Crazy Circles is another good one. It sold well at the time particularly after the disappointing performance of Burning Sky.
Avid Martyj, great story, Star Wars and all. Wasn't Indy the last place that Elvis played live, in a arena that was new at the time but is now gone?
A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy This is a song that was I was somewhat (a little) familiar with over the years. I can't even remember the last time I heard this on classic rock FM radio, but I am pretty sure this was played in the mid 90s on those stations from time to time. That was before I became a true Kinks fanatic (fanatik?) though. It's a great song, and I really enjoy how there's basically like two completely different verse melodies. The "There's a guy..." and "Dan is a fan....". Is that a bridge? I don't think so? Does it matter? I also don't think so. It's like a completely different verse groove, and it's difficult to think of another song quite like it. It's different, but seems to flow so naturally it does not sound disjointed at all (because its not disjointed). The "There's something you oughta know..." links it just beautifully. Folks have mentioned this as a sequel to Brother, but I also see this as another continuation of A Long Way From Home. Or at least another way to look at it.... in that song, we have: And you think that you need no one to guide you But you're still a long way from home. There was a certainty there. You still have a long way to go. I can be here to guide you, but you don't think that guidance is needed.... But now, we have... And I know it's a miracle we still go, and for all we know We might still have a way to go We have made it... we have guided each other...but really, we don't know how much further we will go. For all we know... which is, what exactly? What do we really know about the path ahead of us? Other thoughts: -There are some neat stereo touches with around 2:40 where Dave's riff seems to surround us, moving around the room/headphones -Great call on that bit of guitar chugging the Waterloo Sunset type riff... -Love Dave's harmonies when they join in... -The last verse... "Don't want to...." is that meant to come from the bands point of view? Or is he speaking in Dan's point of view there? -this must be why it is just so natural for me to get fully enveloped by both of these bands, and just never tire of hearing these groups output from the late 60s and 70s.
Dec. 1977 interview. He talks a lot about Preservation surprisingly but also a bit about politics, new wave and punk, the 1978 elections and radio stations aversion to playing Father Christmas. https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-image...87386445532/Ray-Davies-interview-Guar-001.jpg Also here's a quote from Gosling and he seemed to have liked to like the pre-Konk days better: KOK : Can you give us an insight of what it was like in the studio? JG : Recording sessions in the early part of the Seventies were more concise. We would convene at Morgan Studios in Willesden and Ray might start strumming a chord sequence and maybe try out fragments of vocal. We would gradually join in once we got the ‘feel’. Dave would usually have his songs complete by the time we eventually recorded them. It was a fun and creative time for all of us. Once Konk was operational things seemed to change, and Ray rarely seemed happy with anything. We took forever over every track until we eventually ran out of ideas. Sitting through endless overdubs and remixing sessions became terminally boring. I still think we should have had an independent producer. Dalton on QUITTING THE KINKS CM : When did you depart from the Kinks ? JD : In ’76. CM : What happened ? Did the band split, or did you decide to leave ? JD : I just decided to leave. It was a hard decision. We were halfway through an album [Sleepwalker]. It was actually fate, I’m sure of it. Don’t know whether anybody believed in fate ; I didn’t really, but I think it was fate. I wouldn’t have known that just a short time after I’d left, my little boy got leukemia. I wouldn’t have been able to go away to do anything. It was at a London hospital, everyday. But I’d had enough anyway. I was away all the time ; I had three boys, a wife. To be truthful, we wasn’t earning a lot of money. I still tried to be fair to the Kinks ; I made sure that every bass track was put down. The album wasn’t finished but every bass track was put down. That’s when I told them I was leaving. I didn’t play then for two years, ’cause of what was going on in my private life. Unrelated but interesting from 1978 interview: Hughes: Ray Davies? Dylan: I think he's a genius. Nobody ever asks me about him. I've always been a fan of Ray Davies ever since way back when. I've always liked him and his brother and that group. Hughes: What do you admire about the Kinks? Dylan: Well, whenever you come up with something it's like being a chemist. Whenever you come up with something new you've created something new so I have to admire anyone that can do that. And that song - like I say I don't know what he's doing these days, but he did those songs, 'You Really Got Me' and the one after that, that was new, that was different - it was new and it had never been done before. So I admire that when I hear that and I appreciate that ... (pause) ... Yeah, I was going to try to contact him next time I go over there, to see what he was doing.
I never heard about them missing a White House tour. Jimmy Carter was the President, so an invitation could have been extended to the Kinks. It may have been fallout from this occasion on May 3, 1977 when the band played in Washington's Constitution Hall. The ugly row was between Dave and Mick as reported below. I posted about this in some thread years ago and misremembered the venue as the Kennedy Center where I'd seen them years earlier. I was a few rows back in front of the drum riser this night and recall Dave gobbing more than once.
Here's the brief review from the next day. When Mick had enough, he stood with a stick in each hand and and simultaneously windmilled them at Dave like a ninja. The drumstick tips flew straight at Davies but I can no longer recall whether Avory hit the dart board with them.
Indeed. Market Square Area...where I saw my first arena concert, Alice Cooper with Special Guest Bachman Turner Overdrive. They tore it down, I believe, some time in the 90's.
Avid Martyj, upon reflection, your Star Wars theatre story has to be the best and funniest (up to the end, of course) story about an Indiana movie theatre since this classic by your fellow Hooiser, Jean Shepherd:
I knew it. There have been so many arenas & stadiums that have been built since I was born in 1962 that have long since been torn down. Also, the oldest operating baseball stadium besides Fenway & Wrigley is Dodger Stadium which is as old as I am.
A Rock n Roll Fantasy Not reading others thoughts...once again...if people are going to crap on this song, I just don't want to know right now, as this is the best song on this album and on the last album by far (and maybe the next one)! I love when the music and the lyrics just connect so beautifully. They connect in the song and connect in ME. I know this was a song I enjoyed at the time it came out. So there's something special there. I don't even have any specific memory...just a feeling. The wispy vocals that Ray uses for the first two verses is magical. Almost whispering, but not quite...but you feel like you are being drawn in to a private conversation, which is likely not too far from the truth. And the little bent note between "hello me...hello you" and elsewhere is just a special touch I'm grateful for. The backing vocals during the "Dan the fan" part is stunning. The song almost levitates. It's so good I can even forgive the use of the synths. the synths work so no wet noodle lashes for Ray(LOL). I'm sure there will be a few folks on here who will give this a good review. I feel my words are not adequate. For me this is a Kinks Klassic. No question.
One other thing I'd like to point out in support of the ascending chord sequence that accompanies the "Dan is a fan" section. (This morning I read something dismissive about this and it's been bugging me all day lol) We remember that the song begins with the lovely "Hello you, hello me" section, which is Dm to F (or vi, I) repeating. Then we adroitly transition to the "But I know ..." section with a slick reversal of those two chords but modulating D minor to D Major, (F, D, then on to Gm, C, finally back to the root F - "There's something you ought to know ..."). So, having landed back on our root chord F, we are ready to begin the dramatic Dan is a fan section. We simply walk up the scale: F, Gm, Am, B-flat, C, culminating with (sung to "stereo way up high") Dm, then back to root F - which is exactly where we started the song, the same vi, I chords as the Hello you, Hello me section! OK, maybe it's not Bach, but for me, for a pop song, this construction is extremely satisfying aesthetically and intellectually - but I'm just a fan like Dan so YMMV. * Also, as always, I appreciate the insertion of 7 beat measures that add bit of an edge to the proceedings (in the instrumental section that follows "fantaseeeeee..." ).
In "Rock and Roll Fantasy," the chorus lyric has always confused me. We learn that music is the only thing that helps Dan the Fan get through life. But to me the words in the chorus hint that he is wasting his life away, especially when the second time around Ray declares that he doesn't want to spend his life in a rock and roll fantasy. Our leader @mark winstanley's interpretation is that Ray's not going to hide behind characters anymore, and that he and Dave need to commit to stick together and carry on for their fans. It seems reasonable, and I am curious: how do others interpret the lyrics in the second chorus? Amazingly, my Misfits CD arrived to Houston from Germany in 6 days. While I had previously been streaming it, I prefer to sit down with the lyric booklet while I play the CD and will do that this week. You've painted a vivid picture, Avid The late man, and that last sentence gave me a much-needed LOL...merci! (Sadly, I have now exhausted most of my French vocabulary that doesn't relate to food).
While at work today, I had Black Messiah in my brain. On and on it went. Non-stop. Then I get home to look at and listen to A Rock n Roll Fantasy and now I'm like Black Messiah...what???
I know it's a simple typo but don't want anyone to have anyone get confused here. It was Andy Pyle and John Gosling planning on a new project/album. Dalton was long gone by this point. I love that you call out these musical things here from time to time. We have so much great contribution and discussion about the lyrics (and rightly so given we're talking about one of THE greatest songwriters/lyricists of all time here), that sometimes these little musical things that only musicians probably recognize get called out. I'll put my time-signature-nerd/drummer hat back on here and say I love the 7 beat phrases you mention here. It's common but highly effective. You can count it as a bar of 4/4 and then 3/4 or as a bar of 3/4 and then 4/4 with the last beat becoming the first beat or the 1 of the next bar instead of the 4 that would then resolve to the 1 if it was straight 4/4 time. Ray did this in several songs and I'm sure you'll recognize Dave did this too way back in "Hold My Hand" and "Mindless Child Of Motherhood" where he alternated with both 4/4 and 3/4 bars and just straight 4/4 with almost the same phrases seemingly randomly. Very cool. (I can imagine the glazed looks of some here saying what the hell is he talking about? .)
It’s just one bar of 3/4 at a time in these phrases of 4s and 3s in this song so I wouldn’t call it a waltz myself. I think the more modern definition of a waltz is mainly 3/4 (or 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, etc.) the whole phrase as opposed to alternating bars of odd and even meters. Though not everything in these time signatures of 3 should be considered waltz time.
Thank you again Fearless Leader for moderating your brainchild of a thread. I am really enjoying the roll coaster ride! The Kinks are a band that evokes real emotions with their lyrics and music like no other band I know. You hit the nail on the head with that comment. I would not have been able to express that so succinctly, but it was what was swirling around in my head as we have gone from song to song for months now, how so many of their songs consistently trigger such a diverse array of feelings and memories, and the result is that the songs really resonate as personal. It makes you feel and associate with their songs like they are your own personal story being sung. That is such an art, to be able to write so personally and yet so universally! …and it is clearly not just me that feels it, everyone here seems to be expressing the same thing. It’s like we all can’t wait for the next day (I hate sundays lately btw) to see what Ray and the gang unveil, praying, and yet also assuming, that our heroes will yet again unveil something amazing, feeling down and disappointed, almost hurt, when The Kinks Song of The Day, isn’t a new mind-blown event, if they (gasp) demonstrate that they are fallible, they are sometimes Clark Kent (I wish I could fly like Superman!). We expect so much from them (and rightfully so, they hadn’t failed us for album after album). Welcome to the Church of The Kinks! sorry for the run on sentence.
A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy I have always been a melancholy fellow. Moments of synesthesia intensify these feelings. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Leave me to prowl my childhood streets on late Thanksgiving evenings and I’m alive. There are many songs in my life’s soundtrack that transport or comfort me (or both). This song never had that effect on me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s v. good and deserving of its Top 40 placing. Maybe there’s something a little too clinical about it for me, dunno; I haven’t sorted this out in the past thirty-odd years and certainly won’t tonight. For me it works on other, more traditional levels; it’s many highlights rightly praised by many here. To make a long post longer, I guess it doesn’t hit me emotionally as, say, a ‘Too Much on my Mind’ or a ‘Sitting in the Midday Sun’. Those two are just what the doctor ordered during certain spots of bother. For me it’s just another really good song (ho-hum). I do enjoy the fragility in Ray’s lyric ‘for all we know we might still have a way to go’, so unsure of his future (though ten years later he’ll be convincingly singing ‘there’s gas in my tank and I’ve still got a way to go). That elegiac last verse really makes the song for me, the urgency, the beautiful harmonizing, everything about it. ‘He’s seen us high and he’s seen us low’; what other rock star would throw in such a humble and vulnerable line about himself (and his band). Ray, of course. The same Ray I heard promoting The Road on WNEW airwaves, who, when the DJ asked about the adrenaline rush of playing to 20,000 fans, corrected him and said ‘Oh, it was about 8,000 people, a lot of fun.’
I heard "A Well Respected Man" on the AM oldies station I listen to in my car as I was pulling into work today. The Kinks on AM just like 1966!
wow, I hadn’t read this when I wrote my little essay. I was on a plane. You articulated what I was going for so nicely. …and with way fewer words!
One One ear worm after another. …even the “weak” songs, like black messiah and hay fever. Makes one wonder how this album isn’t rated higher by the fans.
