There must've been something in the air in 1976 as Trick of The Tail by Genesis is their best sounding album as well. After that, most studios tried too hard but '76 seems to be the sweet spot for many a classic rock act
If the album had come out half a dozen or so years later they could have asked Chrissie Amphlett to be in a cover shot with Ray and Dave as that sure would have gained attention at the front of the rack plus Ray would have been delighted not to have to pony up for $tockings, $uspenders and $kirt from a costume hire firm! Edit: I can just imagine Dave and Chrissie posing back to back, and why not as (after all) this schoolboys plight also includes Pleasure before the Pain!
Pretty sure it was Angus himself who related (on camera) the running late from school story. As for your other anecdote Mark, why jump ahead with a reference to a great ballad on Sleepwalker?
Yes except we are somewhat "Over The Hill Aussies" so i had to explain the Dire Straits song and video clip to my younger racketeer!
I believe you are on the right track, there may well be a clip of it performed too if my memory serves me correctly?
Do you feel the French compilations selection give short shrift to certain albums such as for example Schoolboys and Soap Opera?
I see you've already gotten yer answers for these, pops But I wanted to post this one too. So I did. Cuz I'm a problem child. And I'm wild:
I just wanted to highlight this brilliant video in Mark's intro post, which is also the only footage of the Schoolboys tour I've ever seen and that I only managed to watch this morning. Now. it's technically very poor quality home movie stuff, but if you can see past that, it captures the show pretty well: yes it's only 16 minutes long, but the taper got something representative of each song and how they were dramatised onstage. Particularity of interest to me were the glimpses of the specially filmed sequences that were projected behind the players, including film from the school uniform shoot and outside sequences for 'Idiot Dunce' and 'No More Looking Back': the latter in particular looking quite a bit like a long lost promo film! Gawd, do I wish the masters of stuff like this could be liberated from Ray's archive! Anyway, I highly recommended everyone on the thread watches this clip if they can!
I have no idea, It's like a default setting There are very few Aussie accents on the tv, except maybe the odd interview.... We have accents galore on the tv, not really the same over here
Sorry. I thought at least A Face in the Crowd was on that double set but it's not there no matter how many times I've scanned the setlist. In contrast, that was the one Soap Opera song on the two single-LP RCA compilations I have: The Kinks Greatest and Second Time Around. As for Schoolboys, the French compilation has two songs but misses No More Looking Back, which is illogical. So yes, you are right - this comp focuses probably too heavily on Everybody's in Showbiz (including the non-RCA song Lola) and the Preservation albums.
Schooldays. stereo mix, recorded 11 Sep, 1975 at Konk Studios, Hornsey, London If ever you think about the happiest days of your life Cast back your mind for a while And remember the time when you were a child. Don't think of things that make you sad, Just remember all the good times that you had. Do you remember only happy days, Full of flaming Junes and summer holidays? Or do you remember those stormy Novembers As we walked in the wind and the rain? Schooldays were such happy days Now they seem so far away, I remember and I'll always treasure. Schooldays were the happiest days of your life But we never appreciate the good times we have Until it's too late. I miss all the acquaintances we made And I'd go back if I could only find a way, Schooldays were the happiest days Though at the time they filled me with dismay. We only remember what we choose to remember. When I was a schoolboy I loathed regulations and rules I hated my textbooks and my school uniform, 'Cos it made me conform, And teachers were always disobeyed, But I'd go back if I could only find a way. Schooldays were the happiest days, Now they seem so far away. I remember and I'll always treasure Schooldays were the happiest days of your life But we never appreciate the good times we have Until it's too late. Now I wish I hadn't strayed, And I'd go back if I could only find a way. Those schooldays. Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Davray Music Ltd. Interestingly I have never looked back on those Schooldays in a particularly whimsical way. As the pommie kid and spending most of my time fighting for survival, fighting the teachers and being reviled for being a straight A student who was also captain of the (Aussie Rules) Football team, it brings more of a complete annoyance at what a pain in my ass it was frankly. So I may look at this differently to most lol Certainly the lyrics here capture the idea of our schooldays as being the days where none of us were concerned about mortgages and bills, and relationship problems beyond trying to get a date, or play some childish game of baseball analogies in base running. I think the line "we only remember what we choose to remember" as it probably does sum up the whole idea here. I think as youngsters most of us rebelled against regulations and rules, it seems a natural reaction to people trying to mold you into something you had no interest in. The idea of conformity always seemed like a nonsense to me, as everyone was conforming to something. As always Ray handles the lyric well, it is just a theme that doesn't really line up with my particular experience, so it makes it harder to relate to the idea. As for being a song though, I think it works very well. For some reason Ray's vocal makes me think of Randy Newman in many spots. the vocal delivery comes across as very sincere, and the melancholy of looking back to a period with a whimsical ache comes across very well..... those days for me would be my late teens, twenties and thirties, where I was living a life and learning more than any school I ever went to revealed. It is interesting that the album opens up with essentially a sort of piano ballad type song, and it comes over quite well. Gosling gives us some nice piano, and the organ when it comes in is also really apt and works well. For me Dave again gets a nice and suitable guitar tone, which seems to be a recurring thing across these albums for me. I had never really thought about Dave's guitar tones before this thread, always liked the playing, but guitar tones never really crossed my mind and Dave seems to consistently get tones that, for me, suit the songs really well. The playing from Dave here isn't ripsnorting in a sense, but it is very tasteful. For me this works well as a song, I'm unsure about it being the opening song, although thematically it is the only logical choice I suppose. So for me the album gets off to a solid start, even if it is a little on the mellow side of things for an opener.
“Schooldays”—It struck me at first as a meandering mess of a song, but once I knew it, and understood its logic, the beauty of it became apparent. Now, the movement of the melody seems inevitable, like it does in the best old standards. I love the emotional last lines, when the singer fights to be heard over the backing chorus. My friend and I used to sing this together with great fervent nostalgia, like the old men we would one day become; we were not yet eighteen, and still very much in school. For a certain stripe of young person, a love of the Kinks and their unique stance of loss and gloom can be illuminating.
Wow, this is quite interesting for me thaf you make this comparison Mark as I remember my late father, a huge music fan but whose taste didn’t cross over that much with mine (he was more into blues and folk and thought the Kinks too English and camp, though he did like the hits) on being exposed to this track through my incessant Kinks playing, instantly made the comparison to Randy Newman.
"Schooldays". This is a nice song but it's kind of predictable? It somehow goes exactly where you think it's going to go all the way through the song, there's no unexpected diversions or chords or melodies. Nice vocal from Ray. Nice lyric, even though I completely disagree with sentiment! Nice all round but nothing more.
