Thursday - Other People's Lives Friday - Stand Up Comic Saturday - Over My Head Monday Feb 6th - Thanksgiving Day - Other People's Lives wrap up Tuesday - Ray - Austin City Limits I'm Not Like Everybody Else, Where Have All The Good Times Gone, After The Fall, Next Door Neighbour Wednesday - Over My Head, Run Away From Time, 20th Century Man Thursday - The Tourist, A Long Way From Home, The Getaway, You Really Got Me Friday - Ray - Sold On Song 2006 pt1 Saturday - Ray - Sold On Song 2006 pt2 Monday Feb 13th - Ray - Sold On Song 2006 pt3 Tuesday - Dave - Fractured Mindz Wednesday - This Is The Time Thursday - Free Me Friday - All About Me Saturday - Come To the River Monday - Feb 20th - Giving Tuesday - Remember Who You Are Wednesday - The Waiting Hours Thursday - Rock Siva Friday - The Blessing Saturday - Fractured Mindz, God In My Brain Monday - Feb 27th - Ray Workingman's Cafe I have made an alteration to slot in three twenty minute sections of Sold On Song... I have no idea what to expect, so I have no idea how to slot it in yet, but I figure that should work. I'm happy to cover anything that lays in our path guys, but please give me a decent heads up, it takes a lot of time and prep to set this up. Cheers
Lol Well I'm listening to Sold On Song while I'm doing my paperwork, and it's an excellent inclusion.
I think a lot of us feel that way. Maybe when this thread finally does come to an end, we can start over at the beginning. "Do you feel any differently about this song than you did when we covered it 5 years ago?"
(And cramming for the quiz will take at least a month. At least if @donstemple heads up the exam department.)
Having had a look at what's available pro recorded, it seems there's very little of the 2013 headlining festival show, so perhaps scratch that one. I'm sure it was televised at the time, but it's not available it seems properly. A shame, as it pretty much marks the end - or the beginning of the end - of Ray's regular concert tour appearances. Glastonbury 2010 was shown on BBC but the show isn't on, other than a few clips - one of which being an emotional 'Days' just a few days after the death of Pete Quaife. Unless it re-appears, it seems these 2006-7 shows are as good as it gets with Ray live in concert. There's a lengthy interview from 2009-10, around the time of 'Choral Collection', with occasional acoustic snippets to go with the discussion, in 11 parts on youtube 'Ray Davies - On The Record'.
I think 'Lonely Sky' is my favourite on the album. Or 'The Tower'. It's a very good album. I think 'Crusader' was the last album of his storyteller phase, before turning towards something more commercial on 'Eastern Wind'.
The Getaway: This one had not clicked for me until this morning actually. I had listen to it over and over and thought it seemed a bit long and aimless. And yet when I put on the YouTube video mark embedded, it all just settled in nicely. I’ve read nobody’s reviews except for Mark’s, because it hit me so squarely today that he sounded just like Neil Young that I thought I would wait before I read others comments to see if anyone else heard the same thing. The cool lazy grooving guitar, a la my two fave Neil songs, Cowboy in the Sand and Down by the River, that quavery high pitched vocal. If only he had drafted Neil in to lay down an eight minute guitar solo throughout the song, it would’ve been perfect. So yeah, once again, this thread does its job, and makes me reappraise a song that I had pushed to the side. This one’s a cool jam!
The Getaway (Lonesome Train) I find this track fascinating in an almost mysterious way. It has a slow blues/country-ish groove that normally doesn't appeal all that much to me, but here it really works. To me, it's a very cinematic song. Every time I hear it I get images of someone in the Old West going on a long train journey through vast, desolate landscapes with not much happening outside the window, on a very hot day and the journey feeling like it will never reach its destination. In the context of this album, I hear the lyrics as a metaphor for battling a depression, hoping a change will come but not seeing it happening any time soon. Ray's singing has a blend of both weariness and optimism about it and I think that this enhances the song. All the musicians play with great empathy too, making the song really special.
It's very quirky. Patricia The Stripper, The Painter, Spanish Train, Lonely Sky, Just Another Poor Boy, but I don't dislike any of them. The Getaway was the first album of his I bought as a pup, and personally I loved the piano ballads, and I think Borderline is a great track.
The Getaway (Lonesome Train) I really like this slow groove, and especially the bass line here. And then just some different guitars echoing around in the distance. It does sorta slow down and break up the flow of the album, perhaps a bit too close to the similar swampy groove of The Tourist. Could this have worked better as a final track? Especially with that nice coda? Also with the theme of getting away.... Interesting to hear the Chris Isaak or Neil Young or CCR comparisons... I always just heard this as a Ray Davies song that did fit in some of the other soundscapes on this album. But I do hear a a few guitar accents that remind me of Born on the Bayou... A very atmospheric track, and I sorta get lost in it... in a good way. Good instrumentation, arrangement, an older Ray vocal... nice coda and instrumental breaks. The "chorus" if anything is just that instrumental intro that gets played at the beginning and then immediately after the "...your getaway" lines. The "It might hit you" is repeated, but seems like more a like a bridge to me? Again, seems like an unconventional song structure. Actually it is a similar structure to Sunny Afternoon, when he sings "lazing on a sunny afternooooon." refrain, and then the intro guitar melody comes in again with the "noon"... and that descending riff of that song is in the intro, but also almost repeated like a chorus. And with that said, I have long that the "sunny afternoon" lyrical quote was a bit too on the nose, and not really needed. I prefer the more obscure musical and lyrical quotes
Ray's delivery of the opening verses of Wall of Fire has always reminds me of Neil Young ("Standing at the end of the horizon") ... and the band's playing on that song calls to mind Crazy Horse. I don't have much to say about the Getaway except that I always look forward to hearing it, and I like playing it, though the vocals test my limited range unfortunately. It's funny because, by sheer coincidence, the two songs I've been playing lately are Ray's The Getaway and Neil's The Losing End. Both good strum-and-singers for an amateur, though of course Ray's song has some trickier chord changes. I prefer this to the Americana version, but maybe I'll reevaluate that once we get there. This one is a little smoother/subdued I think? Haven't listened to the other in awhile.
I am behind. Again. But did listen to all of OPL last night. As for today’s tune I like the slinky groove, thé as noted excellent bass. I can see Knopfler or CCR. Don’t really hear Neil in this, but that’s me. I was curious to see if any of us would hear this as a metaphor for getting away from something rather than a purely physical jump into the abyss. In the end, I think it is about a move from one place to another, which shows up in a few tunes on this album. And it seems our Ray is encouraging this. Perhaps immediately after breakfast. On this one. And perhaps even if your life is ok. I guess it’s an ok subject for a song in the abstract. But in real life I can see things getting messy. And it is overlong. But in the balance I think it’s a good song on an album full of them.
Ray has long painted himself as unbound… Like a gypsy I was born to roam Like a wanderer with no fixed abode Who’d have thought he’d end up in New Orleans (at least for a time)?
https://www.amazon.com/Lola-Versus-...rgid=pla-1045476862477&psc=1®ion_id=373786 Great price on this set. I probably didn't need it, but I couldn't resist. I'm listening to my Village Green box set tonight and it made me wander down this path. Who has this set and what do you think? I already have the 50th anniversary vinyl, but only have an ancient CD copy. For $40 I think it may be worth it just for the book and the singles. Does anyone know what the differences are in the new mixes for the Percy songs?
The Getaway (Lonesome Train) Another really good track for me. I like the slow western groove and the mood it creates. The length doesn’t bother me. It’s trance-like. I like the notion of the idea of a getaway just coming over someone suddenly on a summer afternoon. I like the recklessness of it. I guess just the idea of it. In reality I’m pretty much a creature of habit. The song reminds me of an HBO show I watched a couple of years back, RUN. Borrowing Wikipedia’s synopsis - “Ruby Richardson walks away from her ordinary life in the suburbs to revisit her past with her college boyfriend, Billy Johnson. The two made a pact 17 years earlier: If either one of them texted the word "RUN" and the other replied with the same, they would drop everything and meet in Grand Central Terminal and travel across America together.” Of course they’re traveling light and by train. I like all the band member’s playing on this. It suits the song. The more raucous instrumental break captures the excitement and disorientation of the person running off to reinvent themselves. I like Ray whispering as the train disappears into the distance…..
