I picked up a vinyl copy of The Kinks’, “One for the Road,” recently and was listening to it tonight, so that’s the version that’s fresh in my mind.
I swear that every time I hear this song (any version) I’m weeping by the end. And I don’t really know why. Somehow Ray Davies manages to make me feel sympathy and even pity for people who were famous and successful enough to have their names enshrined on Hollywood Boulevard. It’s not a group of people we normally take pity on.
As I get older, I think a little of it is thinking about how ephemeral even this kind of success is - how many of us really know anything about Greta Garbo or Rudolph Valentino aside from their names and knowing they were big movie stars in their day?
This version of the song doesn’t even include the verse that really gets me teary:
But please don’t tread on dearest Marilyn
'Cos she’s not very tough,
She should have been made of iron or steel,
But she was only made of flesh and blood.
OK - that’s objectively good writing.
Anyway - I don’t know that I have much of a point other than to say that I love this song, I don’t fully understand why I find it so moving, and The Kinks are, IMHO, criminally underrated.
Ray Davies is one of the greatest poets in pop/rock, and nostalgia is what he’s best at (which totally goes against what rock stood for in the Kinks’s heydays). Remember that the song is more than 50 years old, so it was fresh nostalgia for the time! Yeah, the Kinks can grab you emotionally, “Days” and “Rock’n’Roll Fantasy” always move me to tears.
There are quite a few Kinks songs that evoke that wistful/nostalgic feeling. A couple that come to mind are “Get Back In The Line” and “Days”. Besides the lyrics, Ray’s voice(along with Dave’s harmonies) adds an extra emotional quality to their songs.
“Don’t forget to Dance” always gets me (back in college, a friend of mine woke me up at 2AM so he could borrow my tape with that song, so he could play it for someone else - obviously, this was a vital emergency, just like every other transient desire he had which could inconvenience me)
[quote=“EinsteinsHund, post:4, topic:1025475”]
Ray Davies is one of the greatest poets in pop/rock, and nostalgia is what he’s best at (which totally goes against what rock stood for in the Kinks’s heydays).[/quote]
Come Dancing, while kind of pop, always gets to me a little. I can picture the scenes he’s painted, with sister and her dates and the rows when she came home, and, of course, her crying when they knocked down The Palais.
At the same time, the music is incredibly catchy and cheerful.
The story behind Come Dancing is sadder than the Palais being torn down. On one of those nights when Ray’s sister went out dancing she didn’t come home. She had a heart attack and died due to having rheumatic fever as a child.
I saw the Kinks when they toured the Everybody’s in Showbiz record. One of the things I remember is Ray singing “The Banana Boat Song.”
Aside from the songs mentioned, “Property” really gets to me (despite the obnoxious Vocorder). This verse in particular:
“And all the little gifts 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.”
Celluloid Heroes managed the trick of celebrating Old Hollywood while gently mocking it at the same time.
“if you covered him with garbage George Sanders would still have style / And if you stamped on Mickey Rooney he would still turn around and smile” Lines like this feed on how audiences build up an image of their screen idols, which has nothing to do with who these people really are. (Then they read gossip mags and eat up the scandals with great relish.)
I think your reaction to this song has as much to do with the wistful melody that tugs at your heart strings. Listen to Oklahoma USA for more of the same
I love the Kinks’ music as well. I think Ray does an amazing job of using emotion in his vocals to make songs resonate. He’s also incredible at writing humorous lyrics. He manages both sarcasm and sadness in songs like “A Little Bit of Abuse.”
…and clearly getting moreso as I age. I was also getting a little emotional during, “Captain America.” Again, Davies seems to have this knack for getting us on the side of characters we would not always find sympathetic. The US is not who you first think of as a nation in need of assistance and yet, here we are. :-/
I think it’s his very specific wording. It’s not, “Help,” or, “you owe us.” It’s, “will you catch me now, I’m falling?” It conveys a sense of helplessness that, again, we don’t normally want to ascribe to America.
I’ve never steeped myself in The Kinks’ oeuvre, but every time I listen to them I find something new. Time to do the deep dive, I guess.
Yes, it is. You can have your, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” or, “Last Christmas,” or whatever. For me, it isn’t the holiday season until I’ve heard, “Father Christmas.”
That’s probably the other thing at work. I don’t know that I would ever say that Ray Davies has a, “good,” voice, but it’s very effective. It’s got a …plaintive?..quality to it that really gets to you.
While we’re on the subject, there’s a massive re-issue of The Kinks Day-By-Day Story by uber fans by Doug Hinman & Andrew Sandoval coming out next year. It isn’t cheap (the softcover is $80 plus shipping), but if it’s anything like Andrew’s coffee table books on the Monkees, it will be worth it.
