The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    It should be mentioned that 'Still Searching' was originally written and recorded circa 1976 for possible inclusion on 'Sleepwalker'. Can you imagine say, if they'd re recorded 'Rosemary Rose' for inclusion on 'State Of Confusion'? that's a comparable time and era distance. It does indeed sound like it would have fitted well on 'Sleepwalker' or 'Misfits'. Now, this may be completely unfair/wrong on my part but knowing it's provenance, I can't help but think that Ray 'took one off the shelf' when he wanted something kinda poppier and brighter for this spot on the album but didn't have anything newly written in that mode. It's not bad but it's a bit blando, esp in the rather generic lyric: 'just like a rolling stone'? c'mon Ray, I know you can do better than that!
     
    D.B., Steve62, Wondergirl and 19 others like this.
  2. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Drift Away

    A central riff here hints at the Kinks own Jukebox Hero but in a subtle way.
    Some of Ray's phrasing (at least) reminds me of Mick's in the later Stones cut Sweet Neo Con.

    An improvement on the previous song but no all time Klassic is my view and it's more than a feeling as Ray states; "Close my eyes and drift away!"

    Dave is again in the votes for MVP though i also really like how Ray plays the foreboding section on the back 9!

    Oh Ray i hope Phobia continues to give me yet greater joy as for the final time i do want to get lost in your rock 'n' roll as Dave riffs away!
     
    D.B., Steve62, Wondergirl and 16 others like this.
  3. TeddyB

    TeddyB Senior Member

    Location:
    Hollywoodland
    Still Searching
    I’m always surprised at how much I like this song when I hear it. It always sucks me in, more with each new section. Conceptually, it’s nothing new. It’s Ray. But it’s such a good track, and that excellent (for the time) Bob Clearmountain mix. Strong vocals, strong playing. The too-tight nature of the rhythm section Ray talked about in his book isn’t a problem on this one. Ray also seems more buoyant here than in some of his misfit tales. Like he’s still glad to be on his path. Pretty damn impressive for the Kinks to put up such a strong showing thirty years in.
     
    D.B., Steve62, Wondergirl and 20 others like this.
  4. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Apparently it's...... "Scattered!"
     
  5. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    Great melody, superb vocals. Musically/production wise, it’s pretty close to Now and Then (beginning and end mirroring each other) and Lost and Found, with pronounced eighties touch (though a little less slick) and a fantastic melodic guitar solo at the end. I hear some very classic chord progressions, somehow I even get a Dire Straits vibe, Romeo and Juliet or something. Thematically, it’s pure Ray, a sequel to Misfits (or a prequel, since it was apparently written in 1976 ?). You’ve got to give it to Ray, once again : the way each of the first three songs paves the way for the next is a thing of beauty. Once a concept album guy, always a concept album guy. Or, as the man said in the Return to Waterloo interview posted three months ago : “once an art student, always an art student”.
    (the song may be 15+ years old, but I don't have any 'Entertainment'-style issue with it)

    I love this. Like @TeddyB, I love this more than I thought. Time’s worked in favor of this song, as it happens sometimes. It was an early favorite, an immediate highlight, but then I remember I soon got a bit tired of it. Only a Dream was the same, those big chorus songs, so formally perfect and precise that they can exhaust themselves faster than other, more tentative and uncertain tunes. It’s not that I didn’t like it anymore, it’s just that I didn’t need to listen to it anymore. Now that years have passed, whenever I put it on, I find my reservations are gone and I’m just taking in the astonishing craft, the way the verse completes itself with an extra line to set up the chorus, the way the chorus doubles itself to get to the big minor chord change that resolves the song on an unresolved melancholy, which is the whole point of the “still searching” notion. He won’t stop searching anytime soon, he knows it, he understands it, he accepts it as his condition. That’s who he is.
     
    D.B., TeddyB, Wondergirl and 22 others like this.
  6. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Unless you do a song by song thtead of Flo-rida.
     
  7. Zerox

    Zerox Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Cards on the table, this is one of my favourite latter-era Kinks songs (even if it is rooted in, er, the earlier part of latter-era Kinkdom!).

    It does what it sets out to do and does it in exemplary fashion. That initial new-age sounding synth motif gives way to a tried and trusted chord sequence but the vocal melody is sublime and it goes through those moves so well. The way it comes out of the (early middle eight?) section at around 2 mins 10 with those heavenly harmonies is beautiful.

    It's not perfect, I will concede; I could do without the Al Kooper organ stabs reference under the "just like a rolling stone" lyric...yes, RD, we get it! The drum and bass breakdown at 3:45 would probably be good fun live and I do quite like it but it could be half the length here and not be missed. And Ray's vocal ad libs on this part jar a little with the theme of the song, even if it's mildly amusing to hear his bedroom voice... However, then that brilliantly melodic guitar solo soars forth and all doubts are forgotten.

    This is another track which isn't far off five minutes in duration but overall feels to me less like it's been bulked out with repeated sections. It flows through its arrangement effortlessly for the most part and by the end I'm reminded yet again of why RD on form is top of the songwriting tree.
     
  8. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    "Still Searching" - another song on this album I really like. I like the sentiment of the song. The narrator uses various words to describe himself - drifter, nomad, gypsy, refugee, rolling stone. Many of these are applicable to the touring musician but they also are apt for anyone who is trying to find something or somewhere. And that is the key idea of the song - the journey continues because the desire or need is still there. And that's just a really positive way of expressing a point of view. The song does not say "I am fed up" or anything like that - it emphasizes the desire and need to find resolution. It is a pretty simple song really with a nice melody to the chorus and some tasteful guitar. I was probably influenced by the fact that this was played late in the show when I saw the Kinks and Ray said it was one of his favourites from the album.
     
  9. pantofis

    pantofis Senior Member

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I guess the reason to resurrect this "Still Searching" after 15 years is that it starts with the phrase "I'm a drifter" which makes for a nice cue after "Drift Away".
     
  10. Zerox

    Zerox Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I was talking to someone the other day about lazy chorus lyrics (hey, if someone invites me to dinner they have to put up with such conversations!) and I reckon the master of this is Chris Rea.

    The chorus of 'Let's Dance' is..."Let's dance...yeah, yeah."
    The chorus of 'On The Beach' is..."On the beach...yeah, yeah."
    The chorus of 'Auberge' is..."Auberge...Auberge...Auberge...Auberge" (evidently the "yeah yeah"s had been booked for a session at another studio that day)
    The chorus of 'Yeah Yeah' is..."Yeah, yeah...yeah yeah."

    Okay, I made the last one up but you get the idea. I'm sure there are many examples in which Chris has developed the chorus lyrics a bit more but these along with 'Driving Home For Christmas' and 'The Road To Hell' probably get the most airplay so my angle gets reinforced regularly!
     
  11. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Still Searching

    I know this song of Ray Davies well and unreservedly call it a latterday klassic, if i made playlists like @Zeki it would find itself a home!

    Restless Ray may have used himself as the jump off point for inspiration here however through the years he often had a wife, home, job and at least financial security.
    But as we all well know Ray is also a genius songwriter who often relates by writing with wide woven nets to draw listeners in.
    @mark winstanley avidly relates on a personal level and a key word he used was poignant which I find no more fitting than when Ray states:

    "This world is full of restless souls
    Sleeping rough and living day to day
    Drifters who left families wondering why they went away"

    In this case the families often wonder not solely as the departed member won't divulge why but often as there is no further contact with drifters destination still unknown.

    Geographically aside who hasn't at least felt this internal drift in at least some point in their lives?

    Musically this is not cluttered, forced, middle mixed or angry but sounds more confident, sincere, classy, tastefull, open and yes poignant when clearly nothing else yet has.

    Ray's lyric and vocal are controlled yet moving as is the arrangement and instrumentation with Dave's fills complete with pregnant pauses as his guitar thoughtfully surveys the protagonists life before giving it's carefully considered and dignified response.
    The solo is much the same but speaks in full sentences that logically build in a tasty, mature fashion that may have alarmed the boy that played the solo on YRGM a generation ago.
    There is a melodic motif Dave comes to play which is a (now) slowed down lick also used in the Do It Again solo which prophetically he has.

    Edit: The living rough and sleeping day to day reminded me of the misfit sleeping in a field.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2022
  12. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    +1
     
  13. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    I am on the eastern side of Florida, down on the southern tip. This one came in on the western side (the gulf coast). We got the “dirty side” of the storm, weaker, so just a tropical storm ( a level below a hurricane, but still severe). Mark W is on the west coast, way way up north. Not sure if it even has hit him yet. I got up this am to low wind and calm seas. We are fine. The people on the west coast side got it bad. Hopefully Mark W was north enough it didn’t hit him much either.
     
  14. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Still Searching:

    Like most “typical” Kinks ballads, typical = awesome. Man, Ray just makes it seem so easy when he drops a Loony Balloon or a Heart of Gold. Nothing like 30 years of songwriting practice I guess. We may not be having our minds blown anymore by a new Kinks album, but songs like this, yesterday’s Drift Away and a few more to come on this opus make every Kinks album worth owning.

    Ray is in fine voice here and the music backs him perfectly. I like the keyboard/synth intro actually, it doesn’t overstay its welcome and it lets the gentle song glide right in. From there, the song smoothly transitions into the guitar and bass-led song it becomes. Musically, the whole song works for me, but special mention to the part right at 3:30 where the guitars recede and some funky bass and drums, first alone and then with some organ, carry things forward for a bit while Ray breathily sings a few words in a very cool voice, and then Dave steps back in to fire off a just perfect solo that runs all the way until the end.

    The production is great IMO, no leftover 80s bombast, just good clean sounds. Lyrically, Ray is on point too, telling a great tale of the drifter’s loneliness and regret. At 5 minutes, this is again a long song but my attention never waivers. Frankly, I would have been happy with another 30 seconds of Dave soloing some more on the way out the door.

    Like yesterday’s song, I think today’s song gets the highest of marks. These are just perfect little Kinks Klassics in my book.
     
  15. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    ‘Still Searching’:
    A cloying synth start that, thank goodness, flows into a pleasant acoustic, warm-voiced Ray opening vocal.

    Horrible chorus, by-the-numbers: “still searching, still searching…”, no, this I cannot accept.

    I won’t place this in the active dislike column but the best I can do is shrug it off as indifference.

    Current scorecard: 3 likes (I consider ‘Opening’ as intro to ‘Wall of Fire’); 0 dislike and 1 indifferent.

    Playlist: 0
     
  16. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Let us hope so!
     
  17. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Still Searching

    I'm an example of someone who has lived a very stable, grounded life.... and still I thoroughly grok this. Really a wonderful song.

    Love Dave's Bridge as well.

    Yeah, this is a playlist keeper.
     
  18. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Still Searching

    Really interesting hearing this was originally written in 1976, because upon first listening, I really thought Dave's guitar solo later song seemed very Sleepwalker-era. The bass groove could fit into that album or Misfits, but really it's that guitar tone/solo that takes me back to the late 70s. It's got that bit of country-rock cleanness that just sounds so great. I think this doesn't get the Entertainment label because this is not an old recording, it's a new recording and the sound/quality/production really fits in with the rest of this album.

    There are some classic backing Kinkian "oooh, oooh" vocals during the GREAT "This world is full of restless souls.." bridge... but like Wall of Fire, I am not a fan of the wall of vocals in the chorus. But I get that was the style of the time. I just don't need to hear three or four Ray's singing "Still searchin', still searchin'".

    I like the little bit of an almost bridge tucked into the chorus to change it up, with the "When all my energy starts letting me down..".

    But of all the lines here, about searching, wondering, like a gypsy or a refugee... the key line is "Perhaps that's how I wanna be". To go back to the Sleepwalker roots, "Living the life that I chose..." indeed.
     
  19. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    “Still Searching”: To me, it’s the first keeper of the album. I’ve had it play in my mind these past several days. It’s a very good song and I too can relate to the lyrics in my own way. Also, I hope that the Avids in Florida are OK. It looks like a pretty nasty storm down there.
     
  20. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Yep, I can see The Tramp signing this, as noted by @ARL . It’s not as good as the Tramp’s songs, but it’s a decent album track and the best song so far.
     
    Steve62, markelis, Brian x and 13 others like this.
  21. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    Still Searching

    I'm not searching anymore, this is where the album really starts to hit it's stride for me and in a big way. This song knocked me out the first time I heard it back in 1993 and it still does today. I am an unabashed fan of this song, everything about it. I identify with the lyrics but not from a distance or geographic standpoint. Is Ray (or me) in a never ending search for one's true self, which may hopefully be found someday, or is the search for one's soul, which will likely never be found if it doesn't already exist? Maybe the true goal is to actually never find any of these things.

    Musically this knocks me out me out in so many ways, so many nuances in this song. The bass and especially the drums are spot on for this song, none of it is flashy because they are not supposed to be, but still lots of little things going on that help elevate this track for me. I love the splash cymbals that are scattered around in various places. Dave's guitar solo at the end is great and is very different from what he normally does. Notice how he stays in the lower registers with short, fast bursts with no long sustained notes and just a couple of slight short string bends. Just perfect for this song.

    But the thing that really grabs my attention, and I anticipate it every time I play this track, is that bridge starting at 1:53 "This world is full of..."
    I just love the chords and the way the melody soars around them. This section is magic for me, and it's only here this one time. It does not return again later on the song, though yes the intro synth is this melody.

    Funnily enough, despite this being a major highlight since the first time I heard it, I never bothered to actually try to figure these chords out until last night. I don't trust the online chord sites, so I tried messing around with it, but probably don't have this exactly right.

    The chorus right before this ends on a F maj, but then this bridge goes somewhere else entirely unexpected with the transition. It seems to be an overall chordal effect with several instruments playing slightly different notes/chords, but the overall effect (starting at "This world is full of ") seems to be an A flat 6, but with a B flat on the bottom string, then shifting to B flat 6 proper. This then repeats a couple of times and the bridge then resolves back to C maj. The vocal note Ray sings at "full" and again at "fam"(-ilies) is a G which is the 6th in B flat. Magic.

    I'm hoping one of our true guitarists/melodic instrumentalists here will check this and describe why this works so well. I've joked before about drummers trying to figure out and describe theory and usually the two don't mix very well :laugh:.

    Ray evidently likes this song too, old or not. He included it on the bonus disc in the 1997 The Singles Collection/The Songs Of Ray Davies Waterloo Sunset along with "Scattered" on that disc. However, it was not included in the 2008 Picture Book box set which is very surprising since that set includes 5 tracks from Phobia.

    "Still Searching" finds a big fan in me.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2022
  22. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Many of these songs, and especially the verse on this one, sound to me like what an AI would come up with if asked to compose a Ray Davies tune. The chorus adds a touch of Steve Miller, which I didn't see mentioned by anybody, to my surprise.
     
  23. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "Still Searching"

    I have to admit that this has become a bit of an earworm over the last week. That's not always a good thing, but I am enjoying it more than I have in the past.
    This is what makes me think we have already heard it all better before. If it wasn't good enough for 1976, but it becomes one of Ray's favorites from 1993, tells me that they are coasting on fumes at this point.
    I agree. The entire song is pleasant enough, but comes off as generic and as second rate Ray material. It also points the way to Ray's solo career, which I also find to be mostly safe and bland.
    It starts out sounding similar to the 80 Days demos. In fact, it reminds me of the melody of one of those songs. I think it may be "It Could Have Been Him"?
    There are also moments where this reminds me of Sting with the bass line, and especially when he sings "This world is full of restless souls, sleeping rough and living day to day, drifters who left families wondering why they went away."
    I hear this as well. I don't listen to them, but I use to have Mark Knopfler's album Sailing to Philadelphia, and this doesn't sound far off from what I remember about that album. Dave's guitar solo has some of that Knopfler tone.

    I'll take this song over most of the other tunes on this album, but I'm not overly excited about it.
     
  24. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I listened to a bit of the Pye Years playlist this a.m., on shuffle (naturally) and it triggered some overall recap essay thoughts (a short one @Michael Streett !).

    As for the shuffle, I only listened to five songs and thought it interesting that two were Dave songs. And, no, he doesn’t come close, not even a smidgen close, to sounding like he does in our current discussions. In short, yeah, it sounds like a different band! :D
     
  25. CheshireCat

    CheshireCat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cheshire
    Still Searching
    Initially this one didn't grab be as it perhaps should have. It's grown on me over the years. Starting with a pastoral sounding synthesized introduction it moves into a harmony laden song which could well have been sung by Preservation's Tramp. I like Bob's drum-work on this for the initial verses, but that beat gets a bit lost as the song builds to a fuller sound.

    Maybe it's a shade too repetitive with the 'still searching, still searching' segments, and I wouldn't have complained if it was a minute or so shorter. Having said that, as listening to the song while writing this, it seems to have worked through quicker than I remember. A nice clean guitar solo from Dave towards the end. It ends nicely and calmly with 'and I'm still searching for my dream', ready for the onslaught of the title track up next.

    Interesting to read it's a 'Sleepwalker' leftover/idea. I could see it fitting in the theme there. Also like the idea of moving from 'Drift Away' to 'I'm a drifter...'

    This palate cleanser was certainly necessary amongst the noise of the two preceding songs and the one following. Either way, it's grown in my estimation, and it's a keeper. If, as mentioned by several on here and elsewhere that the album would be better as a ten track - this one would be a keeper - even though it's not particularly 'memorable'.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2022

Share This Page

molar-endocrine