The Kinks were a fairly early favourite of mine, although I discovered them a long time after most people here probably did. I would have been familiar with You Really Got Me, Lola and a couple of other songs, from listening to the radio as a kid, and one day I went into my local record store, Atlas Records, near the old Boans building in Morley, Western Australia, where I spent countless hours as a young pup, and I asked them what would be the best Kinks album to get as a starter. I was probably 14 or 15, somewhere around there, and we are in the early eighties. The choices laid out before me were... ..............
Sorry I'm so late this morning the roads were a little tricky Other People's Lives. stereo mix (4:53), recorded 11 Jul, 2003 (overdubs recorded Dec 2004/Jan 2005) at Konk Studios, Hornsey, London Can't believe what I just read Gossip on the Internet Now the tabloids have the news Cross my heart it just ain't true I never thought it of you Name names and every line Is feeding their suspicious minds I'm not bitter or angry I'm only feeling sympathy You really found the time To feed the reporter with your views See the reporter break the news Read the reporter, join the queue Spread the news, scandalize Words cut like a thousand knives Take the cash, bank the prize For playing games with other people's lives See the reporter break the news Read the reporter, join the queue Eat it up, take a bite Feed the reader's appetite They'll swallow anything you write As long as it's in black and white And full of titillation I can't believe what I just read Excuse me, I just vomited Tell your story, it's your call So autobiographical But oh, so trivial Feed the reporter They put it on the Internet To help improve the circulation Then pepper it with lies It's only other people's lives Feed the reporter Read the reporter Politicians dressed in drag Careers stopped with quick back stab While anonymous informer flees And leaves us with our fantasy And erotic visions Who did what, when, to whom In the dominatrix room? Tabloids daily, titillate Each sordid tale reverberates All across the nation (What can I say?) Feed the reporter (It's a vendetta) Read the reporter ([?]) A rumor then a vicious phrase A poison pen can wreck your day Beware the words that crucify As tabloid judges sharpen up their knives Read the reporter Black and white See the reporter Victimize See a poor sucker Crucified Distort the truth, go tell your lies Betray your friends and get the prize The dagger's in, now twist the knife The gutter's full of other people's lives ([?]) Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Davray Music, Ltd. Here we have the title track, and it's a corker. We have this great music, that is a sort of Latino/Americana kind of thing, that personally I find really very catchy. Lyrically this is evergreen territory for a writer. We are looking at the disease of news, and how the internet age has amplified the issues.. We have a scenario where there is gossip on the internet, and it is now fodder for the tabloid news to use as facts, to entertain all the lonely housewives and disgruntled people unhappy with their own lives... the ones who watched rather than boarding the plane/train. They need some rancid gossip to entertain. To focus on someone else's issues, and take their mind off their own. The victim of the slander (spoken false statement), that ends up libel (written false statement), says he can't believe the source (I never thought it of you). Initially I thought it was suggesting that he was reading a story about someone else, and didn't believe it, but when we move into the next section it becomes more clear. This person names people and feeds those hungry for misery, reporters looking to juice up a story for the masses. Our narrator, of sorts, says he isn't bitter or angry, he just feels sorry for the person who had nothing better to do than feed the reporter. The chorus beautifully breaks down the series of events and in a very concise way. Feed the reporter a story See the reporter get it out there Then see the frenzy as people queue up .... to add their two cents... Monday's experts, who knew all along, and have something to say about all this..... Then we get the idea that this is all just a money making scheme... feeding off and creating misery in order to make money off a bunch of people who are desperate for scandal and gossip to fulfill their lives..... the same people who are hungover?, hurt after their own fall, hurt after their partner left, have lost faith in the world, running away from reality, not wanting to get out of bed, watching the people around them catch trains and planes while they mope around the house afraid to fly themselves? "Spread the news, scandalize Words cut like a thousand knives Take the cash, bank the prize For playing games with other people's lives" So we get Ray's context for the idea of Other People's Lives here, and it is spot on the money. How frequently is someone innocent until proven guilty in our modern world? How many people's characters have been completely assassinated by twisted news narratives based in drama-bucks, scandal-dollars? The readers want to be titillated by extreme stories, feeds the reporters need to create them. Ray tells us that reading the stories made him vomit... The internet perpetuates and creates, and after all, it's only Other People's Lives "They put it on the Internet To help improve the circulation Then pepper it with lies It's only other people's lives" The meat isn't quite tasty enough for the big bucks, so lets add some special sauce to really make it pop. We get lots of little bits of input here, but essentially the picture being painted is the media, social and otherwise is raising people up and chopping them back down at will.... an the passive consumers are being led... totally controlled ... Lies, distortion, backstabbing, and the all important steady flow of cash for the stories The closing lyrical section is like a crescendo of disgust... and I tend to agree with it. "A rumor then a vicious phrase A poison pen can wreck your day Beware the words that crucify As tabloid judges sharpen up their knives Read the reporter Black and white See the reporter Victimize See a poor sucker Crucified Distort the truth, go tell your lies Betray your friends and get the prize The dagger's in, now twist the knife The gutter's full of other people's lives" The chopping down is final and devastating. but everyone made their dollars, so it doesn't matter, because "The gutter's full of other people's lives" It's about the dehumanization process... These "other people" .... they're bad people ... they don't matter.... but we made our bucks off them, so let them wash away into the back sewers of life... This is Mr Reporter at the next level. Sadly it documents quite well what the media machine has become... Opinions are fine, but facts are better..... there are too many opinions and not enough facts these days, and once the story has been told it can't be retracted, because essentially nobody cares. The media got their money. The consumer digested the poison... and the "other people's lives don't really matter ..... Do they? Musically I like the flow here. We kind of smoothly flow through the sections. We come back to the main theme, through little musical sidesteps. In the middle of the song we get a direct change up, and I think it works really well, and then we smoothly roll back into the main theme. I like some of the guitar inserts, that are like the growling pain of the accosted person. Another great piece of layered pop/rock. I think this is a great title track and after a few less direct, and some lighter material we get this lyrically bone crunching track, and it works so well as an album for me in the way it all comes together.
Funny how coming in (at the time of release or just two weeks ago), we all assumed that Other People’s Lives was about Ray’s own knack for capturing characters. And now comes this song that’s all about the opposite: not a nod to self about his own talent or craft, but the celebrity tabloid culture that makes him want to vomit! At least now, @Brian X’s apostrophe’s inquiry from the first Thread day dedicated to this record is solved. It's indeed in the right place…
"Other People's Lives" Tell us what you really think Ray! Well this is a pretty pointed song with a very clear message. The song has a real flow to it, largely driven by Ray's pretty amazing mastery of meter and rhyme. And I think the song is pretty spot on in its analysis of the whole celebrity media cycle. Western civilization, I think, is a voyeuristic society particularly in its media. There are other songs that have explored this - "Sunday Papers" by Joe Jackson and "The Leader" by The Clash ("you've gotta give people something good to read about on a Sunday") to name a couple. Ray probably resents the whole tabloid culture and I do not blame him. I found this song a compelling listen as it is pretty much a rant set to music and the focus is definitely on what Ray has to say but Ray's lyric and delivery certainly hold my interest.
The Getaway (Lonesome Train) Thematically, Ray is telling a well-worn story here, using the train as a metaphor for running away. He’s added a nice Kinks touch with the references to sunny afternoon. In it’s musical vibe (for want of a better word) it reminds me a bit of the Handsome Family’s theme song for True Detective. Like that song, I find this such a pleasant ride that I’m happy for the train to just keep rolling. Other People’s Lives In his liner notes for this song Ray says “at the end this record please remember this. IT’S NOT ABOUT ME, IT’S OTHER PEOPLE. Ok Ray, no need to shout – we believe you. Yes, really. Lyrically this song is a great takedown of tabloid journalism. The music serves the lyrics without doing anything remarkable. It’s a toe-tapper that I’m happy to hear. It's hard for me to keep up with all the great input from others, but special thanks to @The late man for repeating that anecdote about his father's songwriting with the comparison to Is there Life after Breakfast? Ouch! And while we are in France, thanks to @DISKOJOE for posting the wonderful Francoise Hardy clip. I hadn't heard her do that song before - she did a great job.
Not to mention Billy Bragg's It Says Here, which has this line I've always liked: Where they offer you a feature On stockings and suspenders Next to a call for stiffer penalties for Sex offenders
Other People's Lives - Funny, the music reminds me of an Al Stewart song, who was just mentioned by one of our Avids! This is pretty cool. I like the slink and the wink from Ray. Vomited...these lyrics are cracking me up.
All I can say is that when I played it I loved it all over again. Like most reissues, I think the bonus tracks and remasters etc are icing on the cake. And that is a seriously good discount for this box set.
"Other People's Lives" I commented when we did "Yours Truly, Confused N10" that nothing dates an early 00s song like its references to the internet, and it's here again - Ray singing "gossip on the internet" as if it's something new and amazing! I think this track suffers from being so late in the album, in particular after "The Getaway" and its propensity for sending me to sleep. It may well have become a favourite had it appeared within the first six tracks. The lyric is excellent - Ray is on form here, taking his penchant for multi-syllable words even further with his delivery of "ti-ti-la-tion" and "so au-to-bi-o-graph-i-cal", and nailing his subject many times over. The music is light, bright and latin-flavoured. It's just that I've tended to overlook this one over the years, largely because it turns up so late into a long album. Played in isolation, it's absolutely fine.
‘Other People’s Lives’: My favorite part of the song are the backing vocals. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think Ray didn’t come up with a helluva tune and, even, lyrics, because he certainly does. It’s just that I am sick and tired of the celebrity tabloid trash that appears impossible to escape and can’t see coming back to this song to be reminded of it. It’ll just send me into a rage. The tune itself is suave, dripping with cool as it sashays and slinks along. In combination with the lyrics I visualize white tropical suits, Panama hats and paparazzi popping up from behind the palm trees with cameras.
“Other People’s Lives”: a nice, samba like tune about tabloid journalism, of which Ray has become of through the years. The lyrics are rather spot on, especially these days, since it probably has gotten worse instead of better (I’m thinking about a book by a ginger haired member of the Royal Family that just came out). Don’t you just like the way Ray pronounces the word “vomit”?
I really enjoy the lyrics, though I admit the Latin cabaret treatment gives it an air of background music somehow. I guess that’s part of the point, all this gossip / celebrity / crass culture’s always there, a permanent wallpaper in our lives, so omnipresent in the background that we don’t even notice them anymore, despite being so overwhelmingly unpleasant (could that be the point of the annoying Spanish female vocalizing ?) On a side note : if the last one was Dire Straits, this is more solo Knopfler melodically (his forays in this faux-Latin style are frequent and usually wonderful, see the brilliant Postcards from Paraguay, Lights of Taormina or Don’t Crash the Ambulance for good reference). Ray’s tune has some great moments too, lots of different melodic sections, every pre-chorus, post-chorus and bridge (whatever you choose to name any one of them) give it a nice boost, Ray’s singing is fine, quite smooth (or, as @Zeki puts it "suave", an excellent french word by the way). I like the slightly bluesy Did Ya melodic vibe and some turns of phrases and phrasings are absolutely delightful. And others – like “vo-mi-ted” (edit : as @DISKOJOE just pointed) delightful in their own distasteful way.
Hey Avid Rockford & Roll, how about using your hard earned dough on a 1977 Pontiac Firebird that was actually used in the 4th season of The Rockford Files? I saw the ad in the Hemmings Motor News and thought about you. It’s only $25,000.00, probably less than those SUVs clogging up the roads these days, w/more style and panache and you can practice the Rockford Turn in a car that actually did it!
Other People's Lives This would have been a cynch to write for Ray Davies roving eye and he gets quite verbose. I really like the main opening hook which has a mild suggestion of something Indian or Middle Eastern and goes well with the female voice which alas was only used sparingly. Many lyrical avenues are explored, even the surprise one of not getting angry at the one feeding the personal information to Mr Reporter!
Yeah, slinky. Who said slinky? This is slinky. A sly insinuation. A bit ominous, a bit bitter. An implied narrator who isn't exactly enraged but is by no means resigned. He's not shouting (barking) about stadiums full of people hungry for violence and rape, he's sneaking up behind his subject in the swampy twilight and slipping a stiletto between his ribs. As far as cultural critiques go, tourists who bash their way through poor countries wielding their platinum cards like little plastic shields get me more worked up than bottom-feeding tabloid reporters and their sources, but I might prefer the music on this one, particularly the haunting background vocals. & using sort of faceless (but clearly talented) studio musicians fits -- it doesn't make me wonder what the Kinks would've made of the tune. Right. OPL isn't a self-conscious throwback self-tribute celebrating the newfound interest in his '60s work -- we don't get a collection of Mr. Pleasants, Well-Respected Men, or Shangri-las... weirdly this LP seems both more grounded in the personal and more focused on general categories of other people (neighbors, tourists, reporters) than a lot of Ray's earlier stuff. I'm working on figuring out why this collection of tunes feels somehow more mature than his pre-solo work. Not mature in a way that contradicts the rawk spirit, not mell0w-mature, not comfortable-mature, not nostalgia-mature, but mature in terms of the art of narration. Maybe all that film, off-broadway, and literary stuff he did rubbed off on his songwriting, or maybe he was just emotionally ready to take a slightly different approach to his obsessions, observations, and laments.
An excellent track, but I wish that Ray’s vocals weren’t quite so laid back. I agree with @Zeki that the backing vocals are excellent.
Other People's Lives Yes! Suave and slinky. I don't know how many times Ray has suffered at the hands of tabloid journalism, but I recall my Dad telling me that his Dad always told him regarding the Daily Express here in the UK. 'You can read the sports pages, but don't read anything else in there, everything else is lies'. That gossip on the internet is surely many times worse than when this was written. Lots of rats in the sewers. The truth don't matter no more. I just vom-i- ted. It's a great rant wrapped around a pleasant tune. Ray's a master of this - much better than having a rant with ranty aggressive music.
"Other People's Lives" To feed the reporter with your views See the reporter break the news Read the reporter, join the queue I love this part, it sounds like a little flashback to 60s Ray. Yet another song that would have been a great Kinks comeback tune. Ray does a fine job, but I can't help but think that he was holding onto these song so long for a possible Kinks album. If he added a little more of that Ray warble, this would also have a bit of a 70s Kinks flair. Some of Ray's phrasing and vocals make him sound a little like Randy Newman again. I don't think I have heard that similarity since the 70s albums. The backing vocals even give it sort of a Preservation vibe. This album is shaping up to be a fine collection of tunes.
‘Boy Howdy, ain’t that the moth’r-lovin’ truth. Here’s the thing about Ray that I have gleaned from his body of work. He’s written on lots of topics with different perspectives over the years, and an awful lot has come under the target of his pen. Somehow, though, even in his moments of most searing observations/attacks/ridicule he finds a way to balance it with some form of empathy or understanding. Except when it comes to two types. One are the money men (most famously targeted as Powerman and the Money-Go-Round) and the other is The Press. This goes as far back to the unofficially released Mr. Reporter from forty years earlier. Whereas the rouges gallery of Davies characters from spivs to betrayers are given some measure of understanding (even after State of Confusion’s Bernadette is subjected to a laundry list of faults Ray absolves her in the final line with pity) there is no such sympathy for people who report on “other people’s lives.” Like the money-men, the press are pure evil with no redeeming qualities. One can only surmise this is the genuine perspective of a person whose world was turned upside-down at age 20 by an unwanted loss of privacy, courtesy of The Press. As for the track, once again I find myself in agreement with ARL here: It’s an okay song. I don’t dislike, just nothing that has me doing cartwheels either, and—yes—it may be because by this point the LP is starting to wear thin with too many similar tracks of similar tempo. It would probably be more to my liking if I ever listened to it outside the context of this album.
That is a great price on this 2020 Lola Big Box set. They must be selling off their leftover stock, so if anyone is on the fence about this, now is your chance at a great deal before it’s gone. @palisantrancho You’re only asking about the “Percy” tracks, but this can be applied to all of the new 2020 mixes and remixes on this set. Overall, the stereo spectrum has been moved closer to center and more reverb has been applied. At the time of its early 70s release dry sound and mix was the preference. No longer. Had to find my notes at lunch. Moments (2020 Mix) – more reverb, more centered as mentioned. The new 2020 mix highlights the band’s performances more with the orchestra mixed lower, moved to the right and used more as an accompaniment. Once the orchestra comes in on the original mix, it dominates. The orchestra is in the right channel and fades in with only the electric guitar at the start. Acoustic and electric fade in on the original without the orchestra. In the original mix, the Orchestra is centered and comes in a little later. Acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar and bass drum are all much louder, and stay more prominent throughout the song as opposed to the original mix. The electric piano comes in a little later in the left channel but then gets brought down later and shifted to the right where it was in the original mix for the whole track. The organ that was in the left channel in the original mix is nowhere to be found and has been mixed out of the new 2020 mix. The Way Love Used To Be (2020 Monitor Mix) – The more reverb rule still applies with this new 2020 mix, but both the original mix and this new one have the instruments in the same positions with the acoustic guitar right center and the piano left center and Ray’s vocal in the center. It’s only acoustic guitar, piano, vocals, and orchestra with the latter also being in the center in the original mix but the orchestra is not in this new mix at all. This is probably an early mix prior to the orchestra being mixed into it (or even recorded yet) hence the monitor mix in the parenthetical part of the title, but it has that 2020 reverb applied especially to Ray’s vocals. There are some wordless Ray vocalizations during the short instrumental section that were mixed out of the original mix and the song ends with a couple of footsteps and then what sounds like someone switching something off. So again, here the new 2020 mix highlights The Kinks performance which in this case is Ray and (probably) John Gosling. A note on one of the 7” singles included in this box. The Apeman 7” has the mono mix of the alternate version (the different recording) of this song and this is not included on the CDs here. The CD here has the stereo mix of this alternate version. The mono mix of the alternate version is on CD but back on the 2014 Lola/Percy 2 CD set and there are still other tracks in that 2014 set that are not in the 2020 sets. I’ll point out one bit of frustration with this new 2020 set, but it applies to the Big Box only. Most of the bonus material on the extra CDs has the tracks crossfaded with one another so the beginnings and endings overlap. In contrast, for those 2020 Lola Big Box extra tracks that did make the cut down to the 2020 single CD and the 2020 2 CD sets, these tracks have clean starts and endings, and some of these have extra music on either end that was omitted from the Big Box due to the crossfades. Grrr . It's still a great set with much otherwise unavailable material, including the live 2006 Austin City Limits performance of A Long Way From Home that we’ll get to next week which is the only official release of anything from that show, so enjoy the set! I’ll limit my posts today (maybe) to this instead of the song of the day, which should please some. I’m more comfortable talking about this side of the music anyway in case that's not known yet .