Kinked Again. Revisiting the Phenomenon of the Kinks

And so, just like that, I’m back in 2011, the year I finally discovered the Kinks, the flame rekindled, courtesy of a BBC strand on the band. What does it this time is a documentary called I’m Not Like Everybody Else, which has interviews with both Ray and Dave Davies, and Mick Avory and Pete Quaife and music clips. End up singing Shangri-La for days. Oh, that particular gift that Ray has with major and minor, minutiae and melancholy, every tiny triumph pricked by irony, a herald to defeat, every loss resigned to, ‘every everything’ as my friend the late and great Grant Hart might say. It’s all there in the writing and the delivery. And that intelligence, that he plays down a lot. Of course, you’re a poet, Ray, but so much more than that.

And Dave. And Dave. What can I say? The cheekiness of the ten-year-old has never left him. Disarmingly honest, I fall victim to his charisma once more. His artless manner allows him to call his brother a ‘manipulative arsehole’ and get away with it.

So, the first Kinks song I remember hearing, and loving, was Celluloid Heroes (released in 1979) (probably the first time I'd heard the word 'celluloid'), because it was played a lot on Radio Caroline. It is such a tour de force and a typical Kinks song, in that it was atypical and unlike the rest of the music of the time. Full of melodrama and bathos, it told a story, it had a message – the power and the transience of fame ('Success walks hand in hand with failure along Hollywood Boulevard') and the price you might pay for it, how the glamour is merely an illusion. I presume I did hear the 60s and early 70s tracks on the Golden Oldies shows at the time but I never really connected any of them with the band who made Celluloid Heroes.

I feel as if Ray Davies is an old soul. That, even as a young man, he could understand and imagine what it might be like to be a middle-aged man, or an old man. And then capture it in a character in a song, who, even if slightly ridiculed, is ridiculed with affection and compassion (Mr Pleasant, A Well-Respected Man). He moves on, innovates, changes tack but he will still be looking at the scene in the rearview mirror, then encapsulating it in song – such as Come Dancing, Working Man’s Café (Ray solo). I’m like Ray. I was nostalgic by the age of 11. Dave says ‘If something good happens, Ray will construct a situation to make it go wrong.’ The thing is Dave just accepts something good has happened – its face value – but Ray is already looking the gift horse in the mouth or maybe even remembering the Trojan horse.

And Dave Davies is a new soul. He seems to regenerate, be able to leave and leave behind without rancour or regret. And maybe he doesn't even register the fact that he has left anything behind. He's moved on. His moment is everything. It’s as if he lived the life a CBT counsellor advised me to, carpe diem, without ever pausing to consider the past or the future but ready to connect right here, right now. It would probably be uncool of me to quote a John Denver song at this point but, if you have ever read any of my blogs, you’ll know that being thought uncool does not give me sleepless nights: ‘I can’t be contented with yesterday’s story/I can’t live on promises, winter to spring/Today is my moment, and now is my story/Who cares what tomorrow will bring?’ (Today – John Denver) 

I think I used the phrase ‘emotional intelligence’ to convey Dave’s writing and performing, perhaps in my blog comparing Dave’s role in the Kinks to George Harrison’s in the Beatles, and Dave’s solo career to George Harrison’s. Dave's music is transparent, immediate, accessible and stirring but, if you started to analyse the lyrics, you would find they don’t make total sense – it’s more a tide of feeling that carries you along (Strangers). Sometimes it’s like magic (Flowers in the Rain – Dave solo). Don’t get me wrong (to gratuitously quote Different Drum – Stone Poneys, written by Mike Nesmith), Ray has that emotional intelligence too and can create a song that’s sublime, subtle, simple, beautiful, of its time and of all time (to paraphrase the late, beloved Glenn Frey, speaking of the Eagles), like the incomparable Waterloo Sunset, but he’s also a consummate craftsman. When he paints a portrait or a landscape, any detail can be extracted and enlarged, and reveal more about the scene. Or say, if it were a character in a movie, there would be a backstory complete enough to satisfy Dustin Hoffman. The tune will be as contagious as Covid. Dave is more of an Impressionist. He paints in broad brush strokes.

It's not that Ray isn't optimistic. He's a realist. Listen to Real World. How else to explain it? Ray sees the wood and the trees within them. Dave sees the trees. And guess, what, I'm back to Different Drum.

Dedicated to John Gosling, 1948 - 2023. Rest in Peace.

 

Flowers in the Rain – Dave Davies

 

Like a perfect spider's web

Almost unbearably pretty, delicate, like a perfect, intricate cobweb spun across your path on a summer’s day, ephemeral, evanescent, something that cannot last, that a casual hand or gentle breeze might accidentally sunder. An evocation of another era, the innocence of all our childhoods. Suffused with sadness, regret, longing, tenderness, but also the understanding, forgiveness and acceptance that accompanies the passage of time. It reminds me in a way of Fleetwood Mac's Say Goodbye, written by Lindsey Buckingham.

A wistful but philosophical meditation on young love, from the vantage of the present, with Dave’s voice even more affecting as it breaks slightly reaching for a note, as if what he feels can't be restrained by his physical ability, that it transcends something so corporeal. A melancholy refrain gives way to a chorus that gently takes flight, never soaring but remaining in harmony with the simple restraint of the song. It refuses to aggrandise the sentiment into something it’s not.

More Artful Dodger than Oliver
in Dead End Street, wicked boy

The video of this on YouTube was my first sighting of a grown-up Dave. I only started liking the Kinks, as you can tell from these blogs, in 2011. And the fact that he was so much older than the wicked boy I had seen in Kinks videos, physically almost frail (post-stroke), increased the song’s poignancy, as a reflection on a youth that was over and the exuberance, purity and intensity of first love.

Pretty boy

Every time I heard this song I used to cry, particularly if I were watching Dave sing it live at those unforgettable Satsang events, detailed in Dave Davies Breaks My Heart (Again): Satsang I and Dave Davies: Satsang II: April 2012: You Only Live Twice. It’s like a snippet from someone’s diary, personal, intimate, authentic. I’m not sure that Ray could write a song like this because he has too much self-awareness. Dave has an emotional intelligence that, put into song, can transcend some of Ray’s writing. And here there’s something unadulterated, a truth, something that Ray perhaps can't access as easily (or chooses not to access) because his intelligence, his craft, get in the way, advising an ironic distance; he has too many options, too many personae, too many angles and ideas. He sees each side. And Ray rarely opens his heart like this. He keeps his heart under wraps, keeps it safe. Here Dave shares an experience, private and precious, at once individual and universal, lets his guard down, exposes his vulnerability. It was this song that made me like Dave. I went on to love the dis-ingenu Dave of the early Kinks, always more Artful Dodger than Oliver, the wicked boy.

Today as I'm sifting through these photographs of you/Never thought I'd feel this way/All these memories keep calling me to you/How I wish they'd go away/All these visions just remind me of better days/And I miss you most of all/When I see Flowers in the Rain/I see you laughing as we run across the fields/Through the thunder and the rain/Finding shelter in each other's arms that day/All the things I didn't say/All these words keep going round and round in my brain/And I miss you most of all/When I see Flowers in the Rain/Wish I could do something about it/Life can be cruel, no doubt about it/In life's many mysteries/It just wasn't meant to be, oh no/I miss you most of all/When I see Flowers in the Rain.

Another pretty boy

Ray’s style is more masterful, more knowing, more constructed, an artifice, in words and music. There’s truth and power but it’s one step removed. His songs make you think as well as feel. But when they’re simple and seem heartfelt, you know it’s a decision, the reflection of a thought, that this is how he meant them to sound although early Kinks songs had a similar immediate charm. I would say that Ray is probably a deeper thinker than Dave generally (and I'm sure that Dave would take issue with that), that Dave doesn't always consider before he acts, is more impetuous in life. And the result is songs that don't always make sense lyrically, don't necessarily follow any standard template but seem to arise organically and have an added impact because of that, for instance, This Man He Weeps Tonight and Mindless Child of Motherhood. I'm not going to say Ray's work is not emotionally affecting because I'm moved by so much of it, from the super successful (Waterloo Sunset - unbelievably, this seems to be the first time I've mentioned this fantastic song in any of my Kinks blogs, as if I didn't appreciate its consummate artistry) to the, to non-Kinks fans, relatively obscure (Get Back in the Line), not to mention the incredibly rousing I'm Not Like Everybody Else (this live version is particularly amazing). But he will never let his guard down (in his work at least). Dave is unguarded. There is an honesty and directness in this and many other Dave songs. It’s as if the song were born, rather than carefully crafted, although I know it wasn’t. There's something  uncomplicated, unostentatious, sincere, instinctual that we react to instinctively.

Dave then

This song is almost like when you pick a scab off a cut to reveal fresh skin underneath. It’s still tender but it’s healed, it's new. Love is lost; love is found; we lament, but scars fade and life goes on. Dave moves on, often burning his bridges behind him.

So, how can I fall out of love with Dave, when songs like this still touch me? And that’s not nothing. It’s something: to be moved by a tune, a lyric, a delivery, all of which are in their way, Dave’s way, immaculate here. Flowers in the Rain is a direct call from Dave's heart to our hearts to which our hearts cannot help but respond.

Dave in 2017

For more on Dave Davies's songwriting, see Dave Davies and George Harrison: Parallel Lives Part I and Dave Davies and George Harrison: Parallel Lives Part II.

Adventures in the Kinkdom

Here’s a brief précis of my Kinks blogs so far.

I become enchanted

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/birth-of-obsession-kinks.html

and bewitched

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/kinks-progress-of-obsession-part-ii.html

Dave Davies Satsang Experience

First time around

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/dave-davies-breaks-my-heart-again.html

Setlist and band members

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/dave-davies-satsang-weekend-setlist.html

You Only Live Twice

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/dave-davies-satsang-ii-april-2012-you.html

Muswell Hillbillies, Kinks locales

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/this-is-my-street-and-im-never-gonna.html

X-Raying X-Ray

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/x-raying-x-ray-by-ray-davies-part-one.html

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/x-raying-x-ray-by-ray-davies-part-two.html

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/x-raying-x-ray-part-3-lost-between.html

Uncovering Kink

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/reflections-on-kink-by-dave-davies.html

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/dave-davies-kink-man-behaving-badly.html

Kink vs X-Ray

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/brothers-beyond-kink-dave-daviesx-ray.html

Movie Stars

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/who-should-play-ray-and-dave-davies-in.html

Village Green

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/village-green-preservation-society.html

Come Dancing

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/come-dancing-with-ray-davies-2012.html

Ray Davies Live

At Canterbury

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/ray-davies-canterbury-tale.html

At the Hop Farm

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ray-davies-rocks-hop-farm-festival-2012.html

On tour with Ray

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ray-davies-its-really-been-quite-trip.html

Dave Davies Guitar Hero

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/dave-davies-unsung-guitar-hero.html

Dave Davies & George Harrison Paralle1 Lives 1

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dave-davies-and-george-harrison.html

Dave Davies & George Harrison Paralle1 Lives 2

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/dave-davies-and-george-harrison.html

Dave Davies: Flowers in the Rain
http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/flowers-in-rain-dave-davies.html

Ray Davies at the BBC

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ray-davies-mastertapes-bbc-maida-vale.html

Bashful Badger also summarised her Kinks blogs so far in a digest.

Dave Davies and George Harrison: Parallel Lives Part II

[If you missed Part I, you can find it here.]

Connections

Both were the youngest members of the band and the lead guitarists. They may even have played the same guitar.

Dave says:

‘Somebody had loaned me a custom-built Guild guitar that had once been owned by George Harrison. In those days we carried our own instruments and when we arrived at the airport in LA all the bags arrived except for that guitar.’ Dave went on to buy a Gibson Futurist, aka the Flying Vee, for $200. I think the moral of this tale is ‘Don’t lend Dave your guitar.’

And they loved their guitars:

In Kink, Dave writes of a girlfriend:

‘She was terribly jealous of that guitar, the way I held it, the way I cared for it. She always thought I loved it more than I did her.’

George told Beatles Monthly:

‘I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied.’

Collaboration

It seems that Dave and George had similar attitudes when working with others to create a song. The result was more important than who did what.

Two quotes from Dave illustrate this:

‘Lola was written in a similar way to You Really Got Me. We got together in Ray's front room, and Ray had the basic idea of the song, the skeleton idea … and I just started playing E in the bottom position, moved it up to A, leaving the E string open and in the chord. Ray said, 'Ah, that's great. Let's put that in as well.' [As a songwriter] Ray has a very firm idea about what he wants to do, and I try to accommodate him as best I can, but I think in certain areas, on certain songs, there's a lot more collaboration than people realise. Although Ray and I don't get on particularly well, there's a lot of empathy and unspoken energy that goes toward the finished product.’

'I think a rock 'n' roll record should start off being a song and should end up being a song. I think that everything around it should be complementary to it, or help it to evolve, rather than get in its way. I've always tried to keep that in mind as a guitar player. Rather than say, 'Let's start with the guitar and a 16 bar solo.' It's the song that's important, and the individual parts add to it.'

Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner described George Harrison as:

‘a guitarist who was never showy but who had an innate, eloquent melodic sense. He played exquisitely in the service of the song.’

‘George Harrison and I were once in a car and the Beatles song You Can't Do That came on, with that great riff in the beginning on the 12-string. He goes, "I came up with that.” … He said, “I was just standing there and thought, I've got to do something!” That pretty much sums him up. He just had a way of getting right to the business, of finding the right thing to play. That was part of that Beatles magic – they all seemed to find the right thing to play.’

This is true of the Kinks too. Ray knew that he could rely on Dave to play something apposite and in tune with the spirit of the song. To me, it seems that although George and Dave weren’t writing as prolifically, they used their energy and creativity to contribute to the compositions. They understood what Aristotle meant by ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ For some reason, I’ve always had that quotation backwards, that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Recognition

I’m sure they experienced similar frustrations when their songs did not make the final album cut, with both only allowed a couple of songs per LP. In the case of the Beatles, this was instrumental in the decision to split.

In 1969, McCartney told Lennon:

‘Until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours.’

Thanks, guys.

This is certainly a situation that Dave could relate to. In Kink, he tells of occasions when a song of his would be slated to appear on an album, then mysteriously disappear at the last minute. Thanks, bro. Whether this was the result of Ray’s insecurity or a real belief (as with Lennon and McCartney) that his songs were better, we’ll never know.

Now I’m thinking that one reason Dave’s songs didn’t get released might be that he was reluctant to fight his corner. I know it seems unlikely given his reputation as a battler but perhaps Dave lacked confidence in his own ability. I say this because the three songs I want to consider here in relation to George’s aren’t even indexed in Kink although he mentions She’s My Girl, another song recorded but not released. Or did Dave fail in advocacy of his songs because they were products of his pain at the time and too personal?

By the late 60s/early 70s, both George and Dave have reached a pinnacle of sorts. I’ve chosen to highlight three of their songs from this time to try to showcase what’s so special about their writing. It actually makes me angry that Dave’s songs get so little recognition from a wider public (or even from Dave) when so many less deserving talents reap so many rewards. Was it ever thus? I’ve already trashed most modern music in my first blog and don’t want to come across as reactionary but everything seems so generic and formulaic these days – the same beats, the same rap interlude (I really enjoy getting aggressively harangued by a sexist man), the same inane lyrical content, the same tiny scrap of a melody, repeated endlessly. I know there are exceptions but even today’s modern-day ‘rock’ bands all seem to be one-trick ponies recycling soundalike riffs from yesteryear in a completely pedestrian manner (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, the Kaiser Chiefs, etc.). Ok, enough with the rant already.

This Man He Weeps Tonight (1969) 

Immediate, fresh, beautifully heartfelt, Dave’s strange pronunciation of the double rs in sorrow and tomorrow adds to the poignancy of his vocal, which is wistful, yearning, the verse resigned:

I wish that you'd have known/ Of all the plans I had in store for us/ Laughing, dancing, travelling the world on our own

the chorus raging:

And this man, he weeps tonight/And his head is bowed with sorrow/But what can you do, sitting there/And you let him cry tomorrow/Yes, you'll let him cry tomorrow/Yes, you'll let him cry tomorrow

Both this and Mindless Child of Motherhood were B-sides, the former paired with Drivin’, the latter with Shangri-la. I’m not debating that both A-sides are great but I actually think the B-sides are better. At least one deserved to be an A.

George’s songs suffered a similar fate. 

Are You Ready? (1969)

Plaintive, mournful, Dave sounds like he might actually weep singing this. Simple and effective, imbued with pain and hope, this was only available on acetate until the 2011 Hidden Treasures album.

Cause you're living with a man/Who will find no understanding/Do you mind if I laid down and cried?/Do you ever know the way/That I feel for you each day?/So are you ready girl?/Are you ready?

Asked whether he can feel the frustration in the songs on Hidden Treasures, Dave replies:

‘In a way, but after all these years it has a charm because of that. I couldn’t stand listening to it at the time. Is Are You Ready? on it? I love that song. I hated it for years. It’s about Sue again.’

Mindless Child of Motherhood (1972)

When Dave sings, it doesn’t sound like a typical Kinks record at all. His voice is instantly recognisable and his songs have a totally different feel. I think that’s a good thing, much as I love Ray, because it adds to their appeal. This reminds me of the Byrds. Dave’s compositions seem to spring from raw emotion, which he can no longer contain, and so releases in a burst of cathartic song. I wish I had the know-how to describe the musical phrasing, time signatures and everything in this amazing song. There’s a very good high-quality version on YouTube in which you can hear all the things I can't express. Dave is angry and despairing:

How long must I travel on/To be just where you are?/Mindless child of motherhood/You have lost the thing that's good

I love it even though I have no idea what the phrase ‘mindless child of motherhood’ means. It doesn’t matter.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)

Delicate intro, then each time George sings the title, the guitar lets loose with a cry of its own, a strangled sob if you like, each slightly different to the last, before a sustained solo and final burst of wailing. Eric Clapton played lead guitar on this although he wasn’t credited on the album.

Wiki facts: 136 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, 7 in the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time and 10 in the Beatles 100 Greatest Songs. A Guitar World poll in February 2012 elected it the best of Harrison's Beatles-era songs.

But still not deemed good enough to be released as a single.

George explains the genesis of the song:

‘I wrote While My Guitar Gently Weeps at my mother's house in Warrington. I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes... . The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there's no such thing as coincidence - every little item that's going down has a purpose. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple study based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book - as it would be relative to that moment, at that time. I picked up a book at random, opened it, saw 'gently weeps', then laid the book down again and started the song.’

I look at the world and I notice it's turning/While my guitar gently weeps/With every mistake we must surely be learning/Still my guitar gently weeps

Here Comes the Sun (1969)

Follows a similar pattern to While My Guitar – a pretty guitar introduction, matched by the more insistent, louder guitar refrain that follows. This song is really optimistic and open, the tone reminscent of Dave’s song Wait till the Summer Comes Along. Dave’s supposedly down but still looking on the bright side. George says:

‘Here Comes the Sun was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'Sign that'. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever; by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off [bunk off] Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote Here Comes The Sun.’

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter/Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here/Here comes the sun/Here comes the sun, and I say/It's all right

Something (1969)

Finally George scores an A-side but having said that, the song was still originally handed to Joe Cocker, who released it first.

There’s a build of momentum, a gradual ascent, the guitar parts adding colour and texture before the peak of the bridge, which arrives like a tiger bursting through a paper hoop.

Wiki facts: The Beatles version topped the US Billboard charts and went top five in the UK. Covers by over 150 artists (including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett and Eric Clapton) make it the second-most covered Beatles song after Yesterday. Harrison’s favourite take on the song was apparently James Brown's, which he put on his personal jukebox.

The song's lyrics were taken from the title of a song by fellow Apple artist James Taylor, Something in the Way She Moves, and used as filler while the melody was being developed. The song's second line, ‘Attracts me like no other lover’ was the last to be written; during early recording sessions for Something, Harrison alternated between two placeholder lyrics: ‘Attracts me like a cauliflower’ and ‘Attracts me like a pomegranate’.

George's delivery is impassioned:

You're asking me will my love grow/I don't know, I don't know/You stick around and it may show/I don't know, I don't know/Something in the way she knows/And all I have to do is think of her/Something in the things she shows me/I don't want to leave her now/You know I believe and how

George tends to consider the bigger picture; Dave considers the actual picture; Ray is examining a flaw in the frame but more of Ray's delectable talent in a later blog.

Philosophy and religion

Dave and George both embraced yoga, became vegetarian and developed a mutual interest in Hinduism, Indian deities (My Sweet Lord was written in praise of Krishna but the singing of Allelujah allowed it to appeal to Christians) and Eastern religions and philosophy in general but, as usual, this blog is already too long. At the Satsang weekends, Dave emphasises inclusivity and although his beliefs might be based on Eastern concepts, he also calls on ‘Master Jesus’ and sings a version of Hare Krishna, in which everyone participates. George says:

‘All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call Him just as long as you call.’

I don't think it could be put any better than that and it seems a good line to end on.

[Dave covers Give me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth), which has been released on the tribute album Songs from the Material World: George Harrison.]

[Another blogger also considers some of these similarities.]

[Thanks to KindaKinks site and Wikipedia.]

Opinion8: Protest Songs

A blog that lists 8 of the best/worst/most common of any example, including songs, movie clichés, movies, best characters and so forth, some with explanation, some needing none.

So, here are my eight favourite songs with a message, songs that highlight an issue, a condition or a cause.Links to the songs in the titles.

1 Bullet and a Target – Citizen Cope
Vital, immediate, intelligent, heartfelt, you can't beat Citizen Cope. There’s so much going on musically when you listen carefully. I particularly love the syncopated handclaps.

‘Mrs Dalai Lamas/Another sister's shootin' heroin tomorrow/Amputees in Freetown, Sierra Leone's/The church wasn't honest/The state put the youth in a harness/Creatin' hostility among us/Teacher said no college/Still the kid's gonna get a check/With a couple of commas/People wanna bomb us/More people gotta scatter and run from us’

The second to last line quoted I heard as ‘People want Obamas’ which I think is even better.

2 For America – Jackson Browne

Passion and disillusion, a fiery combination. Lights the touchpaper every time. Jimmy Guterman calls it ‘both a prayer and a love song, which damns 'a generation's blank stare.’

‘I have prayed for America/I was made for America/Her shining dream plays in my mind/By the rockets' red glare/A generation's blank stare/We better wake her up this time’

3 Redemption Song – Bob Marley

This version reminds me of how I used to listen to Bob Marley songs, taped off the radio, playing on a small radio cassette recorder I insisted on carrying round everywhere, even on country walks, to my Dad’s dismay. A song that transcends age, gender, class and race with consummate ease, that is as at home on my radio cassette as it is at the ATP Tennis Players’ Party in Monte Carlo.

‘Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery/None but ourselves can free our minds’

4 Sign o’ the Times – Prince

Love the spirit, love the lyrics, love the tone, Prince’s show and tell, with urgent vocals and laidback beat, is totally compelling.

‘In France a skinny man/Died of a big disease with a little name/By chance his girlfriend came across a needle/And soon she did the same/At home there are seventeen-year-old boys/And their idea of fun/Is being in a gang called the Disciples/High on crack, totin’ a machine gun’

5 Streets of London – Ralph McTell

A plea to us all to recognise the suffering of others and stop feeling sorry for ourselves, his gentle strumming and what sounds like a lot of echo on his voice somehow make this even more convincing.

‘In the all-night café/At a quarter past eleven/Same old man sitting there on his own/Looking at the world/Over the rim of his tea-cup/And each tea lasts an hour/And he wanders home alone’

6. What's Going On - Marvin Gaye

Beginning with the ambient sound of a relaxed gathering, to set the scene. They say a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and Marvin's honey tones and a gorgeous tune do the trick here. It sounds like peace, if peace had a sound.

Mother, mother/There's too many of you crying/Brother, brother, brother/There's far too many of you dying/You know we've got to find a way/To bring some lovin' here today yeah/Father, father/We don't need to escalate/You see, war is not the answer/For only love can conquer hate/You know we've got to find a way/To bring some lovin' here today, oh (oh)

7 Vietnam Song – Country Joe & the Fish

Oh for the days when people used to protest properly, peacefully, over things that actually mattered.

‘Well, come on all of you, big strong men/Uncle Sam needs your help again/He's got himself in a terrible jam/Way down yonder in Vietnam/So put down your books and pick up a gun/We're gonna have a whole lotta fun’

8 Abraham, Martin and John – Marvin Gaye

More of a lament than a message song but simple, melancholic and conducive to contemplation.

‘Has anyone here seen my old friend Martin?/Can you tell me where he's gone?/He freed a lot of people/But it seems the good die young, yeah/I just looked around and he was gone.’

Extract from another blog, bemoaning the lack of ideas in most current chart music. This blog can be found here.
The charts are full of these so-called songs, which consist of one refrain, sung or played over and over ad infinitum, often this refrain being a sample from an older song (so not even an original tune), usually with all the passion or feeling leached out of it, so it sounds as if it’s been sung by an auto-tuned automaton (again the Black-Eyed Peas are a perfect example with their soulless rendition of ‘Time of My Life’) and then some extremely childish rap with clichéd rhymes, for example, ‘it’s the girls on the coast, I like the most’, or words repeated ‘I see my friends, friends, friends’ or mingled with uninsightful lyrics, such as Jlo’s ‘Let me introduce you to my party in the club’. This nonsense spreads like wildfire. It’s infinitely depressing to me to think that this is all anyone wants to hear: songs with the singer boasting about how sexy they are, how they’re going to rock the club, or repeating their own names, etc. There are occasional exceptions, such as Beyoncé’s ‘Halo’ but they really only serve to prove the rule. Sometimes there’s a snatch of a pleasant-enough tune but the mindless drivel of words that accompanies it is like Chinese water torture - it infiltrates everything until it’s ubiquitous and erodes my will to live. Nobody wants to hear real sentiments or ideas any more. Gone are the days of wordsmiths and tunesmiths like Neil Young or Gordon Lightfoot. Or rather gone are the days when writers of such calibre could achieve mainstream recognition while expressing different takes on society or challenging ideas. In the 60s and 70s, it was considered a virtue to write something deep, moving or politically resonant. Now it’s a very difficult climate for intelligence or authenticity. There are musicians out there who are creating worthwhile songs, whose lyrics have integrity, like Citizen Cope, but the market is on the decline.

Other contenders

Ohio – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
For No One – Barclay James Harvest
What's Going On – Marvin Gaye

Vietnam Cowboys – Ray Davies

Angola (Wrong Side of the Law) – Ray Davies

Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth – George Harrison

Old Empire – Nova Mob

A Gallon of Gas – the Kinks

Dead-End Street – the Kinks
Shipbuilding – Robert Wyatt
Flag Day – the Housemartins
One in Ten – UB40
Get over It – Eagles
Goodnight, Saigon – Billy Joel

Wistful wish-fulfilment
Harvest for the World – Isley Brothers
Give Peace a Chance/Imagine – John Lennon
Earth Song/Heal the World – Michael Jackson

Dave Davies and George Harrison: Parallel Lives Part I

I’ll confine the first part of this blog to the early- to- mid-60s to make it more manageable.

I’ve already written a little about Dave’s guitar in the Kinks and the vital presence he was live and now I’m going to focus on his vocals and his songwriting.

I’ve been wondering whether there are parallels in Dave’s contribution to the Kinks with George Harrison’s to the Beatles: both lead guitarists, both great guitarists, neither of them as prolific in output as the main songwriter/s in the band. I would argue that some of the songs they did write had more emotional intensity. It’s an interesting jumping-off point for a reconsideration of Dave’s role in the Kinks.

I read in a recent article that George only managed to get about one song on each Beatles album. Whether this was his choice, I don't know. With Dave, it seems to me that he was probably discouraged by the facility and ease with which Ray turned out songs and possibly by the sheer number he came up with. Plus what demotivated Dave would motivate Ray.

I was going to write that one difference was that George only ever sang his own compositions with the Beatles but fact-checking proved me wrong. He did sing lead on at least a couple of Lennon and McCartney tunes (I'm Happy Just to Dance with You, Do You Want to Know a Secret); Dave sang on more of Ray’s songs than this and both Dave and George sang lead vocals on a number of covers. It’s not exactly clear how the decision about who would sing what was made. A few times in X-Ray, Ray mentions that he thought Dave’s voice would suit a song better or that he wrote a song for Dave, for instance, he says:

‘We recorded Come On Now [I love the version on the Picture Book set that I was lucky enough to win at the first Satsang weekend, when Dave gets the words wrong and has to restart twice, with laughter and comments in between], which I had written for Dave to sing as the B-side of our next single, Tired of Waiting for You’. 
This is par for the course – the track Dave sang (or wrote) would be the B-side even when it was exceptional like I’m Not Like Everybody Else, also originally written for Dave. Later Ray might change his mind about who should sing as he did with the latter.

Anyway, I’ve started to digress onto Dave’s vocals so let’s go.

Dave was crucial, especially in the early days, with his signature guitar sound on songs like You Really Got Me (discussed in more detail elsewhere) and his powerful lead vocal on original songs and the aforementioned covers that were then a staple of Kinks sets. Ray realises that certain of these fit Dave’s ra(n)ge and the urgency of his delivery, for instance, the rock/blues numbers, Milk Cow Blues, I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain, Beautiful Delilah and the Ray songs of the same ilk, such as I Don’t Need You Any More, all of which he interprets with exuberance, with his own potent feral amalgam of anger and sexual energy. Of course Ray also sang covers but not to the same extent and not with the same gusto.

COVERS

The moods and lyrics of these songs gel perfectly with Dave’s raucously fervent vocals. He may sometimes get the words wrong (remembering words is not his forte) but you never doubt his intent and he brings a credibility to some of these blues/rock standards that I don't think Ray could.

Milk Cow Blues (Sleepy John Estes)

‘Well I've tried everything to get along with you/But I'm gonna tell ya what I'm gonna do/I'm sick of all your crying, gonna leave you alone/If you don't believe I'm going/You can count the days I'm gone/I'm gonna leave/Gonna leave your lovin' baby, oh some day/Well if you don't believe I'm going/Watch me leaving you this way’

Again, who sings which bit is not set in stone. In 1965, I said before that Ray has yet to find his roar while Dave manages to smile and sneer at the same time – he wants to express the frustration in the lyrics but can't hide his delight at getting to sing on TV, so his demeanour and his performance are part-menace, part-glee (with classic hair toss) and pure exultation. Ray comes in and Dave never resumes the lead vocal, a pity as there’s some shameless one-upmanship from him in the 1966 performance. Dave’s voice is hoarse, strained, intense, real, an animal unleashed. His guitar and Mick’s drumming driving the song at points (can hardly hear Pete’s bass, although this song usually depends on it so it’s possibly just this recording), with a final flourish at the end, not that the self-involved French crowd seems to appreciate or notice it. Why is it that the French TV crews always show the audience at the expense of the band? It’s true of tennis tournaments too – the French are so obsessed with themselves that they really think we would rather see a French child or woman in the crowd than the actual tennis players.

Beautiful Delilah (Chuck Berry) 1964

That high rasp in his voice and the way the band race through the song adds a rush of excitement.

Naggin' Woman (Jerry West, Jimmy Anderson) 1965

‘So stop your naggin' woman/Nagging me right off my face/Well baby if you weren't naggin'/Honey you'd be so sweet’

Leisurely blues that Dave delivers in a drawl. Great picking on the guitar.

I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain (credited to Shel Talmy) 1964

Lazy, laidback beat works with Dave’s trademark lackadaisical, slurred vocals.

I’m a Lover Not a Fighter (J. D. Miller) 1964

The beginning of the true rock vocal, that fine serrated edge. Dave the Rave lets loose.

Good Golly Miss Molly (John Marascalco/Robert ‘Bumps’ Blackwell, 1958)

Dave’s joy as he performs this blues classic in 1973 is almost palpable. It infects the rest of the band. And John Gosling rocks the honkytonk piano.

EARLY RAY SONGS

I Don’t Need You Any More 1964

Dave’s distinctively rougher-edged lead vocal – is that Ray’s as counterpoint? It doesn’t sound like Ray. Very Beatles-ish, especially the bridge. Dave seems to come in a couple of words into each line, as if for emphasis – he seems to really mean it. His vocals reinforce the bitter triumph in the lyrics.

‘Well I don't need you honey/'Cause things just ain't the same/Since you've been going out with other fellas/Things have really (have) changed/Well I needed you once/But now I'm standing alone/I don't need you any more.’

Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight 1965

Again, despite what looks like gloriously bad miming but might just be out-of-synch sound, Dave’s joie de vivre is contagious.

DAVE'S EARLY SONGWRITING

First a comparison of Dave’s One Fine Day 1964 with George Harrison’s Don’t Bother Me 1963

Both of these are completely charming and haven’t received much attention.

Dave’s early songs were perfect for the infant Kinks and for the time, great little pop songs with a Merseybeat feel, I Believed You (1963/4) and One Fine Day (a crime that this wasn’t recorded by the Kinks or Dave; Shel Naylor’s voice has a  similar jagged edge but I would still love to hear Dave sing it) – a song as energetic, fresh, irrepressible and irresistible as Dave himself. Simple but effective and similar in tone and story to George’s initial input with the Beatles, Don’t Bother Me, a song that George himself dismisses but which I think is on a par with or even superior to what Lennon and McCartney were writing at the time, just as One Fine Day compares favourably with Ray’s I Need You, admittedly only a B-side (ok I know many of you love it and Ray does too but I find it pedestrian). Lost girlfriends are the subject of the songs but the jaunty tunes suggest the boys are pretty philosophical about their losses.

Weirdly the vocal on I Believed You doesn’t sound like either Ray or Dave. It sounds more like George.

Got My Feet on the Ground 1965

A song credited to Dave and Ray that Dave races through with such a burst of breathless optimism that the first line at first listen sounds like ‘La la la la la’ when in fact he is singing words, just failing to enunciate them in his hurry. A breath of fresh air in comparison to some of the material the Kinks did release: Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy and Who’ll Be the Next in Line. Not that Ray wasn't writing truly beautiful songs at this time that never got further than demo stage: I’ve Got That Feeling, Tell Me Now So I’ll Know. Perhaps there were simply too many to go round..

Wait till the Summer Comes Along 1965

Country-style tune in which the guitar sounds like a banjo and in which Dave sounds upbeat despite the theme:

I know my summer'll never come/I know I'll cry until my dying day has come/Let the winter roll along/I've got nothing left but song.

I think it’s always difficult in a band when one person is a prolific composer as Ray was. Dave’s situation reminds me of Grant Hart’s in Husker Du, with Bob Mould churning out tunes constantly and therefore believing he had more of a claim to tracks on an album, while Grant wrote much more from emotion as Dave does.

In the beginning, Dave was obviously having way too much fun to knuckle down to songwriting. It wasn’t something he felt obliged to do, Ray being the one who reacted to the pressure from the record companies and the pressure he put on himself. Neither have Dave and responsibility ever been on great terms so it was natural for him to leave this up to Ray in the 60s when there were so many other distractions (sex, drugs and alcohol). Ray was asked to provide a song for each episode of a six-week series called Where Was Spring:

‘I had the brief for a song on a Thursday, wrote it on Friday and it went out on Saturday’.

It’s almost as if he welcomes the opportunity to work to this gruelling schedule. I can imagine what Dave would have said if asked to deliver songs like this, probably something ruder than this:

‘I don’t function that well being pushed. Being inspired, I can go on forever.’ (Dave in Uncut interview).

Ray seems to thrive on pressure, rises to the challenge, even seems to welcome the task of exercising his ingenuity within certain constraints. Dave is the total opposite. While Dave might rail against the confines and mores of the system, Ray works within it, slyly subverting and denigrating it. Dave has a knee-jerk negative reaction to anything restrictive and once things get difficult or too much like a chore, he bails. Telling Dave to do something (especially when he was young) would probably ensure that there was little chance that he would do it. He would see any limits (time, studio) as an attempt to circumscribe his imagination but also, he was far more conscious, still single and carefree, that he was missing out on other opportunities. He had other, more hedonist priorities: making the most of his new-found fame and promise of wealth. Obviously Ray was married with all the responsibilities that entailed while Dave had so far escaped that fate although I’m not sure it would have made much difference. So the idea that Dave should make a solo album to capitalise on his popularity and good looks was destined to fail.

Dave grumbles:

‘It stirred up all the emotions about Sue and I didn’t want to do the bleeding record. I felt I had to do it out of duty rather than out of joy, fun and excitement. They were very exuberant times and there I was, traipsing into the studio to force this stuff out.’

You can imagine that Dave regretted each minute spent cooped up in that small studio, trying to create to order, minutes and hours he could have spent on the town. He has no misgivings about not completing the record but his pent-up feelings for Sue and the situation resulted in some beautiful, heartfelt, soul-searching songs, full of anguish. Being a social animal, he misses the band. But perhaps it wasn’t a bad plan, to give Dave a platform for his creativity, which could be stifled under the barrage of Ray’s new songs. There seemed little space on Kinks releases for these impassioned gems, each wrested from Dave’s soul merely to languish on a B-side. Perhaps this relegation was a punishment for his refusal to complete the album.

George Harrison traversed a similar trajectory, his first Beatles A-side being Something in 1969, with the exquisite While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Here Comes the Sun unbelievably deemed not to be A-side material. I’ll compare these with Dave’s songs from the same era in Part II.

Inspiration

As Mick says in the Imaginary Man documentary, Ray could write a song about anything. For him, it was more of an intellectual process, springing from an idea, whereas for Dave it was primarily cathartic, a release. Dave needed to feel passionate before he was driven to express himself, hence all those rage-filled, melancholy digs at (the much-maligned in song) Sue: Susannah’s Still Alive, This Man He Weeps, Crying, Love Me till the Sun Shines, Funny Face.

It seems like I'm only beginning to scratch the surface so more on the above in Part II plus Eastern religions, mysticism, karma and the lighter side of the comparison.