Tag: songs

Not over The Kinks

Magnet Magazine produced their list of the five most overrated, and underrated, songs in The Kinks canon. This inspired me to do something similar—well, maybe not that similar.

I mean, I have to agree with many comments on the article that declaring anything “overrated” in terms of The Kinks is a bit absurd, given their unfair residence in the shadow of that “holy trinity” of The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. You can point out all you want that while the Beatles early songs were kind of lame (“Love Me Do”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”), The Kinks’ were—and remain—pretty awesome (“You Really Got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night”). Or that Arthur—not Tommy—was actually the first rock opera. Or that The Kinks continued to develop musically throughout their 30-year career, while the Rolling Stones musical development seems to have died along with Brian Jones.

None of that matters. Those bands are just more popular, overall, than The Kinks, and nothing’s going change that. (And if Kinks fans are honest, they’re going to admit to liking having The Kinks as their own secret great band of the British invasion.)

Now, The Kinks did have some big hits (“You Really Got Me”, “Lola”, “Come Dancing”), but they’re all good songs, in my opinion, and none “overrated”. But none worth talking about any more, either.

But underrated… What does that really mean, with these guys? Songs people slagged unfairly? What would those be?

So, my list is not really overrated, nor underrated. It’s just Kinks songs that I really really like, that most people don’t know. These are ones that came to me off the top of my head, with no scouring through song lists. It’s about evenly divided between 60s/early 70s and 80/90s—the Kinks having somewhat lost me in their 70s concept album phase.

In no particular order…

1. Art Lover (Give the People What They Want, 1982)

The song that made me a Kinks fan. I saw The Kinks perform this on Saturday Night Live, and was instantly infatuated by Ray’s extremely flirtatious presentation. Only later did I realize it’s actually a song “either about a lonely Dad missing his daughter, or a really mellow pervert.” The uncomfortable ambiguity is very Kinks. (And I still find Ray terribly sexy in that clip.)

Live version of Art Lover—sadly, not the one from SNL

2. I’m Not Like Everybody Else (To the Bone, 1994)

While I also really enjoy the original 1965(?) version, sung by Dave, I think my favorite is the live 1994 version, sung by Ray, who introduces it thusly:

This song summarizes what The Kinks are all about. Because everybody expects us to do wonderful things, and we mess it all up, usually.

I like the slightly altered lyrics, and most especially, the delicious irony of a whole crowd of people gleefully singing in unison that they “aren’t like everybody else!”

The original, sung by Dave

3. Village Green Preservation Society (The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, 1968)

I love this song beyond all reason, given that it’s on a subject I neither know nor particularly care about: preservation of British heritage. I think it’s the clever wordplay (“We are the Sherlock Holmes, the English-speaking vernacular / Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty, and Dracula”), the gorgeous harmonies throughout, and the very pleasing key change near the end. (The version on To the Bone is also wonderful.)

The original and a live version (more interesting video, but not as good a version)

4. Days (single, 1969)

OK, this is cheating, because this was probably was a hit. But it’s too beautiful not to include.

It’s about a now-ended love affair. But instead of expressing self-pity, or anger, it expresses gratitude. Thank you. Thank you for ever being with me at all. Thank you for the days, those endless days you gave me.

I’ve never heard anything like it. And not to be morbid, but… I want this played at my funeral. (“I bless the light, I bless the light that shines on you, believe me. And though you’re gone, you’re with me every single day, believe me.”)

The Kinks miming “Days” on Top of the Pops (guess it was a hit)

5. Shangri-la (Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1969)

This one was on the Magnet Magazine list, and I have to agree. It’s the best song on an album with no weak tracks. It starts out in soft tones, as apparent homage to idyllic suburban living: “Now that you’ve found your paradise, this is your kingdom to command.” It then segues into an angrier, louder middle section, pointing out the multitude of ways that “life ain’t so happy in your little shangri-la”. When the initial verse returns, in the same tune but now retaining the angry horns, it now seems rather ominous: “You’ve reached your top and you just can’t get any higher.”

It’s nothing but brilliant.

The original and Ray playing it live–for the first time

6. Living on a Thin Line (Word of Mouth, 1984)

The Kinks have a lot of songs about British life and mores—gardening, drinking tea, china cups, and virginity. They have whole albums about it. But one of the very best of these is actually by Dave Davies, not Ray.

Now, Dave wrote this with the thought that Ray might sing it. It’s keyed for Ray’s lower vocal range. But Ray declined, and Dave does the honors, and does a fine job of it. It’s nicely produced, sort of epic-sounding, and had it ever been released as a single, who knows? (One of the many sore points between the brothers.)

Living on a Thin Line

7. Don’t Look Down (Phobia, 1993)

Phobia is the last full studio album from The Kinks and has a lot of strong tracks, notably the beautiful “Scattered” and the incendiary “Hatred” duet between the brothers. But I keep coming back to this simple track as a great example of Ray’s ability to so vividly paint a portrait of daily life. And of his optimism.

Walking down the street, he sees a man on the edge—literally. “Don’t look down.” More and more people join in. “And we all start to say: Don’t look down.” “Now the sun’s coming up—looks like he’s standing on a rainbow”…

Don’t Look Down

8. The Moneygoround (Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround, 1970)

The Lola album is also very strong, and includes the touching “Get Back in the Line” and Dave’s spiritual ode, “Strangers”. It also has a number of fun tunes (apart from “Lola”)—the fabulous “Top of the Pops” (“Life is so easy when your record’s hot”) and this one. Here is Ray taking what was actually a very painful experience (“Do they all deserve money for a song that they’ve never heard?”) and turning it into catchy romp (that you can totally dance to).

The Kinks video for Moneygoround

9. Property (State of Confusion, 1983)

Ah, the divorce song. Just a sad, beautiful song, observing how “all the little things, we thought we’d throw away / The useless souvenirs, bought on a holiday / We put them on a shelf, now they’re collecting dust / We never needed them / But they outlasted us.”

Property

10. Love Me Til the Sun Shines (Something Else by The Kinks, 1967)

Got to stop somewhere, so why not with this bit of horny ridiculousness by Dave from a classic 60s Kinks album. In a steady rock chug, Dave informs us that not only does his girlfriend not have to cook or clean for him, she doesn’t even have to laugh with him or hold his hand. Oh, and she can totally make out with his friends, and it’s fine if she borrows and wrecks his stuff.

Just as long as she still “loves” him til the sun shines.

Well, at least he has his priorities straight.

I don’t want to make excuses, but… I was 16 years old. I had the world at my feet. I had the world [laughs] at my… d***. — Dave Davies

Love Me Til the Sun Shines

Appendix: OK, couldn’t quite stop until I added these two…

11. Noise (B-side 1983)

A really obscure tune that only later showed on up on the CD version of State of Confusion as a bonus track. Yet it’s as good as anything else on the album. I love the soaring chorus—“All I hear is noise.”

Noise

12. Alcohol (Everybody’s in Showbiz, 1973)

This one is probably cheating as well, as it was a centerpiece of The Kinks’ stage act of the 1970s, Ray balancing a bottle of beer on his head. So not really obscure. The verses are in third person, telling us “the story of a sinner who used to be a winner.” Then the chorus switches into first person: “Oh demon alcohol / Sad memories I can’t recall”. I suppose I should be troubled by a song about alcoholism sounding so jaunty, not to mention the sexism of the “floozy” and the wife beating. But it’s just too fun to take seriously.

Alcohol, live (as it should be), 1977

All I want is Who

And then the other reason I can’t put much energy into political thinking is that I’m too busy thinking about The Who.

The Who? They doing something? New album? Good-bye tour number 10? Another one of them die?

No, nothing like that. They’re not doing anything in particular at the moment, that I’m aware of. But, I did get The Amazing Journey DVD for Christmas, and now I’m slightly obsessed.

OK, so that was that the trigger, but why? Earlier this year I got the Kids Are Alright DVD, and that didn’t spawn any sort of obsession.

I went to the Jeans’n’Classic concert recently featuring music by the Rolling Stones and The Who, and it was really good, but again, didn’t make the band enter my thoughts any more often than before.

But now, you know, I’m digging out the old albums, other DVDs, the videotapes (!), the books… finding new websites… (And it’s irritating me like heck that I can’t remember anything significant about the one time I saw them live—on goodbye tour number 2.) It’s not like I ever stopped liking The Who, you know, but normally they’re just one among many.

It’s sure not to last, but for now, I’m just going to go with it. The beauty is, I don’t even have all their albums yet, so I have stuff to discover.

I can’t believe I just, just bought “Love Reign O’er Me”. I mean, how great is that song?

And Live at Leeds. Have you heard Live at Leeds? How can any band who jumps around as much as they all do sound so fantastic, so cohesive, so huge, live? There is no band of the 60s who was better onstage. And this is a case where waiting pays off; far from the mere six songs on the original Live at Leeds, the “expanded and remixed” version now available has the entire concert.

I just don’t know how I’ve lived without all these years. 🙂

I leave you now with Woodstock. See me, feel me. Indeed.

Start spreading the news…

But I’m not leaving today; I’m actually back from New York a week now and finally feel recovered.

I do find the website a more suitable medium than the blog for posting the photos and commentary; you can see that here:

https://jean-cathy.com/wp51/new-york-city-weekend-2008/

The week before going, I put together a playlist of songs about New York—New York State of Mind, First We Take Manhattan, New York City, New York Conversation, America (“Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike”), An American Tune, Last Chance on the Stairway (“45! ‘Tween Fifth and Broadway”), Chinatown, and so on. Course, then my brain was plagued by these songs the whole weekend. Mind you, that probably would have happened anyway.

“The Big Apple” playlist on YouTube Music (this link is a later addition, clearly)

Anger Management

So I decided to gather an iPod playlist of “angry” songs. (Never you mind why—let’s just say strong emotions can make for great songs, and leave it at that.) But as I’ve noted before, I have a pretty substantial list of songs to sort, and there’s no easy way to pick out which ones qualify as “angry”.

Of course, some are obvious—the “you done me wrong” songs. The classic Alanis “You Oughta Know” (I’m here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away), Marianne Faithfull’s incendiary “Why D’Ya Do It?” (Why d’ya do it she screamed, why d’ya do what you did. You drove my ego to a really bad skid.), Bob Geldof’s “One for You”, a parting shot at his ex-wife (You don’t even need to take your clothes off anymore. You’re a bit too old for that stuff, anyway.), and John Lennon’s outraged “Gimme Some Truth” (I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites. All I want is some truth).

But really, that could be a rather short and possibly somewhat depressing playlist. Could at least expand it to that interesting category of songs about people whose behavior is frustrating, though they haven’t actually done anything to you. Billy Joel, of all people, is kind of a master at these—raging at the apathetic slacker in “Captain Jack” (You’re 21 and still your mother makes your bed. And that’s too long!), the show-off in “Big Shot” (When you wake up in the morning with your head on fire and your eyes too bloody to see, go on and cry in your coffee but don’t come bitching to me). Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” (also covered brilliantly by Marianne Faithfull) is another fascinating example, as the anger really seems more directed at the working class for not realizing they are oppressed, and not that at those oppressing. Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV. And you think you’re so clever and classless and free. But you’re still fucking peasants, as far as I can see.

Which brings us to songs featuring productive anger, the “we can change the world” kind of anger, of which Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” would be the lead example, if only I owned that song. But I do have Queen’s “Fight from Inside”, Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”, Lowest of the Low’s “Eating the Rich” (It’s an evolutionary chow-down), U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”—and maybe The Clash’s “London Calling” qualifies here? (And I’m not sure how to sub-categorize Tori Amos’ “Waitress”: I want to kill this waitress. She’s worked here for years. It would be a kindness.)

Course you have to be careful about songs that sound angry, but aren’t really. Everything Billy Idol does sounds kind of angry, but I think he’s mostly going for horny. Except in “White Wedding”—”White Wedding” really is angry. And all punk and grunge sounds kind of angry, but “Blister is the Sun” and “I Wanna Be Sedated”, for example, are really just about teenage restlessness, not anger. “Lust for Life” is a happy song, no matter Iggy sounding a bit pissed off. And “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? I’m not convinced that “angry” is what it’s expressing. (He feels stupid and contagious. Here we are now. Entertain us.)

On the other hand, true anger can hide inside music that sounds kind of sweet and poppy. For example, Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” and Liz Phair’s “The Divorce Song” sound sort of sad and sweet, but there’s angry tension throughout. And ever really listen to the lyrics of Barenaked Ladies’ “Alcohol”, “One Week”, or “The Apartment”? Sure it all sounds poppy and bouncy and fun, but the singer is pissed off. He likes alcohol more than you. It will still be three days til he says he’s sorry. Why did you change the locks?

For some artists, tracing the anger pattern in their music is a biographical lesson. Beatles music has very little anger in it; just a bit peeps out in a few John Lennon tracks like “Run for Your Life”, “I’m So Tired”, and “Come Together” (though that last one, again, is probably more horny). But post-Beatles John Lennon? Holy, easier to par out the few songs that aren’t angry. Until the last album, which—other than “I’m Losing You”—shows he’s found some peace.

Bob Geldof’s first album with the Boomtown Rats is highly pissed off, then becomes less so with subsequent albums, as the band’s success grows. His first three post-Rats, post-Live Aid albums reveal a man fairly satisfied, even happy. The last? A man whose wife has left him for another man. A man enraged. A man who has just put out the best album of his career (Sex, Age and Death).

I know the only feeling you have is rage
And I know that I’d feel the same as you, but
I think you’d better take a good look around you ’cause
You’re so pissed you can’t even find your drink

Sometimes it’s wise
To know which way the gun is pointing
Before you yell, “I see the whites of their eyes.”
Sometimes you’ll find your senses all disjointed by
The lines and wires of salesmen, cheats and liars

— Salesmen, Cheats and Liars by Lowest of the Low

Rage wisely.

Breaking out of the iPod bubble

“Love of iPod” is not exactly an original sentiment. I’m coming up on two years of ownership of my 30 GB “video” iPod, which holds no video and, despite the presence of some audiobooks, I mostly see as a music machine. The house and car are finally arranged such that I can listen to it anywhere, sans earphones (which hurt my ears, and make me sound particularly insane when I sing along). I love the playlists—the ability to combine a subset of my 3500 songs according to genre, mood, theme, composer, quality, date…

But the downside, of course, is that you really limit your exposure to new artists and songs—ones you might well come to love and appreciate, if only you ever had a chance to listen to them.

Then again, even before iPod, I’d already mostly given up on radio stations that played new music, whose between-song patter and ads were clearly aimed a couple decades younger than me, and the music television stations, which seemed to be largely taken over with rap music. At least, with the iPod/iTunes store, I cheaply sample a song or two from a new (or new to me) artist, if it happens to reach my consciousness.

I haven’t deleted the “Purchased” playlist that the iPod software automatically places all your bought songs into. It becomes kind of a map into the music that has managed to break through the barriers of “the music I already own”. So what does manage to burst through?

Music from TV. (Just not from music TV.)

Most influential has to be the addictive reality shows Rock Star: INXS and Rock Star: Supernova, from which I have not only have I bought performances from the show itself, but also originals of what was covered, and songs by the performers on it. But there’s also a smattering of Canadian / American Idol, and even some influenced by dramatic series.

  • “Single” by Kalan Porter. The winner of the first season of Canadian Idol I watched most of, the judges kept commenting on his rich, mature voice. Though recognizing he was a good singer, I didn’t really grasp that quality of his voice until this song, which really plays that up from its opening notes. Hard to believe he’s only 17.
  • Nevermind by Nirvana. I had the Unplugged album already; Rock Star: INXS convinced me I need this one too.
  • “Wish You Were Here” by Marty Casey. A breakthrough moment in Rock Star: INXS, as Marty Casey sang this more melodically than anything he’d done previously, which helped carry him through to the final. Also a bit of a breakthrough for me, as I finally started to understand the mania for Pink Floyd, a band I’d previously dismissed as too dark. “Wish You Were Here” is beautiful, and some of their other stuff doesn’t suck, either.
  • “How to Save a Life” by the Fray. This song became so associated with Grey’s Anatomy that I actually thought it was the official theme song, and wondered why it didn’t play at the start of the show. Then it stuck in my head and I had to get it.
  • “Anything, Anything” by Dramarama. The wonderful Storm Large won her first encore on Rock Star: Supernova with her performance of this song, that I’d never heard of before. It’s a barn burner. (I also bought Storm’s own “Ladylike” single, a true feminist anthem.)
  • “California Dreamin'” by JD Fortune; “Baby One More Time” by Marty Casey. Two radical reinterpretations of these well-known songs reveal the creativity on display in Rock Star: INXS. In both cases, I think I like these better than the originals.
  • “Save the Last Dance for Me” by Ben E. King. I bought this because it was the soundtrack for Brian and Justin’s season 1 prom dance on Queer as Folk, and have developed an appreciation for just how sexy this song is, in its own right.

Others in this category: “Pretty Vegas” by INXS (their first single with winner J.D. Fortune), “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Suzy McNeil (a tour de force from the show), “Man Who Sold the World” by Jordis Unga (beautiful song, beautiful performance), “We Used to Be Friends” by the Dandy Warhols (Veronica Mars theme song), “Over My Head” by The Fray (since I liked their other song), Suzie McNeil’s Broken and Beautiful album (girl has pipes), and “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers (whom I suspect I should get more of).

On the dance floor

I don’t have a whole lot of pure dance albums, but I do love me a really good dance tune. Sometimes I first read about these; sometimes I caught a minute on MuchMusic after all; sometimes I heard it when out dancing at parties or weddings! “Mambo No. 5”, “Livin’ La Vida Loca”, “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Maneater”, “Can’t Get You out of My Head”…

But the ultimate has to be Great West’s “Home for a Rest”. Because that’s just what you need to do after dancing along to this infectious tune.

From when I used to listen to radio

“Laid” by James. I loved this song when I used to hear it on 102.1 (back when I still listened to that), but had a heck of time figuring out what the song and artist name were. When I finally found it, this became, like, the fourth song I bought for the iPod.

The only other one in this category, I think, is “Closing Time” by Supersonic.

The Grammy’s / The Junos

TV again, but in the specific genre of music awards.  These would have some influence over my owning some Shakira and Nelly Furtado (as previously mentioned), and definitely affected these purchases:

  • “Hey Ya!” by OutKast. He was really criticized for his “native American” theme here, but it kind of blew me away.
  •  “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. I don’t think he performed at the Oscars, did he? But he still won, and I love this song, and I don’t even know why, because it’s definitely rap.
  • “Hallelujah” by KD Lang. Gorgeous, gorgeous; I have two versions of this, live and studio. The lyrics just get me; I don’t understand them literally but they seem to reach right past the logic into the emotion. (I also bought a few more of her covers from Songs of the 49th Parallel.)
  • “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. This was not a beautiful look period for her, but she really killed this song.
  • Green Day’s American Idiot album. It’s sort of punk/pop and kind of great.
  • “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks. Although, it was more the documentary than all the Grammies that had me buy this song.