It's nice getting the hour back, but when you only get about 5 hours, losing that hour makes a big difference
Me too! Sunrise is at around 7:40 AM right now in my part of the lower Southeastern part of the US. I’ve mentioned many times how I run several miles every morning before starting work. I can usually start this about 25 to 30 minutes before actual sunrise as there is just enough light to get going. So right now this is much later than I would like but I refuse to run in the dark. My various routes put me on a few stretches of road here and there that can be quite busy depending on the time. This week alone I’ve almost been hit or run over by at least 7 idiots in a hurry to get to their offices or get kids to school. I exchanged a few choice words and fingers with one particular imbecile yesterday who decided the left side of the road on a curve where I was would save him half a second of travel time by cutting a tight corner. Next week back on standard time I can start an hour earlier so less likely to be killed doing this. Some in the US want to make DST permanent. No thanks. Sunrise would be between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM for a couple of months. Hell no! And for many more reasons than just my own selfish health. Ha! That sounds like a great title and subject for a new thread….
Not sure I said it at the time but after the Queens passing I thought he could write a genteel song about England that touched on the moment and had a poignant and final (hit?) single.
Yes and I'm not sure anyone worried for WA to come onboard and if so it likely wasn't necessary anyway.
Shouldn't the Davies brothers potential reunions now be more appropriately spoken of in metrically measured meridian millimetres?
Look after yourself it sounds like to that motorist you were just a Kink in the road and nobody wants a dead end Streett!
As for the time change. My dad grew up in a small southern Ontario town. Where the Main Street was bisected by two counties. Did they both agree to go with the time change? Of course not. I’d rather have the light in the evening. But that’s me.
Our Country Walking 'round my old hometown Lookin' for some faces that once knew me Though all the streets still look the same This is a classic Ray lyric, as he adds one more to the list of songs using this idea of faces in the street. No More Looking Back: Walking along a crowded street I see thousands of faces before me. Then I see a face that I used to know Long ago in my life story. Nobody’s Fool: I can go for a walk on a crowded street And see millions of faces staring at me There are plenty of others with mad rushing crowds, etc. So we know this is Ray, and that gives me comfort. I had originally thought this was all about America, but now I do see how the first version was really about his country (England) before leaving his street well before 99 to come to our country (speaking as an American). I hear the song as a not-quite-as-good companion piece to Act 1’s opening track. I also swear I hear a bit of the chorus of Muswell Hillbilly as towards the end of the chorus I want to sing “…in old West Virginia”. Perhaps foreshadowing the album closer?
Our Country I was wrong in my post earlier about this album not having a particular stand-out track. This album opener is such a stand-out track. I like how it gradually builds from a sparse, humble start to more instruments and voices being added and the sense of community and solidarity. Ray's voice has changed from his younger days but the aged voice fits the reflective theme of the song. The choir does a magnificent job on this track. To my ears, the lyrics work on many levels. There is what we know about Ray and his dreams about America when he was young and his experiences of America over several decades, as chronicled in books, articles and previous songs. The song also makes me think of many friends of mine, whose families have fled from war-torn countries to make a new life here and for them and those who know them here it is very natural that they consider Sweden their home country. I am also reminded of the situation in Sweden in the late 19th century/early 20th century when there had been famine and poverty for huge groups of people around the country. Many, many of them dreamed of emigrating to America, the land of opportunities where they could start a new (and hopefully, better) life. The great Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg wrote about this in his magnum opus, the four-volume novel series The Emigrants - I highly recommend these novels. In fact, my great grandfather was one of the persons who planned to emigrate to America. When he was around 20 and single, his home village was struggling with poverty and after a lot of work he had saved enough money to buy a boat ticket to America. This boat departed from Gothenburg once a month. However, he was struck down by illness days before the boat was to depart so he had to remain home until he got well. There was a month before the next boat would depart and in those weeks he met the woman who would become my great grandmother. They fell in love and decided to stay in Sweden and get married, which they did eventually and among their children were my grandfather. So obviously I am very grateful that my great grandfather got ill and missed his boat... In any case, "Our Country" is a beautiful and moving song, though it feels more like it should have been the final song on Americana rather than the opener of the next album.
Invaders. RD: They called us the Invaders JD: Americana. It started as a flickering black and white image through an old movie projector. Faces of cowboys and indians. The good guys victorious over the emissaries of evil. My early visions of America came from the cinema. Then there were the guns; deliverers of truth, justice and the American way. Sung The day the Invaders came RD: In the early 1950's, Communism was still the scourge of the so-called free world. UFOs had been sighted across America, and films such as 'The Invaders from Mars', 'The Blob' and 'Creatures from the Black Lagoon' served as a warning that there were still forces of evil waiting if America ever dropped its guard. Sung They called us the Invaders JD: As I grew up the music took over. Rock, jazz, skiffle and blues - those country songs came to liberate me. The music gave me hope, a feeling that I could express myself. The cowboys in those old black and white movies seem to have values. You knew who the good guys were. Then, as I toured America with my band, I saw the place first hand: from the roadside of a dreary bus stop to the big gigs at the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden. America was secure. Its borders were safe. RD: It was against such a backdrop that the unbelievable happened: the Invaders landed. The British pop invasion had arrived. Sung Cos the world as we knew it turned upside down And things would never be the same The day the Invaders came JD: At the height of our success in the 1960s, The Kinks were banned from touring the U.S.A. for 4 years. When we did return, we toured the U.S.A. relentlessly. RD: Tour after tour. Year after year. To win back what we'd lost. JD: They called us the Invaders. Written by: Ray Davies Published by: DavRay Music Ltd./Sony ATV Music Publishing This is an interesting narrative track, and one of the interesting things about it is that John Dagleish is used as assistant narrator, and I haven't figured out why... unless it is some kind of mechanism to have an audibly younger and older Ray narrating? Essentially this is a reflective look at Ray's first interactions with the US. From tv movies, to the first tour, to being banned and then the return, where Ray states what we have all speculated during the thread, The Kinks, or perhaps Ray, set his sights on getting back into the hearts and minds of folks in the US after the ban was dropped... and to some degree it worked, with the Kinks most successful run of albums in the US being between 1975 and 1984. In fact outside the debut and Lola, the heart of the Kinks success in the US is between 1975 and 1984... which given the current mindset is at odds with modern commentary on the band. To some degree this works as foundation laying for people perhaps unfamiliar with the story, or indeed, perhaps in order to set the scene for why the US was Ray's destination when he felt that he may want to leave England. I like the musical accompaniment and I think it works well with the narrative. The only issue I ever had with this was "why is this other guy narrating, but like I say, in reflection, it seems like an older and younger Ray theme
Invaders I'm not sure what to make of this spoken-word scene-setter. I'd be surprised if many people (or even anyone) who bought this album would have been unfamiliar with Ray's old band. Having listened to the full album though I'm struck by one of the lines. At face value this is part of a romantic image of America from a boy in London watching Hollywood movies. But it takes on a more ominous tone when we know what happened to Ray in New Orleans.
The Invaders - as I'm familiar with the story by now, I tend to get a little impatient during this one, but I understand its purpose in establishing the context for what is to come. I think the alternate narrator illustrates the difference between now and then - a lot of time has passed, and young Ray seems like a different person than new Ray. I can relate to that. I can also imagine this working on stage, Ray narrating along with the actor representing his younger self in some upcoming scenes in the musical he most likely had in mind when putting this album together. Finally, I really like the way Ray enunciates the word "scourge" - I guess that's the highlight for me.
‘The Invaders’: I didn’t realize there was a second narrator! Now, of course, I find it obvious. This project begins with a hymn (“Please stand and turn to hymn number…”) and now a scene-setter with the all-important line, “they called us the invaders.” Back-to-back, it’s perhaps too ponderous? Maybe. Again, I look at this as a stage show so I’m fine with the deliberate, methodical pacing.
I’m playing catch up here. I don’t remember hearing any of Act II at all when it came out. In seeing the album cover at the time, I thought it was some kind of out-take thing with leftovers from the first album. So going in deaf dumb and blind and hoping for some greatness from Ray. Our Country - A pleasant enough lead off track. As Mark mentioned it does sound like it might be imagined as part of a play. I like the dichotomy of a song about England with music that sounds American. Still, it’s bereft of some real soul and comes across like a paint-by-numbers piece for me. The Invaders - I like the music, the drums remind me of a Johnny Horton tune, one of those history inspired things he did. We continue with the feeling that this is for a theatrical production and it’s a little too self serious for me. Maybe if Ray had interjected a little humor and called it The Battle Hymn of the Kinks?
No, at this stage I was starting to regret my purchase. Fortunately there are a couple of good things to come, but so far the song-by-song isn’t changing my opinion of the album.
“The Invaders”: The second straight song of this album in which I was confused, this time by the two narrators thing. Also, didn’t he do a song about the subject with the same title in the previous album?
Yea... When we've gone through the album, I reckon we'll have a day where folks can configure their personal Americana albums... There are so many options for these albums... When you look at Ray's post Kinks career, it is essentially an elongated version of The Storyteller... Americana is like the Storyteller part 2, what happened afterwards. Even Other People's Lives and Working Man's Cafe have elements from this part of the story. Though they do have some regular tracks as well. I remember early in the thread the question was asked as to whether Ray wrote personal/autobiographical material, and the general feeling was no... and though to a certain degree I can agree with that... Post-Kinks, Ray writes almost exclusively in his own biopic style autobiographical way. It's like..... if he couldn't be in the Kinks, he can write in a way to keep them alive... or something like that
Boy, it’s something to get quoted twice in a row! Yes, I agree w/Our Headmaster that Americana is basically Storyteller Part II, especially w/the prevalence of spoken word passages. I get the feeling that w/a bit of editing, you can fit the whole of Americana into one 80 minute CD or a double vinyl album.
The Invaders: We're covering very familiar ground here, and going to a second track that both has a spoken interlude and is a retread of last album almost dooms this one. But I like Ray's narrator voice, I'm fine with the secondary narrator, and musically, I enjoy the little touches that distinguish this Invaders from the version on Part I; the martial snare drum and the subtle violin are both great touches, and the slower choral restatement of the Invaders theme is very pretty. Ultimately, it's slight, but I like the track just fine.
