Salvation Road: A brilliant finish to the musical theater production. If I had heard this all by itself, perhaps on FM radio, I would have thought it was Mott the Hoople. Image-wise, I think in terms of Mao (People’s Republic, People’s Army, The Long March) with everyone wearing the little blue, cloth caps, etc. I’m uncertain whether we’re doing the wrap-up so I’ll save for a separate post (I’ve had mine prepared for a week now!).
Preservation Acts 1 and 2 Wrap-up: 1)I enjoyed listening to this musical theater project and consider it to be unique (at least for what I’ve been exposed to in the rock world: ‘Tommy’; ‘Godspell’; ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’; ‘Quadrophenia’; Rick Wakeman’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’; ‘The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knight’s of the Round Table’). A more recent comparison might be to Neil Young’s ‘Greendale’ though while the latter stays focused on a small town Ray, as we’ve seen, begins in a village but takes the story to a national level. Neil has a mister, as well, “hey Mr. Clean, you’re dirty now, too.” At least it could be compared if Ray kept the village green setting (which he didn’t). And the storylines are way, way different. 2)Will I listen to it all the way through again? Unlikely. 3)I am steadfast in thinking this musical theater endeavor should have been released as a Ray Davies solo project. 4)Do I think all-characters are projecting Ray personally in some form or manner? No. But ‘The Tramp’ might be (on occasion). 5)A non-Ray producer might have served a useful purpose (maybe he/she would have rejected Flash’s Dream). 6)If I was an RCA Suit would I have been happy? No. 7)Will I eagerly watch ‘Oklahoma!’ (the movie) when/if given such an opportunity? Yes 8)Playlist Selections from 1 and 2: One of the Survivors; Sweet Lady Genevieve: Where Are They Now?; Preservation; When a Solution Comes; Nobody Gives; Salvation Road
Salvation Road Good rousing finale. Ray resists the temptation of a happy ending but instead presents a nightmare dressed up as a happy ending with totalitarian tools of propaganda.
I think Ray saves the best song until last here, it's just a pity we've had to sit through 20 odd tracks and over an hour to get to it. So, this song is extremely catchy and, but for the words, would have made a great single. Also it sounds like the Kinks, which is a definite plus. I'll probably have more to say on the album but overall impression is that Ray has used an extremely large and ungainly sledgehammer to crack a nut which never really existed in the first place. That is if, and it's a big if, you believe that the Village Green is a metaphor for the UK, because in reality, without getting too political, the Village Green did end up being destroyed by Flash and there was never the remotest possiblity of a Mr. Black triumphing - unless you were a full on paranoiac. Better to think of this album as a mishmash of various literary sources cobbled together to tell a story of no great depth or significance to anyone other than Ray Davies.
I think act two is actually better than act one, but it has the advantage of having more space, and would have cost the record buyer more. Factoring that in, maybe act one is better per average inch of vinyl. My double LP/single CD distillation of the highlights of all three discs of Preservation: Side One Daylight Sweet Lady Genevieve There's A Change in the Weather Where Are They Now? Cricket Side Two Money and Corruption/I Am Your Man Here Comes Flash Sitting In the Midday Sun Demolition Side Three Introduction to Solution Shepherds of the Nation Scum of the Earth Second Hand Spiv He's Evil Side Two Mirror of Love Where Oh Where Is Love? Nothing Lasts Forever Artificial Man Yes, you could fit more tracks on there in either format, but trying to keep it lean for maximum impact. The story maybe makes even less sense this way but I've kept the tracks in their original order anyway, for those who like the story aspect. For me, I don't care much about the story, these are just two very strong collections of songs, their strongest since Arthur, and probably their last great works. I say "probably" because I'm not that familiar with their subsequent work- I'm going mainly on the latter discs of the Picture Book box set, which you would think would have the highlights of their later career but they have very few tracks on them that I like at all. ("Come Dancing" is nice.) I've tried and failed to get through the next album on Spotify. I'll re-enter lurking mode from now on and chip in to let you know if I've changed my mind and been won over by anything.
Another thing I've thought of is that Black is a nationalist, he's forever invoking the 'nation' - "workers of the nation unite" (not "workers of the world unite", which is the orthodox Marxist slogan). So maybe Ray being somewhat skeptical of the idea of nationalism and its uses? Given that he's forever being painted as a red, white and blue John Bull type.
Salvation Road is a great rousing way to end the musical, in a similar vein to Love, Reign O'er Me on Quadrophenia. As for the albums, I find Act 1 really good but I struggle with some of Act II - the music isn't always great, and the story doesn't engage me enough to not skip the tracks I don't like. But I'm still glad that it exists.
In general, I think this album is too long and it's a bit of a chore to sit through. There are good songs on it, probably more than I remembered, but there aren't enough of them over four sides of vinyl and there's not a single song I'd regard as very good or great - and that's the first time I can say that about a Kinks album.
Salvation Road is sung by “everybody” and labelled the new national anthem, but it’s not really written as an anthem, is it ? More as a direct and overtly grotesque attack against the evil ways of an Orwellian version of socialism, its preaching tendencies (“hear me brothers”), its oversimplifications (“there you go”), the trapping of its egalitarianism stance etc. Ray reveals (confirms) that it’s not puritanism or authoritarianism that he fears the most, but uniformity, conformity, renouncement to one’s free will and judgement. Interestingly, as the Vicar announced in Cricket, and Mr Black himself in When A Solution Comes ("I'm going to use a little manipulation"), the Demon Bowler known tricked the people by appealing to their religious conservatism, in order to achieve his "new civilization", based on anything but religion… The devil works in disguise indeed. In a way, it's what I find the most interesting about the whole Preservation plot : not the critique of socialism, but the idea that you can appeal to the people's sense of preservation (of their traditions, ways of thinking, beliefs, certainties, instinctive reactions etc.) in order to achieve the exact opposite of it. And the exact opposite of what they actually want.. The great thing about this last track is the music is ultra convincing ! Probably the most convincing of the whole record. Once more, like in the backbone of When A Solution Comes/Nobody Gives/Flash’s Confession/Artificial Man, there’s a glam'n prog thing at play, somewhere between Mott the Hopple and the poppiest Peter Gabriel led Genesis tunes (I Know What I like from the previous year meets Counting out Time from the following one). The chorus is beyond catchiness. In the same way you could easily imagine the windows opening and the “village” waking up in Daylight as in a musical or a Disney picture (or a Disney musical like someone said), this time you can visualize the whole cast smiling and holding hands, singing this chorus like it’s a happy ending, all but burying the frightening dehumanizing lyrics under their big smiles and happy faces, escorting you on your way out of the theater in a glorified state of bliss, oblivious of the nightmarish nature of what they’d be singing. And maybe at the restaurant, or in the car on your way home, or in the bed while trying to find sleep, you’d start asking yourself what was this all about and realize that like “everybody”, you’d been fooled into thinking that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. In french, this much discussed Leibniz phrase goes like this : "tout va pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes". Funnily enough and not coincidently at all, "le Meilleur des mondes" was used as the french title of Huxley's "Brave New World"…
The previous Kinks albums were best appreciated as LPs, while this one demands digital playback so you don’t have to listen to the songs all the way through, if at all.
"Salvation Road" Given that the previous track has never done much for me, it isn't the greatest lead-in to this track, which has generally passed me by so far, thus leaving me with a somewhat unsatisfactory end to the album. It came across a bit better this morning when I listened to it in isolation, but even then the words didn't come across very well, and my overriding thought was "All The Young Dudes" (and I don't even know that song that well). I'm going to need to listen a few more times to form a proper opinion of this one. "Preservation Act 2" It certainly sounds a lot better to me now than it did in the 80s. Will I listen to it again in its entirety? Yes - I have the album, and it's what I do. It will probably be listened to less than the other three RCA albums which I've acquired recently, but that's mostly due to the difficulty in finding the amount of free time necessary to sit down and listen to a double album. I think there are some really impressive tracks on here, while there are others which I'm not so keen on, but not to the extent that I would skip them. I don't have a lot of experience with story/concept albums - never heard Tommy or The Wall or any of the other oft-quoted examples - so I don't know how it compares with those. Some of the story seems alarmingly on the nose for these times (more by luck than judgement probably), but whether the whole thing makes any kind of coherent sense is doubtful. As with the next album, best to just sit down and watch/listen to the show that Ray is putting on for you.
Ironically enough this is what the right in the UK ended up doing - claiming to preserve the Village Green by selling off bits of it to all and sundry and going as far as to deny that there was any such thing as a Village Green, only individual Villagers! (Sorry, a bit of politics there)
This song was probably written as early as 1972 as it was performed in the proto-Preservation Drury Lane show in January 1973. Also even the album version is, like 'Oh Where Oh Where Is Love', an outtake from the Pres 1 sessions. With the chorus riff being used as a recurring motif repeatedly long before the song itself arrives, it seems Ray long had this one in mind as an overarching motif for the Preservation project, and (unlike many other elements of the work as originally conceived) saw that original intention through to the final thing. While it works brilliantly as an ironically valedictory anti anthem for the eventual storyline as a whole ( as Mark has already alluded to, 'I'm was cured alright brothers', and 'he loved Big Brother' are definitely reference points here) I can't help but, with the knowledge that this as written long before all that was conceptualised, hear some of the lines, especially 'Goodbye youth, goodbye dreams, The good times and the friends I used to know. Goodbye freedom, hello fear, A brave new world has suddenly appeared. Got to be hard, Don't look back And no more reminiscing. Times are rough, We've got to be tough, And concentrate on living.' as more like a harsh home truths pep talk by Ray to himself than to any made up characters or new regimes, and of a piece with the similarly 'get yourself together and face up to harsh reality now the dream story is over' climax songs of the following two albums. 'A Face In The Crowd' and 'No More Looking Back'. In his 1st autobiography Ray says 'nothing was ever the same after 1973' referring not only to his marriage but to the wider world: Oil Crisis, UK joining the EC, and several other factors that signified a definite end to the long 60s, and these lines seem to speak more to Ray's reaction to his own turbulent times than that of a fictional character in a dystopia.
At least one of the four best, IMO. Some days, it is may absolute fave on Exile. And that is perhaps the problem with the Preservation Acts. That Stones album feels far more cohesive and, yes, conseptual than either of them IMO. Not only musical but lyrical, as well. The lyrical scope is of course far more limited but also more human. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll to the max, but also desperation, longing and heartache. "Salvation Road" is great. And I agree with Marky Mark's "Alex after conversion"-line.
"Salvation Row" is an enjoyable listen. The tuba excepted, I hear a lot of Mott The Hoople in this song. It is an appropriate end to the album. 1984 and Brave New World seem to have influenced Ray in this story and, I agree, the lyrics are pretty morose while the music often contradicts that. Having taken this one song at a time, I probably need to take some time and play the whole album a few times over the next little while and see how it all sits with me.
Salvation Road I don't think I've ever hear a song so counter to, so offensive, to everything I know to be true.... that can be so much fun to listen to. Klever lad, that Davies fella.
I know what you mean. I know the Preservation albums pretty well, having listened to them dozens of times over the years. I get so caught up in the infectious sing-along catchy melody of this song, that I’m only half aware that the sentiment of the lyrics is totally repugnant . I wish I could have contributed more first hand memories from having seen the Preservation tour back in 1974 - but just too long ago. I do seem to remember not having heard Salvation Road prior to the concert, but finding it to be such an ear worm, that it seemed like I, and half the audience were humming it on the way out as we exited the Felt Forum. Good thing some totalitarian leader didn’t hire Ray to write anthems for them, too many people might have blindly followed off a cliff. Just kidding .
'Tired of looking at wealthy faces Flying off to far out places.' can't tell you the amount of times that this line has popped into my head while glumly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram... it hits hard! Seems pretty ahead of it's time really!
Over the holidays I fell behind again. I did listen to both Preservation Act albums quite a bit. I enjoyed Act I quite a bit. There were some songs that were amongst Ray’s best, especially “Sweet Lady Genevieve”. I liked Act 2 quite a bit less, though of all Ray’s concept albums to this point, it was (in my opinion) the one that I could envision on stage. One thing I did that did occur to me was this- though I have been a long time Kinks fan, I had rarely if ever heard any of the RCA albums with the exception of “Schoolboys in Disgrace”. Some I had never heard at all. I had been a fan up to “Lola”, then picked up again at “Sleepwalker”. Discovering these albums for the first time had been, for the most part, a joy. I now have more to enjoy by one of my favorite bands. That is great!
Preservation Reassessment At this point, it's no surprise that I emerge from these discussions with a greater appreciation for these albums than I had going in. I still don't expect to give them a ton of turntable time, but I think a good number of individual songs are going to find their way into my playlists.
Final Announcement: The Reporter is now in his Kent Brockman "I, For One, Welcome Our New Alien Overlords" mode. I'm surprised that Ray didn't add that everyone wear their underwear on the outside as part of the new rules & regulations being spelled out here. "Salvation Road": a nice, cheerful ditty to sing as you go into the darkness. I remember that in the Boston Rock Opera version that I saw, all of the characters that comprised Flash's gang had to go through a device like one of those anti shoplifting things you see in a store, which instantly brainwashed them into happy lobotomized automatons. Belle was the only one to put up a struggle as I remember. Not the greatest of ways to end a musical despite the surface cheerfulness. To me, Preservations Act I & II was an ambitious work by Ray that turned out incoherent in places (as Avid Vangro has pointed out) & strayed pretty far out from what I assume was the original vision was, the destruction of the Village Green which somehow morphed into a whole nation. However, there is a sense of humor & goofiness to it which is endearing, especially when performed live, which most of the material really comes to life. I think that it should have been pruned into one 2 record set instead of two different albums.