do You Remember, Walter: The first few times I listened to the VGPS album, this song blew right past me making very little impact. In fact, due to the rather odd name and subject matter, I could not for the life of me understand why this song was the second song on the album (often a very pivotal spot in setting the tone and pace of the album). This thread of course has caused me to listen to the song a number of times alone, without reference to the songs around it. As a result, the song quickly came into focus and I realized (i) it is incredibly catchy despite having no clear chorus or typical song structure (verse chorus verse etc.), (ii) the subject matter is actually quite intriguing and Ray manages to convey a very sophisticated concept using only a limited number of words and (iii) the music, which I initially thought was unremarkable, turns out to be quite rocking with great drums, bass and guitar work. Needless to say, I know start singing along every time this song comes on. Courtney: Typically, I enjoy nostalgia. However, this song makes me very sad, though that is most likely due to how it hits me personally. The hurt one feels when their best friend grows in a different direction. It’s funny, someone who made every day so much better when you were younger can still be remembered in that light, but it is always with a touch of a sense of loss. For me personally, a wonderful friendship from adolescence with almost nothing but lovely memories springs to mind… too bad she’s still pulling highschool shenanigans. By contacting various boyfriends of mine over the years. Despite living 1000s of miles from each other. I’ve been pretty fortunate and everyone has shown me when she’s done it. What can you do? Still miss the kind lovely young girl who helped me find my voice when I was young.
I must admit I’m also partial to People Take Pictures, especially the “oldie” band fade out version, nice way to finish as well!
While I adore “Days”, the only reason that I disagree is that Days is Ray talking to “you” directly, solely about you and what you did for him. That seems different than rest of the album, which is about other things or if you remember older things or how you might be affected by those other things. Days is a great album closer, but I wouldn’t say for this particular album. Again, that is just how I look at it.
IMHO The Choral Collection is an underrated and under the radar disc all Kinks fan would surely appreciate. Especially the numerous VGPS numbers. (Six in total!) Obviously nothing compares to the original. But these songs come across with a majestic feel with the added chorus. Not a bad listen by any means.
As someone who flew to London so I could see Ray’s debut concert with the Crouch End Chorus at Hampton Court, I must say I found most of the “choralized” songs to be unnecessary and more curiosities than valuable additions to his oeuvre. Most people would seem to disagree with me.
I feel quite aligned with the post above from forum member @LX200GPS and will make a few observations on...... Big Sky An extraordinary tune no doubt with a brilliant introduction that i agree does have some Hendrixian resonance and not just relating to the harpsichord sounds on The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp. Between Ray's at times slyly spoken & sung vocal combined with it's musical backdrop there are some deliciously foreboding moments that make me recall "A Rainy Day In June! Further i see the majestic and vast Big Sky just as that & enjoy that part of the delivery is directed from the insignificant people below towards a permanent and wondrous natural fixture not unlike the "Lazy Old Sun" which had also been near supernaturally commemorated in song! Is it a coincidence that Ray is supreme when singing about these things? I think not as he excels with his lyrical observations as the insignificant, naieve, youthful, fearful, confounded or damaged character viewpoint and hits it out of the park when the opposing or observed secondary character is our ageless & wondrous nature itself. *I had also strongly considered the "Some day we'll be free" lyric as simply being about death and if so how Ray of Mr Davies to sing that line with such generosity, empathy and sweetness. Absolutely one of the band's very best album tracks over their entire career!
"Johnny Thunder" is on a lower tier than the three songs that came before it. It still has a lot to love, such as the bass line in the verses, and the "Ba ba-ba"'s. Thematically it doesn't seem to fit. This guy "lives on water, feeds on lightning." He "rides the highway." Not very village green. Either way, if I skipped tracks when I played albums, I could make a case for passing on this one. But I listen to albums in full and this doesn't detract. The first three songs are just super good. "Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains" - Holy $#!T do I love this song. Wow. Musically this is very impressive. The tempo changes, that crying harmonica.. and Mick and Pete are just killin' it! Whenever I hear this one I have to belt out the third line in each verse at the top my lungs: "And I don't know where I'm going, or why I came." "But I live in a museum, so I'm okay." "And all this peaceful living is drivin' me insane." With other songs, they might start fading down around 2:30 but here they are just getting started. It slows down a bit for the final verse and then speeds up again.. Great ending on this one. What a track! This one can convert some folks. "Big Sky" - Another top song. I don't mind the spoken bits, but my favorite parts are sung. "One day we'll be free, we won't care, just you see 'Til that day can be, don't let it get you down When I feel that the world is too much for me I think of the Big Sky, and nothing matters much to me." I've never been into analyzing lyrics and I won't start now. The meaning of this one could go several ways. All I know is it rocks and I love this band.
Sitting By The Riverside. stereo mix (2:22), recorded Jul 1968 at Pye Studios (No. 2), London Just sitting down by the riverside, Spreading my arms to the open wide. Now I am free and the world's at my feet. I can close my eyes. Oh Love, keep me warm, keep me satisfied. Please keep me calm, keep me pacified. Now I'm content and my life is complete. I can close my eyes. Sitting by the riverside with you. I love sitting down by the riverside, Watching the water go flowing by. Oh, golly gee, it is heaven to be Like a willow tree. Spend my time just drinking wine while looking at the view. Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Noma Music, Inc./Hi-Count Music, Inc. BMI So after thinking about lost friends, local legends, reflecting on feeling like a museum piece or antique, and pondering the significance of the universe and our tiny little spot in it ...... Ray is mentally exhausted, and decides to go and sit down by the riverside, and as he is relaxing we get to hear the circuslike confusion swimming around in his head, or is that just the wine This is a wonderful song, and for me it continues the beautiful flow that this album has going on ...even though as someone stated, the quality of writing and playing here, there are probably very few ways of arranging these songs that wouldn't work, but a sort of theme really is developing here for me, in a vague, rather than pointed way. The first verse suggests that now Ray is sitting by the riverside and he has come to terms with where he sits in the Big Sky picture, he is just laying with his arms spread open wide embracing the world and his place in it.... he has that freedom that he was looking for in the last track, and he can close his eyes and relax. Then he brings a partner into the lyrics, or does he just mean the feeling of love that he has found in the contentment that he has found .... hmmm ... Keep me warm keep me satisfied Please keep my calm keep me pacified - let the contentment last. Allow this new found peace and contentment guide me through this life..... We can close our eyes and relax ... it is difficult to close our eyes when we are full of fear and doubt, or anxiety etc.... which is why so many folks find it hard to get a good nights sleep (well among other reasons) Sitting by the riverside with you suggests there may well be a partner, or is "you" ... the world, the universe .... or in fact big sky? .... or in fact has he grown comfortable with himself as a person in this great big universe, and referring to you as being this new comfortable content person. We open with a beautiful combination of rhythm guitar and various little keyboard sections. The little repeated keyboard riff works like a reiteration of that relaxed freedom in between lines .... as Ray closes his eyes and drifts away ..... We get this sort of drunken swirling music that sounds like Ray's head is swimming in the beauty of it all ... or perhaps this is the discontent and anxiety trying to break this peaceful moment? The third verse continues the theme of relaxing by the water, watching it flow by. He feels like a willow tree, relaxed and just hanging out, blown by the breeze and unconcerned by it. Then we get an even more intense swirling daydream..... We close lyrically with - Spend my time just drinking wine while looking at the view - and perhaps the wine is what is causing the swirling heady feeling that keeps overcoming us. I love the way we get a ritard that brings us slowly to an accented close. It seems there are a lot of places we could go with the lyrics here, but it really seems to me that this is speaking to that contentment of knowing our place in the universe, and just enjoying being a part of it with no expectations, and the giddy, dizzying effect of understanding how big the universe is, and how beautiful it can be if we put ourselves in the right place to be able to soak it in, with a heart of contentment. This originally close side one of the album, and it again feels like a perfect way to slide out of side one. laying back arms outstretched embracing the world, and a little tipsy, or perhaps drunk. There are so many interesting directions that we can take this song ..... and it initially seems like such a simple and comfortable lyric. The music is beautiful, and for me at least, it passes on that comfortable, content feeling..... I really love that dizzy swirling music here, it is actually a place I am very comfortable.... I'm so interested in how others interpret this beautiful song, so please let it rip. Sorry if that is a little confused in its form, this song triggered so many more thoughts than I thought it was going to.
