The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Skin and Bone

Decades ago when I first got the album, I really liked this song. Since I wasn't really an Americana guy and I actively disliked country, this cut stood out in a good way and by the way, it was just a fun song.

But this song hasn't really stuck with me. If I'm honest, it's really not that far this side of a novelty song. Certainly a good break from more serious treatments in a concept album, but really not that great as a stand alone.

Through the years, I have come to really appreciate most Kinks songs I initially overlooked. I guess this is the one example of the opposite happening.

 

Yes -side two is like a different album. More personal and more poignant.

 

I am really enjoying the deep dive on Muswell Hillbillies. It's an album that my middle brother pushed on me several years ago calling it The Kinks "country record". I was heavily into alt-country at the time and I just didn't get it. Hearing it with new ears and a new perspective is wonderful. I really enjoy the little worlds Ray created on these concept albums.

 

Yep. I'm a little glum but not without hope.

I just made and ate dinner and guess what I was singing the whole time. So this song seeps into one's synapses. Evil song! LOL

 

It really does sneak into the earworm category lol

 

I've listened to side 2 at various times. But have not done the deep dive yet. Once again, there are no 'commercial' stand-outs on this album. And though the public is known to be pretty stupid and wrong, I would have thought something would have seeped up for me as definitive Kinks over the years. I heard probably most of their albums in my young formative years, but if this one was played - it didn't stick (with the exception of some live stuff from the coming-to-a-thread-near-you album, Everybody's in Showbiz). Just odd.

 

To me, the songs on Side two are in the same league as Two Sisters, End of the Season and No Return: not commercial but very good in a different way.

 

Ahh but of course how could i overlook your name and I am not in the business of calling anyone boy!

 

So you should....mix them?
Well...it is a link thread.......ok i'll go now.

 

It was, and did?

 

Are you looking with 20/20?

 

Does that mean we should swiftly ban the Archies?

 

But did it make you dance or jiggle?
Edit: Being such an ear worm an all!

 

And much better IMO.

 

For me, "Skin and Bones" and "Alcohol" make up the "Heart of Darkness" of side one of this record. Heavy topic, serious diseases; I've struggled with the later for years, the former not s0 much--I'd hazard to guess how manystonesiway... Butt, butter that, than the opposite extreme, a sad and deeper neurosis.

One of the great Ray lines: "Don't eat no mashed potatoes, don't eat no buttered scones, stay away from carbohydrates, you're gonna look like skin and bones..."

More on Olde Demon "Alchohol" when the sad memories I can't recall come flooding back in waves of grey people, jail cells, and what we're livin' for...

 

Sure, but like bad check you’ll keep coming back

 

I'll remain, if only to keep things in context.

 

nah, I prefer 50/50 and 5 days

 

Alcohol.

stereo mix (3:30), recorded Aug-Sep 1971 at Morgan Studios, Willesden, London

Here's a story about a sinner,
He used to be a winner who enjoyed a life of prominence and position,
But the pressures at the office and his socialite engagements,
And his selfish wife's fanatical ambition,
It turned him to the booze,
And he got mixed up with a floosie
And she led him to a life of indecision.
The floosie made him spend his dole
She left him lying on Skid Row
A drunken lag in some Salvation Army Mission.
It's such a shame.

Oh demon alcohol,
Sad memories I cannot recall,
Who thought I would say,
Damn it all and blow it all,
Oh demon alcohol,
Memories I cannot recall,
Who thought I would fall a slave to demon alcohol.
Sad memories I cannot recall,
Who thought I would fall a slave to demon alcohol.

Barley wine, pink gin,
He'll drink anything,
Port, pernod or tequila,
Rum, scotch, vodka on the rocks,
As long as all his troubles disappeared.
But he messed up his life, went and beat up his wife,
And the floosie's gone and found another sucker
She's gonna turn him on to drink
She's gonna lead him to the brink
And when his money's gone,
She'll leave him in the gutter,
It's such a shame.

Oh demon alcohol,
Sad memories I cannot recall,
Who thought I would say,
Damn it all and blow it all,
Sad memories I cannot recall,
Who thought I would fall,
A slave to demon alcohol.

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

This is a great song, and although I will agree with anyone that says the live version captures the character of Ray delivering this song, the studio version is just as good, in a different way.

Lyrically this is a pretty straight storytelling song, and of course it fits in our modern world mental health concept very well. Addiction is undoubtedly an illness, alcohol can be an addiction, and overindulgence can lead to addiction.

Although a straight storytelling song, Ray manages to stamp his name on it via the way he tells the story, and the words he chooses to do so with.
This is another song that can tie back to songs past, in terms of theme and character … We could be looking at the character from House In The Country reaching a genetic destination … Most Exclusive Residence For Sale could be tied to this character … A tenuous link to All My Friends Were There, in terms of alcohol causing issues … Again we see a sort of conceptual continuity in themes and possibly characters.

So for me, it feels like the lyrics don’t need to much deep digging here, but I am sure some folks may see it differently, and I’m expecting to read some interesting interpretations.

From songfacts
On stage, during the drunkard's lines "Oh demon alcohol", Davies would sometimes spray beer on the front row of the audience, something he did for the first time in Montreal, Canada, on February 5, 1970. He did this because the audience was unresponsive (and apparently stoned) but instead of taking it as an insult they enjoyed it. This led to the performance of the song becoming more theatrical, and with the audiences turning up ready for the shower.

Musically this is like a Vaudeville blues or something, and I personally love it.
Again, we open with a great sounding guitar and either a rhythm banjo or the resonator strummed near the fretting hand.
The piano does a great job of moving the song forward and creating some great links.
So unusually we have, I believe, the Tuba that creates the consistent rhythmic honk.

Actually some of the section here, particularly with the horns make me think of those New Orleans funerals you see in movies (as I have never been to New Orleans) and there is a procession of people and a sort of jazz band walking with them…. Not familiar enough with it to say more, but for some reason I can see that picture in my mind as the songs playing.

We sort of slide between that great opening guitar section, the piano and Tuba section and then some New Orleans jazz horn section interludes.
For me it all works beautifully.

Also, Ray’s delivery is just supreme. He wanders between a semi-slurred drunken delivery, to the semi-mournful, semi-jubilant chorus.
I love how “It’s very sad” gets used as a hook.
Again, rhythmically Ray has the words coming out beautifully. He seems like a master of using rhythmic devices to deliver his lyrics, and to me here again we get that little reminder.

Then at the end we have the piano play us out, like a remote long-lost memory.
This is a great song and arrangement.

So for me, even though I find Skin and Bone to be slightly weaker, we are shooting 5 for 5 here.

 

I know I sound like a broken record, but for me this is the fourth comedy-style (ie. not straight comedy but could easily be interpreted as such if you didn't pay close attention to the lyric) in a row, which is why I find the first half of the album a chore - one of these as a mood changer would be great, but four in a row grates... also, as @Wondergirl is sure to say, this was better live.

Fortunately for all, my opinion of the tracks improves greatly when we finally get to side 2!

 

This was as any Kinks fan wel kno, a huge live song for them even if never a single, esp in the 70s. As many have aleady remarked, it's interesting how different Muswell the album is from the life the songs took on expanded and dramatised as 70s live set staples. The starkness of the studio version of this song in particular was a surprise when I heard after the 'Showbiz' live take.

Anyhow, here's a representatively over egged version from 1975, the Beacon Theater (an excerpt from a full show I'd previously posted on here claiming it was from the 1974 Preservation tour, when in fact it's from the Soap Opera tour, and this is the Kinks supporting themselves playing greatest hits and Preservation highlights. Look out for Gosling in another grotesque mask!

 

And now for something truly unique... in the 70s, the Sonny And Cher Show featured innovative animated music videos for both Sonny and Cher songs and recent hits by other original artists (Big Yellow Taxi, Bad Bad Leroy Brown and several others) created by John Wilson (who'd later animate the title sequence for Grease)... now, included was, would you believe a version of The Kinks 'Alcohol', except, unlike the rest of the songs featured it was A) A close sounding cover version and B) has an extra verse with a happy ending!!!!

I have no idea what happened here, how involved or aware Ray or The Kinks were of this grafted on PSA addition, or who the cover singer/band (who get very close to the original up until that end) were! Or indeed how this relatively obscure song ended up on this mainstream variety show! So Many Questions! Check it out though, it's a neat curio, and it is cool to have almost a real animated video for this song, with a few qualifications.

 

Unfortunately is says it is restricted for me.

 

So I'm thinking "wow, Mark's getting up even earlier now", then I realise we're in that one week between clocks going back in the UK and US!

"Alcohol"

This is one of the better tracks on the album for me, if only because it's got a great big hook in the chorus. The verse also has a kind of theatricality which is essential to appreciate if you're going to get along with Preservation/Soap Opera. I've only played the Showbiz live album once so far, so I'm not really that acquainted with the live version yet, but the studio version sounds OK.

I think this is the first time "floosie" gets a mention in a Ray lyric? Possibly the only time as well? Flash's floosies are characters in Preservation but not sure if the word gets mentioned again outside the stage directions on the lyric sheet.

The roll call of "cold beverages" in the second verse rivals that in Costello's "Deportees Club".

 

Ah, that's a shame! Guessing it'll be restricted in the US but viewable elsewhere? Sonny and Cher's legal people perhaps? Ah well, call this transatlantic payback for The Long Distance Piano Player part one! . Here's some screengrabs I could find to give you a flavour: