The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Most of them are so far from reality.
    Aussies say Prawns, not shrimp.
    I have never met an Aussie that drinks Fosters.
    I reckon they were just ad campaigns.
    That Conan post was quite true.
    There isn't particularly anything at Outback that makes me think Australia... the Bloomin' Onion is about as US as it gets lol

    Vegemite is fairly popular, but normally we just give it to tourists to torture them lol... I've seen a couple folks get given a spoonful of vegemite and nearly hurl.
     
  2. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I was in high school when I first heard this song, and my first reaction was that Ray was like all the adults blithely telling my miserable, rebellious, depressed, enraged, 16-year-old self that I was actually experiencing the "best days of my life." But even then, I loved the melody and particularly the harmonies (those stormy Novembers/as we walked in the wind and the rain). And I adored how Ray delicately pronounced app-re-CEE-ate (rather than app-re-SHE-ate).

    Listening to it again on repeat this morning (5 times? Never bored) I realized that one of the super clever/weird/Ray things about the song is the conflation of "you," "I," and "we." Were schooldays the happiest days of the audience's life, or of Ray's life? He says both, but when he's referring to himself there seems to be a subtle alteration in tone. He misses all the acquaintances "we" made, but Ray himself would go back if he could only find a way. Is "we" Ray and the audience, or Ray and (Dave?). Whatever, it works to draw you into the song and invites you to identify with Ray's mood & memories.

    It reminds me of If My Friends Could See Me Now, not only in cadence & wistfulness but in how Ray often sang about his "friends" in the context of what he'd become. There's something very mournful about it (evoked too by the piano and beautiful, delicate guitar work).

    A part of me resists the conflation -- no matter what you feel, Ray, schooldays were decidedly not the happiest days of my life -- but another part of me is seduced into remembering moments of joy and revelation, flaming Junes, and long lost friends.
     
  3. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    I mentioned earlier that this album can sort of be seen as The Kinks present their version of Grease. The opening song is a great example, because it's a superb mix of 50s and 70s, just like most of that soundtrack. I happen to love the film and the soundtrack, so I have no problems with this comparison. The Barry Gibb penned title track, sung by Frankie Valli, is a fantastic song where the 50s meets the 70s. "It's got a groove, It's got a meaning". It was a time when pompadours, leather jackets, silk shirts, polyester pants, and gold chains all got together on the dance floor.

    This is a sweet song that begins the album looking back and reflecting on those special moments as a kid. It's always nice to hear Dave sing some harmony with brother Ray. I'm not very fond of my "Schooldays", but I still find comfort in the sentiment of this song.

    "When I was a schoolboy, I loathed regulations and rules, I hated my textbooks and my school uniform cause it made me conform." This was how I felt when I went to a very strict grade school where your hair wasn't even supposed to touch your collar. No wonder I rebelled in my high school years!

    I have mentioned Randy in the past, and do find some similarities in this song as well. Ray's delivery at times can be very reminiscent of Randy. This song I hear it the most at "But we never appreciate the good times we have before it's too late."

    I noticed this a couple days ago, but it was on a song coming up later on the album. I know Dave has said he was a big fan of The Band and I think some of their influences come through at times.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2022
  4. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    I've seen a little of this before but with your encouragement I watched more of it. Makes me wish I could have seen this show. Looks like a fun night!
     
  5. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Schooldays
    This is a pleasant enough opener. I do perceive the Randy Newman comparison. Maybe it's my headphones, but Rays' vocals don't sound as clear...almost like he's speaking through a short tube into the mike? Anyone else get that?

    I'm prone to reminiscing. I did like my schooldays and my childhood up until around 13 years old and the real world took over and shook me out of my dream-like state. I'd go back there in a second and stay there. I didn't even mind the rules. They mostly made sense. I just wanted to keep learning so if being quiet made that happen, then I was more than willing to do it. I imagine not everyone could relate to this song. For some, school was absolutely a nightmare.

    Anyway, I like when Dave comes in with the harmony. that's my favorite bit.

    The song doesn't grab your attention like some album openers, but it does what it needs to do, as others have said.
     
  6. LX200GPS

    LX200GPS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Somewhere Else
    Schooldays

    For once I cannot remember exactly where I bought the album but, over the years, The Kinks Present Schooldays In Disgrace has become one of my very favourites. I do like the previous album but this one trumps it in every department.

    Thoughts on my own schooldays: I thought this record would go some way towards justifying my absolute hatred of my own days in school but it had the opposite effect really - it just underlined how fleeting, precious and innocent those days really were. When this album was released I had already left my schooldays far behind.

    The teachers in our school didn't have canes but they did use other methods to unleash misery and general mayhem on the children in their charge. For us, corporal punishment equated to being physically punched and kicked until the teacher decided you had learned your lesson. I once saw a boy firstly being slapped around the face, then punched, and finally kicked whilst lying in the foetal position on the floor. His crime? He was running around a corner and collided with the teacher in question.

    A few days later this boy's father confronted the teacher outside the school gate and meted out similar punishment. I didn't witness this but that day was one of the happiest of my schooldays. We learned nothing of history unless it involved those cruel Brits terrorising the poor Irish. Nothing about the great calamity of the 19th century (US civil war), nothing about the greatest calamity of the 20th century (WW2). Unless the Irish martyrs were suffering at the hands of those wicked English then the Dept of Education wasn't interested. Hated everything about school and those bastard teachers who forbade us from playing soccer as it was a 'foreign' game, smoked cigarettes in front of us in class, and derived pleasure from causing torment and upset in their classrooms. I was glad to leave it all behind as soon as I was 15 years old and legally entitled to do so.

    Despite all that I was glad that when I left I could do long division, long multiplication, could express decimals as a percentage, work out percentages and fractions in my head, knew a fair amount about geometry, book-keeping, science, and a little bit of astronomy. I could read without hesitating, was good at composition, had really nice handwriting and was very good at spelling. On countless occasions I was told I was a waster and wouldn't amount to much. That last part proved to be very accurate as it happens.

    I should hate any song that reminds me of my own schooldays but this track is a terrific opener and, as I said yesterday, is reminiscent of the earlier Days. The sense of loss of those more innocent times is really at the heart of this song - yes those days were awful but the singer longs for the time when the worst thing was having to wear a uniform and then walking to school in the wind and the rain. On growing up he learns there are more nightmarish experiences than uniforms and getting rained on to deal with.

    An affectionate sense of nostalgia written and sung in a way only Ray can. Love this song.
     
  7. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I often wonder what exactly we were supposed to amount to.... and I'm still not exactly sure lol
     
  8. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Schooldays is unusual, it’s a hard song to sing and play. The phrasing is difficult, e.g the staccato ‘go back if I could ohn-‘ . It’s also weirdly circular in construction. So it’s angular and circular at the same time. I guess that fits the conflicting childhood memories, the flaming Junes and stormy Novembers. I find that I don’t get thoroughly invested in the album until about halfway through Education - this feels like an appetizer, though an interesting one, that I wouldn’t want to go without.
     
  9. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    Before I read @Fortuleo 's eloquent post, I assumed "Schooldays" was satirical. Coming from Raymond Douglas Davies, who has resisted conformity and authority in any form, it struck me as a sarcastically wistful look back to schooldays, to set up the actual dark and ugly reality recounted in the coming songs. The subsequent songs paint the downside of those schooldays - pointless education, shaming, belittling and cruelty by administrators - wrapping up wryly with the happy singalong "The Last Assembly," once again looking back with amnesia of the dark times. It can also serve as a send up of those who live in nostalgia, who choose to remember and glorify only the happiest parts of the past and ignore the dark and ugly things, which on a broader scale can include discrimination against and mistreatment of certain segments of society.

    Now Avid Fortuleo has me wondering if this really is a sincere attempt by Ray to look a little on the sunny side of boyhood life, and think back on the positive memories as well as the bad ones. If we consider the song, and the album, as Ray's look back at his childhood and not specifically his schooldays, as Avid Fortuleo suggests, then it would be easier to take the words at face value, expressing both good and bad memories connected with the past. I'm still on the fence, but Avid Fortuleo makes a convincing argument.
    This is also a good point...Ray may be putting things in context, as he looks back with more life experience.

    Musically, it's 50s pastiche but goes down easier for me than "Ordinary People," for instance. It would not make my standalone favorites playlist but it's OK in its album context.

    Personally, my schooldays were not bad and it is with sadness and some shock that I've read about some of your experiences. The worst part of my schooldays was occasional boredom [EDIT: and some sadistic coaches], but more the lack of success with girls that I was interested in, and the adolescent self-doubt and loneliness that came with it. Adolescence was harder for me than school, which I was good at. Fortunately, I had music to get me through...you can't stop the music!
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2022
  10. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I have always found it bizarre when people sing or talk of wanting to be a teenager again. I can sort of understand wanting to be 8 or 9, or something like that, still a glimmer of innocence, not completely cynical about the world, hopefully in most instances not having been .... messed up by the world, yet.... but a teenager. All those hormones nobody tells you how to deal with. Pressure to pick a life path, and you have no real clue about what that really means. Pressure to fit in with somebody, anybody, or at least pretend to.... and that's before you even get to the idea of relationships, girlfriends/boyfriends or whatever....

    In all frankness, I don't think I would be here today if not for music to lean on.

    Certainly as a world weary adult, many of those things seem quite silly with 20/20 hindsight, but at the time, you just don't have the perspective to see it...

    From that perspective it could well be where Ray was coming from.

    Ray, or our discussions at least, are really making me think about a lot of things in this thread....
     
  11. Geoff738

    Geoff738 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Perhaps not a super strong opener. It’s no Victoria. But I enjoy it well enough.
     
  12. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    I have a good friend (and longtime creative collaborator) from high school who likely considers high school his life highpoint. He was smart, confident, popular in marching band and other groups, and had steady girlfriends, but life was never quite so smooth for him after early college (IMO he didn't really evolve emotionally). As lonely as my adolescence felt, I would much rather be someone who now looks back on high school as a dark period than someone who looks back and says it's only been downhill for 4o years!

    You're right, we have no perspective at that age - how can we, even if our parents are trying to tell us we should? I hear you about the importance of music. I expect that is true for many of us here - maybe even more for those of us who make music - that music has kept us here either physically, that is, literally kept us from checking out early, or at least kept us from dying emotionally. I for one am glad you are still here with us, Mark!
     
  13. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Yes indeed.

    Life is a strange, interesting journey.

    Cheers, me too
     
  14. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Ok captain.
     
  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Space Captain, please :)

     
  16. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    How about Captain Spaudling?

     
  17. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Captain my captain!
     
    mark winstanley, Zeki and DISKOJOE like this.
  18. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    Three chairs for Captain Spaulding!
     
  19. pablo fanques

    pablo fanques Somebody's Bad Handwroter In Memoriam

    Location:
    Poughkeepsie, NY
    I think this LP puts lie to the myth that they changed their sound once Ol' Clive signed them on. The Arista sound is already here but we still get a few 5o's pastiches and show-tuney tunes before RCA slams the screen door on our way out. A woefully underrated album that brings a smile to my face without trying. Oh and 5 year old daughter thinks the cover is just swell!
     
  20. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Schooldays

    I knew right from the get go I was going to love this album.

    How did I know?

    When I got this album, I had zero love for that doo wop era style. But I inexplicably loved this song on first listen.

    Even more surprising as, at least on paper, the lyrics weren't anything I would expect to gravitate to either.

    Nor the slower pace for an opener.

    And yet it all comes together so beautifully. That melody is so welcoming and right from the first verse, Ray's vocal is downright captivating. Then come the harmonies.

    So much to love.... even the things I don't usually love!

    And yet again I stand in awe, and tip my hat, to the musical genius that is Ray Davies.
     
  21. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Don't feel bad...
    ... in a couple days, I'm likely to be even lonelier....
     
  22. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Ah I remember someone saying Education was the greatest Kinks song of the 70s or something like that, was it you? I’ve been looking forward to hearing the argument all this time - I’m ready to be convinced!
     
  23. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    You've got a good memory!
    Yes, I shall gush madly on the appropriate day.
     
  24. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    That's the word of the year.
     
  25. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Be good, be good.
     
    DISKOJOE and mark winstanley like this.

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