The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    "Trust Your Heart" - musically, this song is pretty well developed with a lot of focus on an arrangement that shows off the dynamics of the band. I am on the record as saying I am not that fond of Dave as a lead vocalist but I actually think his performance on "Trust Your Heart" is pretty strong. No - Dave is not a great lead vocalist but you can at least hear his passion for the music on this song.
     
  2. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Trust Your Heart:

    …and Dave is back! One of my favorites by the younger Daviesboy. His voice sounds better here than ever, and that’s meant as a compliment because I generally like his voice (although I will acknowledge its best for just a song or two per album).

    As always with his somewhat esoteric lyrics, but they work. I hear the pain and anguish in his voice and in the words. I like at 1:40 where he starts to simmer as though he is about to let loose, but then back to that soft anguished sound, only to suddenly kick it right into high gear a minute later. A minute later we are in even higher gear, and suddenly… dead stop.

    I love the unconventional song structure and Dave’s anguished rasp. I can see how it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but then tea is just brown water that tastes like crap to paraphrase Coach Lasso.
     
  3. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Welcome back Dave! The opening guitar is great (but does anyone else think Air Supply?) and the song is really solid. I'm not always a fan of Dave's lead vocals, but he does well here and really seems to 'feel' it.
     
  4. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Trust Your Heart"

    This track starts really well - I like the slow progress and Dave's vocal. It gradually builds, and threatens to explode into something else, but keeps pulling back to the original riff. The problem is that when it eventually does explode, that section is a bit of a disappointment for me. The vocals get a bit shouty (and incomprehensible without the lyric sheet) and the music feels a bit half-baked. Overall I like the track, but coming after the previous two tracks (i.e. BM and "Wardrobe" on my CD) it doesn't do much to disabuse me of the idea of a side two slump. It also doesn't fit very well musically with Ray's songs (which of course makes it a misfit in itself).

    I've never read much into the lyrics - much of Dave's lyrics seem to be generally unfocussed rants at big business and governments etc, and this one has seemed to fit into the same category for me. As I suggested last night - this isn't really a preview of what to expect from Dave's solo albums - for one thing you won't hear much of that shouty/screamy vocal style.
     
  5. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Very interesting perspective from @mark winstanley regarding this being Dave's 'answer' to 'Rock and Roll Fantasy'.. fwiw I always took the message of this song at face value as being to a woman as in Dave's book he describes how around this time he fell in love with someone new while he was married, and the turmoil and fallout that resulted from that.. 'Trust Your Heart' as a titular tenet would seem to be saying have faith in your feelings in spite of all the real world problems pursuing them will cause.. but Dave's lyrics are so oblique it could easily be about Marks' reading too.. maybe it was about both and more.

    Did anyone on here ever used to go on Dave's messageboard on his site in the 90s and 00s? The page was called 'Talk To Dave' but he only checked in intermittently and it was more like a community board for fans. Anyway, something that always sticks in my mind from that board is someone starting a new thread to post a full length parody of the entire lyric of this song entitled 'Truly Stinky Farts' .. I always wondered what Dave made of that if he ever saw it: although having seen some of his posts on Twitter maybe it was completely his sense of humour!
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  6. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    Musically and vocally, this is a quite a triumphant return for Dave after more than half a decade (ha!) of songwriting absence. Hard to believe this is his first actual completed song in six years for the Kinks. Six years!!! For all we know (and what we studied under Mark’s benevolent surveillance), there was probably nothing too outstanding in the vault anyway. But it seems clear Dave wasn’t encouraged to come up with suitable material for the band during the theater phase, or capable of doing so in the early stages of the new (and probably less intimidating) “song only” band policy. But here, he’s back like there’s nothing particularly mind boggling to it and I find the contrast with his Decade demos absolutely stunning. They were tentative, he was clearly struggling with inspiration, but here he sounds confident, relaxed, liberated, a songwriter in full control.

    At least… all that I just wrote is true for the opening section. He borrows a bit from Badfinger, a bit from Harrison’s Let It Down, but I’ll give him a pass because he was always the George figure in the group anyway (the guitar playing kid brother doing one or two songs here and there) and because… well, because it's so gorgeous. Voice is great (like he finished puberty at last!), guitar is huge and the overblown dramatic melody works wonders. After that, I think it's more hit and miss, a medley of sorts, with different parts that the arrangement's trying to hold together. The Rolling Stone piece states that it was edited down from a 8 minutes version, and I remember reading somewhere else (I should've kept a diary of the when and where I read stuff about the Kinks!) that it was assembled from three different songs. I find it amusing to imagine each one of those being a Decade track and how we would’ve tackled them here on the thread!
     
  7. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    This track is reminiscent of the earlier demo tracks by Dave in that there's a sense of him striving for something interesting but not quite getting there. The first half of the song is fine, nice guitar on the intro especially, interesting structure and melody but he loses me altogether with the screechy bombastic second half which, to some extent, seems to cone out of nowhere. Lyrically this seems typical of 70s Dave in that you get the feeling that he's trying really hard to say something profound in a slightly enigmatic and poetic way but it just ends up as confusing and confused - that line about the government is a real clunker!
     
  8. Endicott

    Endicott Forum Resident

    Trust Your Heart

    Dave finally gets some songwriting real estate on a Kinks album after six years. And he lets it rip with one of his best guitar showcases -- from the "Free Bird" intro, the song builds steadily through a couple of slow, deliberate verses punctuated with strong outbursts in between, and culminates in a torrent of existential fury before ending abruptly. As a guitar song this is one of his most transcendent moments, especially as he revs towards the final, anarchic verse. The melody is quite lovely, too.

    But his singing could better be described as slurring. There's no way I can make out most of the words without a lyric sheet, and they're just so obtuse that even once clued in I still can't put my finger on what he's talking about. Is this a veiled olive branch to his brother, a reply to "Rock And Roll Fantasy"? Or is he talking to his childhood girlfriend he was so sadistically separated from? And that odd quasi-political statement in the final verse doesn't really flow from the rest of the story. I can't get my head around it.

    The guitar work redeems this song anyway. It would have worked as an instrumental. Heck, it might have worked better.
     
  9. fspringer

    fspringer Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Trust Your Heart: Ray must have been biting his tongue on this one. Musically, a great-sounding song, but the lyrics seem like place holders. When he gets to the yelling section, admittedly, even with a lyric sheet, I had/have no idea what he's carrying on about. But it sounds great! I enjoyed this track immensely in real time, thought it was a classic, but I'll rarely listen to it now. This was a strange one for me. For a band that prided itself on lyrics, this felt completely out of place - I knew this even as a kid. But it was also a nice excursion into what, for lack of better words, I'd call a mish-mash of current rock styles.

    At the time, I didn't have full knowledge of Dave's role in the band, besides being lead guitarist and a brilliant background vocalist who occasionally took lead. I only knew his songs from Kronikles and would later stumble onto satisfying tracks like "Strangers" and "You Don't Know My Name." It must have been hard for him, knowing he was in a band with one of the best songwriters of his generation, in some ways accepting that, but thinking he had more to offer. I would guess that would be his main source of tension, along with whatever brotherly, rough-and-tumble issues their childhood upbringing instilled in them. Frankly, his Harrison-esque role in The Kinks, along with a developing ability to do his own solo work, seemed like the best path.
     
  10. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Trust Your Heart: my initial reaction to this was abject confusion. ‘Out of the Wardrobe’ to this Dave song sure throws a wrench into the album flow. It’ll wake you up, that’s for sure.

    I didn’t like it at all at first but have gradually come around to accept it. Still think it’s rather disjointed, though.
     
  11. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Trust Your Heart

    I always loved this one. Overall, I think it's a very strong cut. Enunciation issues aside, it's an impressive Dave vocal, and as a few have said, the guitar work is exemplary.

    What really strikes me about this song though, is how atmospheric it is. We know the group can do the stripped down garage band thing, or they can bring in all manner of instrumentation to demonstrate a style, but here they now master atmosphere itself. I can't not be captivated by this song.
     
  12. Jasper Dailey

    Jasper Dailey Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeast US
    Trust Your Heart: This one is a tough one to evaluate. I'm a big fan of Dave's shouty upper range when he's rocking out, so I actually love the last half of the song (even though the lyrics were 100% incomprehensible) and find that kind of rock to be much more compelling than the Live Life sound. It's still generic melody-wise, but the passion is there and it's a good effect. I struggle with the first half of the song though. The melody is interesting, but the chord progression under it is too static. Dave sings it well, though. That said, this song has one of the most grating sounds I've encountered while listening to the Kinks (honestly, it annoys me so much it hearkens back to Dave the Goat Man Who Sings Covers on Kinks) -- there's a sound I can only describe as a squelch or a yelp that happens at the end of some phrases in the first half where he's singing -- 1:01 and 1:05 are two good examples of it. Is it Dave's voice? Is it some instrumental pickup? Was it intentional? It's just a weird effect that I don't enjoy, but your mileage may vary.

    Anyway, I'm glad Dave is back in the fold as a songwriter; I think some folks will be pleasantly surprised with some of the decent songs on his solo albums.
     
  13. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Live version, must be 1979 as Rays it came out 'last year':

     
  14. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Trust Your Heart

    Not so familiar with this but it is an interesting composition that seems to mean something to Dave as he puts a lot of emotion and craft into this song and performance.
    I did find that some repeat listenings to it warmed me to the positives of the introduction, vocal melody and most of the guitar parts throughout.
    It is original of course but reminiscent of a number of things anyway that i will muse on...

    I can't peg a tune but there are Beatleisms (or Georgeisms) and a descending melodic be it in part is not unlike Marianne Faithfull's Something Better.
    Later on in the tune there is a few moments with distorted chord changes which are a touch like some parts of China Grove and though I got the Little Richard lyric reference ì wish Dave would refrain from trying to unleash a similar load of vocal power in the 4th minute as it is a bit too strained for his capabilities and control in my view.

    So certainly a better than average track for Dave that I would be happy to hear once in a while or whenever I feel a need for Misfits coming on!
     
  15. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Trust Your Heart

    Dave gives us an original sounding, beautiful melody here with changing tempos and moods. I like the way he teases us with a note or chord leading the listener to believe the song will go in one direction before it goes into another. It keeps us on our toes. The parts where the song launches into an uptempo R&R boogie reminds me of a similar moment in Percy’s “Dreams.” In both cases, in some ways, it feels like a songwriter worrying that the piece might be losing its audience so throws in something to remind us this is still a rock and roll song. You may read that as a criticism, but no… I actually think it works quite well in both songs.

    As for the lyrics, I always took this to be a plea to a lover. Never is a million years would I have detected Marks interpretation of this as a message/response to Ray. Yet looking at the lyric sheet there is no reason it couldn’t be. Dave doesn’t nail down anything specific in that regard. Everyone has a heart. It’s universal. So, yeah…either Ray or a girl. Or the sheltered place to view the world could be a hotel room…or the observation deck of a Supersonic Rocket Ship.

    That’s a general difference between Ray and Dave’s lyrics: Ray will give us specifics that in their telling connect through shared recognition: tax exiles (money concerns), allergies (health), haircuts (appearance), street corner racists (individuality), transvestites (secrets), disintegrating rock bands (job security.) Dave strives for poetic phrases that convey an emotion while avoiding specifics. True, he throws a monkey wrench into things every so often. I’m not always sure where his every-thing-but-the-kitchen-sink approach is headed (really, Dave? Why muddy a song of the heart with a potshot at government overreach? Really?) Each man has different approaches. Ray is brilliant (most of the time) and Dave is uneven, but still both aim to hit universal truths. Dave seems more prone to want to convey it with feelings conjured by words.

    And on the subject of feelings…

    In the entire Kinks cannon I can not think of another song that feels less like what I expect out of a Kinks song than “Trust Your Heart.” In its mood, texture, overall ambience. Heck, I’m only half convinced this is a Kinks song (he says half-joking), what with the transitional lineup on bass and keys and Avory’s absence (on this track, at least). While I have no doubt Ray played some role in the recording, I would believe the opposite should it be verified. I do not feel Ray’s presence or input at all on this mood piece of a song. That’s not the case with prior Dave/Kinks numbers. Even those long ago “Hole in a Sock” solo tracks where Ray was MIA; he was none the less felt in his influence. But not on this one. There is nothing “Ray” or “Kinks” about this piece. It’s all Dave. I might have an easier time detecting a John, Paul or Ringo presence on “Within You, Without You,” than I do in recognizing a Kink other than Dave on “Trust Your Heart.” (In fairness, in the in-concert version ajsmith posted above the band gives a faithful side-men rendering)
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  16. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Well, I guess I haven’t gotten to the point where I can tolerate this. I just refreshed my memory on ‘Tears Of a Clown’ and ‘Susannah’s Still Alive.’ Good songs, fully formed, no squawking. I haven’t heard a Dave song I liked since…’Rats’? Maybe.
     
  17. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    I agree with this

    But I also agree with this.

    I'm glad Mark is leaving it open ended for now. I think it's very probable that once we get to it there won't be a whole lot to say about these as just differences in arrangements, the thread will start to lose steam, and Mark may start burning off two, three, or four a day just like he did for Everybody's in Showbiz just to keep us all engaged. Unless, or course, we want to have second discussions about individual song lyrics merits.
     
  18. Lightworker

    Lightworker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Deep Texas
    "Trust Your Heart" is one of the few 'political' rock songs of its era that still holds up...
    much like "Masters Of War" or "Eve Of Destruction" do for the early 60s. Impassioned
    Dave vocals, awesome dynamics and an anti-establishment lyric broad enough to cross
    party lines and transcend its own historical milieu. Always an underrated Kinks klassic.
     
  19. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    "Trust Your Heart", Dave's first song on a Kinks album in 6 years and he makes the most of it w/a shifting tempo rocker w/a vocal so passionately sung that you can't decipher the lyrics. I'll put it a notch below "Strangers" but above the Decade songs.

    As for the lyrics, the reason why I wanted to re read that RS article that Avid Wondergirl thoughtfully found and placed here is that the author of the piece thought he heard the name "Julie" in the song and that someone close to the group confirmed to him that there was a "Julie" in Dave's life, but it was none of his business. I first thought that it was the girl that Dave got pregnant in school but her name was Sue. I then thought about "Julie Finkle" the girl that Ray talked about in X Ray and Storyteller. Perhaps "Julie Finkle" was Dave's love before Ray appropriated her for his own use. It wouldn't have been the first time that Ray used something in Dave's life for his own uses. Just a thought.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  20. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    There comes a point in every Dave vocal where it feels like he is singing while standing on his tippy-toes.

    It's all about effort, not execution. Like a little leaguer believing he can knock the ball over the fence every time he swings the bat. I actually find it part of his charm.
     
  21. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Trust Your Heart

    This is new to me, only first listened to it a couple weeks ago. I have been trying to find the song in here. But if what @Fortuleo says here is true...

    ...then that would explain why I can't find the song in here, because it is more than one song. To me, it does remind me of some the first round of Decade tracks that we have covered already. Dave puts his heart and soul into this, and seems to have a lot of ideas, but I don't see this as a cohesive whole. Some of the transitions (like around 1:42) just don't make sense to me. If a song is going to be pieced together from various other songs, I think the transitions needs to be a bit stronger -- think of There's a Change in the Weather or Shangri-La. I'm not sure what he's getting at with "I bring thunder, lightning and rain". Who is Dave singing as there? Himself? The government? "Your heart"? It's kind of all over the place to me still, even after multiple listens over the past few weeks.

    This is so far the only song on this album that I really have no desire to listen to again immediately after it's finished.

    I've been a champion of Dave's songs in the 60s through Rats/Strangers. Those to me are right up there with Ray's writing, and his contributions fit in incredibly well on those albums. Even You Don't Know My Name fits in pretty well on Everybody's In Show-Biz. But this one... doesn't really fit. A literal misfit! So maybe it does work after all...
     
  22. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    I get that Dave has charm but not on "every" song he overreaches on.
     
    markelis, mark winstanley and Zeki like this.
  23. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I overlooked this one. Yes, I like this song, too.
     
  24. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Trust Your Heart

    A couple of words from what's been posted above: Atmosphere and passion.

    It eases in with this beautiful, understated, etherial lead, punctuated with synthy-processed "oooohs" that recall I'm Not in Love, instantly transporting me to some floaty land that, no, doesn't seem like Kinks land, until you realize it's Dave's land, and that you've been visiting suburbs of that land more and more in the last couple of LPs. Maybe it's a kitty-corner neighbor of AOR land, or anyway it feels no shame appropriating little nuances of eg Doobie Brothers or Styx, but ultimately it's a land of atmosphere and passion. It both lulls and alerts you, wraps you up in a soft cocoon and blasts you off into space.

    A comp from a little earlier in the decade: Beware My Love.

    & then, I love how the song suddenly (but inevitably and with total verisimilitude) becomes a slurred, shouted cri du coeur (am I using this phrase correctly, French people?) that is so primal and passionate that it obliterates any suspicion of calculated craftsmanship or dutiful obedience to the Arista executive suite. Whatever Dave is shouting, he means it, and he carries me away with him every time (& I've probably listened to this song upwards of a thousand times).

    Trust Your Heart is what kept Misfits in my vinyl collection when I had a big LP givaway/tradeoff/selloff in the early '80s. & either then or soon after was the first time I put it on a cassette mix. & here's the thing about this song: Aside from being lovely, lush, passionate, atmospheric, seductive, etc etc, you can sequence almost ANYTHING after it to create a good segue. I think my first mix tape put Prince's Controversy right afterwards, but on later tapes/CDs I've followed it with Standing in the Shadows of Love, Shot With His Own Gun, A Small Fruit Song (Al Stewart), I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself, and even Village Green (I used to kind of define/introduce myself via mix tapes & CDs).

    In all those years, over all those mixes, I hardly paid attention to the lyrics past "truly, trust your heart," "truly, truly, truly trust your heart" and the koan-like "trust your place in time," but it always felt like a love song, or a song anyway inviting (seducing?) the listener into a state of be-here-now emotional immersion. And in that way, again, it works every time.

    I love this song. I think (in my final round of mix-CD making) it has something to do with how I managed to seduce my wife. Trust your heart indeed.
     
  25. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Trust Your Heart
    This is a song from the album that was a wonderful surprise. This may be in my top 3 Dave songs (thus far).

    The oohs throughout are so lovely. And then him launching into the screaming parts...y'know what? I don't even care that you can't understand what he's saying without a lyric sheet. I'm just totally doing a headbanging thing and whooping it up. FUN!

    and I love the bit after the first verse where it revs up and then there are oohs and then it revs up again. So disorienting, but I don't mind. I know what's coming in a little bit and it just whets my appetite.

    The only minor complaint is the cymbals during some parts...kind of has that generic heavy metal/hair band sound. Whatevs. I can overlook that.
    This will fit the bill when I need to rock out. Grade: A.
     

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