The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Definitely. Although in many ways I find the Shepherd's Pie bit, a big distraction, it almost makes the later big emotional explosion even more poignant.
    I try not to use the word genius much, but quite frequently in Ray's writing it seems it would be valid.
     
  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I had to look up that word, can't say I had ever heard it before:)

    I couldn't say whether there is anything objective about anything I have had to say, but I can say, subjectively, that this has been the most surprising, consistently brilliant catalog to look at.
    I'm at the point where I don't even know why I didn't like this album instantly.
    It is like adorable kitsch... not instantly beautiful or poignant, but underneath the lighthearted, fun facade, it is actually both.
     
  3. GarySteel

    GarySteel Bastard of old

    Location:
    Molde, Norway
    If I remember correctly from my youth, as an avid reader of the Asterix comics, a minor character went by the name of 'Dithyrambix'. Now I finally know why.

    As I stated about, this thread has everything under the sun (and more) :D
     
  4. GarySteel

    GarySteel Bastard of old

    Location:
    Molde, Norway
    I really like "You Make it All Worthwhile" a lot and find it very amusing. But I love Shepherd's Pie :love:
     
  5. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    Wow that promo photo is pretty Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby circa 1974.
     
  6. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    You Make It All Worthwhile:

    The introductory dialogue is not exactly conducive to playing this at a party. “Hello, Love…you look all worn out, poor thing…”

    Initially, I didn’t give this tune the time of day but…now? I kinda like it! A grower.

    “Oh, I just remembered we only got shepherds pie, do you like it?”

    “No, I hate it.”

    And I’m on the floor, laughing.
     
  7. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I can’t even imagine a non-regular taking a peek at this thread for the first time and reading these words. :D
     
  8. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    I think "You Make It All Worthwhile" is a great song but I am on board with the dialogue being a bit much at times. I find the Shepherd's Pie reference hilarious because Keith Richards basically lives on Shepherd's Pie on the road and at every Stones show, the rider specifies there must be two - one for Keith and one for everyone else. The Keith one comes with a warning - "Don't Bust The Crust".

    As far as the actual song goes -

    But when I get home you make it all worthwhile,
    You make me laugh and you make me smile
    And after a hard day sorting out the files
    You make it all worthwhile.

    That's a beautiful chorus. It elevates the song. It makes me as a listener care about the story being told.
     
  9. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Lol
     
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  10. malco49

    malco49 Forum Resident

    following this thread and listening to snippets of songs , to remind me of them, just reinforces my feeling that soap opera and schoolboys both are really musicals in rock album disguise , does not make them bad just makes me really wish they could have been made into full blown musicals for the stage!
     
  11. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    If this is the worst Kinks album up to this point, and for some ever, it is still a pretty damn high bar
     
  12. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Thank you for this. For four decades I couldn’t quite put my finger on where I had heard the YMIAWW melody before. A few years before Soap Opera this Charlie Rich song would have been all over AM pop/country radio where I living in the US midwest. Like “Underneath a Neon Sign,” once again Ray takes someone else’s existing melody and shifts it up just enough to make it his own. I remember once reading an interview with Paul Weller where he said that’s exactly how most rock music is written.

    Lest anyone not make the connection, that organ is precisely why this LP is called “A Soap Opera.” Perhaps some of the younger members of this forum may but unaware, but in the pre-TV era that kind of cheesy, overly melodramatic accompaniment—evoking silent movie over-acting--was the back drop to radio soap operas. Throughout the mid-century it was mocked heavily, frequently used under purposely corn-ball parodies of dramatic moments. It is this reason (rather than a name check of the word “soap opera” in tomorrows song) why the LP title connects to its content.

    Which brings to mind another thought. Is Soap Opera the best title for this LP? Maybe, maybe not. I’ve often wondered why the change in title from Starmaker. I assumed it was because that title was already claimed on an LP elsewhere, but I don’t know that for a fact.
     
  13. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    The very, very beginning does for sure, the music heard distantly in the background before Ray (aka Norman) begins to sing.
     
  14. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I can see where you're coming from here, but I think it is somewhat a certain laziness on all our parts when it comes to album titles...
    The Kinks present a Soap Opera is probably a good title for this, because it is somewhat a Soap Opera, and it gives the impression of some kind of play.
    On the other hand, and it was always going to happen, just calling it Soap Opera has a slightly different nuance, and isn't quite as clear.

    It seems very similar to the scenario of
    The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society.... Village Green or even The Village Green Preservation Society has a slightly different implication.
     
  15. Jasper Dailey

    Jasper Dailey Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeast US
    You Make It All Worthwhile: I've got to defer to the Headmaster's roundup and Fortuleo's mic drop, I think they summed it all up perfectly. This was one of my favorites from the beginning but I like it even more in my advancing age. An interesting curiosity to ponder: In a live version (can't remember if it was Starmaker, or the full album performance on youtube), the Starmaker is repulsed by corned beef hash instead of shepherd's pie. Does that sit any better with you, Headmaster? :winkgrin: I actually really like Ray's deliver of "what's the point of cracking up all because of shepherd's pie?" Serious, yet tender. Anyway, I'm always a fan of getting more silly rhymes from Ray, so I'm happy both lines exist.
     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Lol, I like Shepherd's Pie..... I'll take fried spam over corned beef anything, every day of the week lol
     
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  17. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I just listened to the beginning again and I think the idea is that Norman walks through the door and hears Behind Closed Doors playing on either the radio or record player.
     
  18. side3

    side3 Younger Than Yesterday

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK
    I agree with others that the dialogue is a little distracting, but the tune itself is great.
     
  19. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    What on earth is Shepherd's pie ?

    I didn't care for this song at first, but I really like it now. Well, I guess I can say this of almost all the songs on Soap Opera except for the previous one, which I always liked. With age, I become less snobbish about enjoying songs based on routine chord progressions, and this thread makes me much more sensitive of the subtleties of Ray's writing. The contrast between the angst-driven verse and the serene chorus is indeed very successful, and I also love the dialogue parts. June Ritchie again brings a perfect and delightful British wife caricature to my French ears. A very touching song.

    Is there such a thing as "threadism", as in "nationalism" ? I'm sure someone somewhere already wrote a thesis about the sense of belonging as applied to a forum thread. Are some threads known to have raised taxes, or armies ? I guess this thread, with all its peaceful goodwill, would quickly crumble into a bloody civil war over the choice of the thread hymn.
     
  20. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    ‘Jerusalem’ hymn, of course. :p
     
  21. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I just listened to my alternate Muswell Hillbillies again, and I love it. When I'm king of the world I will collect all existing copies of the album and destroy them all to replace them with my version of it. You may have doubts now but you'll all be happy in the end.

    So people of the nation unite.

    On a different topic, there is a French tabloid that used to have (last time I checked, long time ago) a section titled "nobody cares", with uninteresting trivia (maybe the heading is translated from some English tabloid, I don't know). Anyway, I guess nobody cares but I realized that Vicki Brown, who sings backing vocals on "Holloway Jail", is singer Sam Brown's mother. (Someone on the thread already said she was Joe Brown's wife, but I don't know who that is).

    Sorry if I'm a bit "shambolic" today, yesterday I ended my "dry January" with a couple of beers and I couldn't sleep for half the night.
     
  22. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    I think that "You Make It All Worthwhile" is the emotional centerpiece of Soap Opera. I think that it might be the song that the Starmaker was struggling to write about Norman and his life. It has a very beautiful melody and it goes emotionally in so many ways, especially the "I break my back......" portion.

    Avid The last man, from what I remember from my high school cafeteria days, in which I mainly had it, Shepherd's Pie is a combination of mashed potatoes, corn & ground beef that is baked as a pie. The live version of the song substitutes "corn beef hash", perhaps because American audiences are not as familiar w/Shepherd's Pie.

    Kudos to Avids Ajsmith & Martyj in mentioning "Behind Closed Doors". It was a very bit hit, and a well deserved one, for Charlie Rich back in 1973. I can remember building model cars in my basement while it was playing on the radio. Charlie Rich was great and very underrated. I recommend him highly.
     
  23. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Shepherd's pie is lamb surely? Hence the name? Cottage pie is beef.
     
  24. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Per wiki:
    The term shepherd's pie did not appear until 1854,[3]and was initially used synonymously with cottage pie, regardless of whether the meat was beef or mutton.[2][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][pages needed][excessive citations]Several cookery writers have asserted in recent decades that shepherd's pie uses lamb while cottage pie uses beef.[13][14][15][better source needed][16]

    The French name hachis Parmentier is documented in French in 1900,[17] and in English in 1898,[18] and is generally defined as synonymous or equivalent to shepherd's pie.
     
  25. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Avid The last man, with all due respect, I shall hide my copy of Muswell Hillbillies from your Napoleonic decree as a historian and librarian (part-time).

    Anyway, Joe Brown was a pre-Beatles UK pop star from Liverpool. "Pictures of You" was one of his big hits. He later became good friends w/George Harrison and appeared in his memorial concert Songs for George.

    Finally what kind of beer did you drink last night to make you feel so weird. It couldn't have been an American beer :laugh:

     

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