The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    That anecdote fits very nicely with the lyrics to Suspicious Minds!
     
  2. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    Really good points there. From my listening of Kinks live shows (up to 1995 - got a couple to go before Oslo 1996), they were never a nostalgia act as they were always in the moment and pretty revved up live. They also worked in new material. I don't think a reunion would have been any different except for the new material aspect. In that respect they remind me of the Faces - sloppier live than in the studio but better. I think you are right that Ray ultimately saw himself as a Kink first even if they retired and he did the solo thing.
     
  3. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    OK, so I've just watched the Ray doc, in glorious 2003 DVD-RAM quality - it's probably the first time I've watched it in 20 years!

    He talks about some of the things that have been discussed on the thread today - the difficulty of starting a solo career after being in a band for so long, how being a solo artist will change the way he writes etc.

    We get sneak previews of "Stand Up Comic" and "After The Fall". I wonder what I thought of these in 2003, and did I remember that I had heard these previews when I heard the album three years later? I doubt it.

    And then we get a bit about the "Come Dancing" stage show, and the new songs he's written for this - including a snippet of one called "A Better Thing". When do we cover this show and these songs??

    It's a pretty good documentary - it acknowledges that the 70s existed, even showing us a few album covers - rather than ignoring it, but then we go straight to "Come Dancing". And we get to see how remarkably young Paul Weller, David Bowie, Elvis Costello and Bob Geldof looked in 2003 - not very far removed from how they looked in their heyday.
     
  4. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I believe Mark has this lined up for 2009.
     
  5. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Yes indeed...
    Flying blind .... and loving it! ... but yes, these things are all in the mix and planned :righton:
     
  6. StefanWq

    StefanWq Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallentuna, Sweden
    Run Away From Time

    This track is quite catchy and immediate and has good performances by each musician. In particular, I like the organ playing on the song. However, as a track it lacks that extra something to make it special. I think the lyrics are rather average. Perhaps they are placement lyrics and then Ray never did go back to putting some more work into them. I never skip this track when I listen to the album but I never seek it out as a stand-alone song either.
     
  7. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Runaway from Time (re-evaluation) (free-form Sunday edition)

    Talk about a grower. I really didn't like this one the first few times I listened to it. Even after I came to appreciate its musical aspects, I got there by ignoring the lyrics. But it isn't just the music that's been going around in my head the last 48 hours.

    So here's how I work out, or justify, my newfound appreciation of the lyric.

    The premise of the song, philosophically, is: "Hey, my friend/You can't run away from time/They say you can't fight fate/Time won't wait... And time is the Avenger."

    Time is relentless, impersonal, fixed, immovable, inevitable. There's no escaping it. Don't bother trying.

    But let's run anyway. Let's run and run and run and run and run and run and run. Not because any living creature has ever escaped it, but because we're most hopelessly and beautifully human when we dare to defy our destiny.

    Maybe the lyric is kind of like "rage, rage against the dying of the light." Ray knows as well as anyone that there's no winning, but victory comes in our willingness to go up against the laws of the universe, not in having any hope of thwarting them.

    We can't cheat or fool or conceal our hubris from the gods. We're sure to be killed in the battle; but while we breathe, we refuse to surrender.

    So the update is that this song has become a real favorite. Maybe by distorting the lyric to suit my own philosophical predispositions, but I'm sure RD will forgive me.
     
  8. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Mark I always thought you were AO ... "K" ; )
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2023
  9. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Does that mean that Dave ended the band or that Ray felt happier (or more secure) doing Kink related solo work or both?
     
  10. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Ah yes Ray stepped out of the Kinks in the Emperor's new clothes!
     
  11. CheshireCat

    CheshireCat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cheshire
    Reading between the lines and comments from both, it does seem to have been Dave who has been less keen to get the band back together - for example for many years refusing if Mick Avory was to be involved.
     
  12. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    It's good for you that unlike Tim Paine you weren't the captain of the Australian cricket team when it all came out!
     
  13. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    @donstemple will translate that into Thread Years. (Maybe :D )
     
  14. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    :laugh: It pains me to say it, but I predict we’ll hit 2009 in 2023 :cry:. I know we have several more solo albums remaining, but I want this thread to last forever. But alas, nothing lasts forever….

    To add to Freeform Sunday a bit, I watched those three YouTube guys rank all 24 Kinks studio album. The thing that stood out to me is how vastly different each person’s list was. Some had State of Confusion near the bottom, while another had it in the top 10. One had Soap Opera in the top 5, but another had it dead last. Throughout the bands career, and now into his solo career, Ray took bits and pieces of contemporary music and added his qwirkiness to make it so special. Mod rock? Baroque pop? Folk rock? Americana/New Orleans jazz? Vaudeville? AOR? New wave/punk? 80s/90s rock? Now later 90s/2000s rock? All done, and all with Ray’s unique melodic and song structures and incredible, often biting, lyrics. I like (even love) a bunch of other artists, but no one else comes close.

    I remember listening to Other People’s Lives in 2006/2007, and my sister asked how old I was (me, being in my early 30s, listening to a new album by a 62 year old artist). But I knew what was good. Jokes on her, because 6 years later I was playing (on loop) a new song by a bunch of 70 year olds, From There to Back Again.

     
  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    The Tourist.

    stereo mix (4:46), recorded 4 Feb, 2003 at Konk Studios, Hornsey, London

    The natives are getting restless in the tropical heat
    Work is scarce and children play while the dogs fight in the street
    And in the hotels all the tourists dine on local fare
    While the waiters stand and stare

    And in the street taxi cabs crawl around for vice
    To the sound of the tourists in the casino
    Rattling the dice, money money

    I'm just another tourist checking out the slums
    With my plastic Visa drinking with my chums
    I dance and swing while ABBA sing
    And I flash my Platinum
    To the sound of Livin' La Vida Loca
    Yes, Livin' La Vida Loca

    While in the heat of the street
    The native beats his drum
    Take the money 'cause it's just another tourist
    Having lots of fun

    Oh let's go to the Mardi Gras
    Oh let's kiss the Blarney Stone
    Oh let's hear the Wailing Wall
    Oh the Empire State is so very tall
    And the Taj Mahal really has a pretty dome
    And everywhere that I go I say
    I want to make it my home

    I'm just another tourist checking out the slums
    With my plastic Visa drinking with my chums
    Money money

    Written by: Ray Davies
    Published by: Davray Music, Ltd.

    We open with a police radio, and the general sounds of people, but underneath you can hear the song come in, though with frequencies cut and squashed so as to just create a rhythm and the vague remnants of the chord intro.

    For some reason the musical intro makes me think of a mellow variant of CCR. That rolling, rotating chord arpeggio. Underneath we have a solid bass, that is part rhythm support, part vocal melody support, and part wandering tourist.... I really like it.

    The opening verse is just painting a picture of where we are... and I kind of get the impression that we're in Louisiana ...
    I like the idea of the Taxi Cabs crawling around for vice... Picking up the drunks and the prostitutes and taking them where they need to be.
    But also running the tourists to the casino to gamble it up.
    The tourists are hoping to make it big and spend a night on the town, and the casino is hoping to create some revenue for the town, and themselves.
    Money Money indeed.

    The next verse is kind of painting the odd picture we have...
    A tourist at the bar in a casino, racking it all up on a plastic card...
    Living the crazy life indeed

    Then we look at the idea that this is some kind of symbiotic relationship.
    The tourist spot is looking to get money out of the tourist, and the tourist is looking to be entertained, and create an illusion of worldliness to sell their friends when they get home.

    In the change Ray captures the idea of tourism so very well...
    The act of looking at some things and not really soaking in what they are all about.
    Let's hear the Wailing Wall, as if it is just a neat little gimmick
    The Empire State is really tall ... it has this kind of dopey schtick to what's going on here.
    The Taj Mahal has a pretty dome... when of course the Taj Mahal has a much deeper historic thing going on than its sweet dome lol

    I haven't been on many vacations, but every vacation I've ever heard about has involved someone sharing the information that they wish, or wished, that they could have stayed there, made it home, didn't want to leave.
    No matter where we live, it seems most think somewhere else would be better ... and I gather that many at the locations we seem to covet, would likely prefer to be somewhere else.

    Seems like everywhere I've ever been, most folks seem to think somewhere else would be better, for the exact opposite reasons that someone else thinks where that person is, is better. One of those weird quirks of humanity.....

    Then we have this reference to just another tourist checking out the slums while flashing his plastic money card... There is a really interesting theme there....

    Again, musically I love this, and the use of dynamics here are again really excellent.
    The opening sfx, and then the cruisy, rolling groove of the verse opening section.....
    Then we get that fantastic punch in of rock, at the "money money" section... I love it.

    The groove... and slinkiness of this is excellent, and I find it really engaging.

    the bridge, which doesn't really change much musically, because we're grooving here, where we get the unified "ahhhhh, lets go to the mardi Gras..." is excellent
    Even the accent at the end of the section. It's so subtle...
    And everywhere that I go I say
    I want to make it my home
    but the way this section is accented with the rhythm is beautiful, and it rolls us back into the groove of the song.

    Then again at "money money" we get this great punchy rolling rock section that really rips the dynamics to the next level and then drops out for the end of the song.... Like the tourist leaving town, and taking his "money money" away...

    This song isn't probably as obvious as some of the others, but I reckon it's another great track on here ... though it does strike me as an odd choice for a promo song

     
  16. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    After the recreational catchy chorus-led Run Run Run Run Away from Time, we’re back to observational witty chorus-less Ray. I don’t prefer one over the other, I’m a Ray Davies fan, I love brainy Ray as much as catchy Ray, mocking Ray, empathetic Ray, funny Ray, serious Ray etc. We’re lucky to have so many Rays, sunshine Ray, sunset Ray, autumn Ray, Rays for all seasons. What’s incredibly consistent, though, is the existential nature of these songs, running away from time in one song and in the next one hiding from it, hiding from everything really, by being a tourist, a tourist everywhere, a tourist in one's own life perhaps. It’s a pointed satire, yes, but one that almost resonates like an theme song for Ray in his “lost years”.
     
  17. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    The police radio at the beginning made me think I was listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon! Listening to this song, I really like the guitar riffing sections. Otherwise, it is an nteresting Ray song - in this one, he is the tourist visiting the famous sites of the world with his plastic credit card listening to ABBA and "Livin' La Vida Loca" (had to laugh at that one especially when he repeats it as if to say "yeah, that song"). It is an interesting song to me but not a whole lot to it. Ray uses a Cockney-like voice for this one. Kind of reminded me of the old Monty Python skit where Eric Idle is the English tourist who complains he cannot get Watney's Red Barrel beer in the foreign lands he visits.
     
  18. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I really like this one. I like the sound - which is more the exception than the rule on this album. It sounds like Blur to me, partly due to the accent, but also the 90s slow groove (I don't hate all about the 90s, only most of it). Ray's clearly making fun of himself as well as all the other Western tourists here. Well-written, witty, pleasant to listen to.
     
  19. Rockford & Roll

    Rockford & Roll Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midway, KY
    The Tourist - Good call on the CCR vibe, Mark. Definitely a little swampy Run Through The Jungle thing here. Then come the arena rock guitars I guess to represent thew touristy commercial side. I like this.
     
  20. fspringer

    fspringer Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    The Tourist: I was half expecting Sheryl Crow to start in after the intro. Not sure why, but this hits me the right way. Maybe the soft/hard 90s ruse of verse/chorus structure is a bit much. But this feels more like the Ray Davies I've always related to, as opposed to the more heavy/serious/rock Ray presented on some of these tracks. We've all been tourists, and some of us live in places where tourists are a daily nuisance. I usually don't frame their presence in terms of money - far more so the realization of how much the local economy depends on their presence, while their presence detracts from the authenticity of any given land area. I'm just as guilty as anyone! And I'm sure Ray has lived the other side of the coin many times over in London.
     
  21. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    Nice mellow mid morning listen.
    Will revisit the complete album within a day or two.
     
  22. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    ‘The Tourist’: I love this one with its steady beat, the occasional swirl of the organ, Ray’s exaggerated (and blasé) vocal. It encapsulates the tourist thing …pretty much perfectly.

    Playlister #3 off of the album.
     
  23. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "The Tourist"

    This is one that sounds like it would be more at home (if a tourist can be at home anywhere) on the Americana albums, and I think that Ray mentions in the notes that this is the starting point for a new project. The main part of the song doesn't bring much of a reaction from me one way or the other, but the middle section delivers the goods as it evokes past glories while not sounding like any particular Kinks song. The loud guitar parts also serve to liven things up. Having watched the Ray documentary from 2003 yesterday, it's apparent that his voice in most of this song is basically his normal speaking voice.
     
  24. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    “The Tourist”: Another great song from Ray’s album that I can relate to, especially since my hometown gets full of tourists every Summer and Fall, w/a mad crescendo in October. The song itself does have a nice swampy CCR/NOLA groove to it, while the lyrics describe the tourist looking for a superficial authenticity armed w/his VISA card.

    Another great song about tourism is this gem by The Damned, featuring the late, great Vivian Stanshall:

     
  25. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    The Tourist and the native - another complicated relationship explored. They are dependent upon one another, which seems to breed an underlying, mutual contempt, especially since the relationship often hinges on an economic disparity. The music has a nice, steady groove, but there's an underlying tension that hints at this antagonism.

    The "Oh let's go to the Mardi Gras" section is probably my favorite bridge/interlude of Ray's, I enjoy the long, steady buildup to it, and I so look forward to singing out the high harmony part along with him. The lyrics in this section are dripping with irony and drawn out deliciously; and then, I sense, there's a gentle and humble shift back to sincerity and empathy at the finish: "I want to make it my home" - raising the question, as Mark alluded to, what is it that the tourist seeks?

    I also take great pleasure in the rhymes in this section:

    Mardi - Blarney
    Gras - wall - tall - Mahal
    Stone - dome - home


    ... and in the fact that it all comes to rest on the word home.
     

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