Have Another Drink Starts like an upbeat and "Strangers" but quickly turns into a down home Faces rock "n" roll knees up you could imagine Rod or perhaps moreso Ronnie Lane singing! Really enjoy Dave front and centre with some outstanding acoustic & electric riffing and a great electric tonality. Make sure you drink at any cost as it is the answer to all this ball & chain work to at least feel alright in the present. This is the most fun and rock 'n' roll song for me so far, oh and did i mention some most welcome Dave slide to boot to make ya feel better!
"Have Another Drink" is a lot of fun to me. To me, it is a deeply sardonic lyric about the supposed relief to the pressures of the working world provided by alcohol. Ray's vocal delivery is perfect for the song. I also like Dave's stinging guitar on this one. I fine Soap Opera far more easy to digest than the Preservation songs - Soap Opera is probably less ambitious than Preservation but I find it more successful in its effect.
When Work is Over: Nothing much to add here to what the rest of the Avids have said. Super catchy song -- I think it's already been alluded to but Ray foreshadows his later 70s and early 80s singing here (those hard r's!). This one was one of three that I really dug into when I first listened to the album 15 years ago; I like most of the rest now too but this one easily hooked into my memories. Have Another Drink: Hmm... I've gotta break from most of the rest of us on this one; to me, this is the first (and one of only 2) letdown on the album. It's not an issue of the theme or the meta-theme; I respect what Ray was going for. As was said, it's sort of Muswell Hillbillies redux, but somehow it doesn't move me like that album does. Fortuleo, "shambolic" is a great descriptor for it, and I should probably like it for that reason, but it just feels like a lot of things that don't fit together. In particular, I struggle with Dave's guitar here; it just feels out of place and obtrusive in a way it never did on Muswell Hillbillies. I do like how Ray intones "have another drink" at 1:56; the low pitch and dark tone is a fun preview of what his voice would become in the 2000s. PS: Does anybody know what circulars are?
The online dictionary defines them as 'a letter or advertisement that is distributed to a large number of people.' These days their place in an office environment would be mainly taken by bcc'ed internal emails.
Reminds me of what Lou Reed said after "Sally Can't Dance" got into the US Top 10,“This is fantastic – the worse I am, the more it sells...”
"Have Another Drink". As has been mentioned this is very much in the vein of "Muswell Hillbillies" and is kind of like an alcoholic version of "Have a Cuppa Tea". Another very catchy little song, in fact this three song Abbey Road-like mini-suite is one of the highlights of this album, I'll take this over the more ambitious stuff on Preservation Act 2 any day of the week.
Have Another Drink: OK then, I will, and let’s make it a double shot! …of drinking songs. It’s a fun singalong, with a darker message for those that care to consider the lyrics. Great guitar work from Dave. I particularly like the way they use a chant at the end of some of the lyrics in the first verse, then they replace the chant with some slick guitar licks from Dave at the end of each line in the second verse. Did the Kinks need yet another pub singalong song? Maybe not but who cares, it’s catchy and keeps the record flowing. And I don’t see it as duplicative in the sense of two drinking songs in a row, I see it as part of a longer song suite, with the prior two songs, that flows quite nicely together and show us a typical work day (and evening). In fact, I am surprised the song suite, whether as a whole or broken up into separate songs, never caught on with the broader public. These three songs would definitely work outside of the context of the album. I would want to hear these songs start as I was leaving work and continue playing when I hit the bar. I’m sure the timing was just wrong, if they had released it five years earlier, back when they were hitmakers, I’m sure they would be indelibly etched in the public’s conscious by now.
When Work is Over I really like this one. Yes, it's a stand alone song, but to me it is very much a song meant for a musical. It doesn't scream Kinks to me. I do like the funkiness though. I love Ray's ooooohs after lines like "We leave the office and walk straight to the bar". Nice touch. Have Another Drink At the beginning of this albums exploration, I mentioned that Have Another Drink is definitely a song I remember from being a kid. Why did this song stick out so much from the other songs on this album? is it the catchy chorus or the western/folky sound? Probably a combination of those two factors. I also like the answer-backs. Just a song that speaks to me sound-wise - now and then. Nowadays I can relate to the lyrics. And definitely would not have stuck out on Muswell Hillbillies, but I guess there were already enough drinking songs on there. Anyway, I do declare I love this song. such fun! One aside: I SO wish the US had pub culture. I would love to be able to walk to my local. It's a dream of mine to live somewhere where you could do that. Not so much to get wasted...but to sit there with or without the family and maybe see the neighbors and just hang, have a few drinks, watch a sportsball game.
I agree. I think what Preservation vs Soap Opera comes down to, is that I can relate to Soap Opera. I like putting voice to every day stuff. I just felt Preservation was too out there. Almost fantasy - which I do not enjoy generally.
I reckon that's a perfect community base. One where we can all just hang out, and interact as real people, not just avatars and text
Love this song and understand the working stiff’s sentiment to indulge weekly (not daily!). My only problem with this song is the decidedly lofi production. It’s borderline mono and sounds very poor and claustrophobic compared to the other tracks on the album. The lead guitar riff is a direct lift from Lola. Ray does this a lot of course and most times I think it’s intentional. Not sure it’s intentional here though but there it is.
We have pubs, taverns and bars. There is something unique about the English pub though. It was about the local community interacting. Playing darts, having a chat, having a meal, having a beer....
The husband and I are currently interviewing local bars/lounges/pubs (american version) to find a good hang. So far we have not declared a winner.
Can I interject and here and say British/Irish pubs is more accurate. Australians just aren't that into drinking.... (pause while everyone collapses in fits of laughter).
Aw, thanks. So far it's not been so bad. I'm hoping the forecasters were way off. Very windy with maybe 5 inches of snow thus far.
Actually, some country towns in Australia are sort of similar to British/Irish pubs.... kind of like the Slaughtered Lamb in Americam Werewolf in London. When an out of towner walks in, everyone stops and looks lol
"Have Another Drink" is the evil twin or at the very least the evil cousin of "Have a Cuppa Tea", in that while the latter song proposed tea as the ultimate elixir of life, now Ray is saying that good old booze & plenty of it will wash away all of your worries & problems. It does sound a lot like the older song to me. It does work quite well as the third song of the trilogy of dull work & how to mistakenly deal w/it.
Have Another Drink I agree this could easily fit into Muswell Hillbillies, or be an outtake, but to me it also sounds like it could come off Everybody's in Showbiz paired with You Don't Know My Name. The first couple times I heard this, I actually thought it was Dave singing the first verse! As far as the suite goes, it certainly fits in as part of the medley, but it is the most distinct from the other two songs in the trilogy (even though it's title appears several times in the previous song!). Love all the different guitar tones mingling together in this pub. I think this was 100% meant to be the sister-song to Have a Cuppa Tea, as others have mentioned. It's title even has the same meter -- "Have a Cuppa Tea" / "Have aNother Drink". Sometimes you gotta spike that tea, it seems, when the world has you feeling down. In context to the rest of this album, this seems like the first song that isn't sung in the first person (except maybe the bridge and one spoken part?). Most of this seems to be sung by somebody else, talking to Norman/Starmaker. Perhaps this is sung by one of the other regulars in the pub? And then Normal/Starmaker sings along with everyone else? Perhaps the point here is that others will drive you to drink and you drink together to forget your worries. And then we return to the first-person point of view for pretty much the rest of the album. As far pubs go, in my neck of the woods in NJ/metro NYC, we don't really have English pubs, but we have plenty of Irish pubs. I have one within walking distance, and that is where I used to meet some other local dads for drinks pre-pandemic. Beers, a crock o'cheese & crackers, wings, sports on the TVs. The good ole days...
