A case can be made for Ray Davies being the ultimate contrarian. After hitting it big in the early 60s on the strength of a powerful power-pop sound and intelligent lyrics with the Kinks, he zigged nostalgic when popular was zagging psychedelic with The Village Green Preservation Society, explored dancehall and musicals in the early 70s while most rock artists were exploring new heavy metal sounds, veered towards commercial success in the late 70s and early 80s after the punk revolution taught the rock business to be authentic, and called it quits with the Kinks just as the nostalgia fad was gearing up. While loving his music, I also find it admirable that Ray follows his own muse regardless of the prevailing sound or fashion, so it was with great interest that I picked up his first "official" solo album, Other People's Lives, and attended his show at Boston's Orpheum Theatre in late March 2006.
Let's just say that he's still up to his old tricks. Ray's music, and, as far as I can gleam, his personality, is an odd mixture of contradictions: he's cynical yet hopeful; earnest yet ironic; and obstinate about everything. His irony is what really kills me; as a member of The Simpsons generation, I appreciate good irony as much as the next guy, yet the ironic notes Ray inserts into his most earnest songs are fantastically ambivalent. Take the last song off of Other People's Lives, the fantastic Thanksgiving Day. Here's a holiday song as it should be: not sappy, cheesy, or overtly emotional, but celebratory, while remaining honest to the sad and hard notes in everyone's life. It's emotional - "Now Papa looks out of the window/The sight brings a smile to his face/He sees all his children coming back home/Together on this special day" - yet not cheesy, because it admits of the failures and sordid realities of so many lives, as in "At a truck stop a man sits alone at the bar/Estranged in isolation/It's been a while now and he seems so far/From those distant celebrations". And yet the chorus of the song - Come on over, it's Thanksgiving Day - is not only transcendent in it's call to community, but it's used in several ways: as a celebration of the day, an invitation to come celebrate with him, and also as an admission of mortality - the pun on "it's all over". All this and a catchy melody to boot!
All this is a long introduction to what I was hoping from the new CD and the show: honesty, revelations, and some of those pop tunes that get so stuck in your head that you just can't stop singing them. (My addictions are: "Skin & Bones", "Autumn Almanac", "Afternoon Tea", "Sunny Afternoon" and recently, "All She Wrote" and "Lonesome Train". Yours might include "Lola", "Come Dancing" and any other number of Kinks songs that make it onto AOR and/or Oldies radio.)
Well, I have to admit that Other People's Lives really rubbed me the wrong way at first. "Things Are Gonna Change", the first song, had an odd rhythm and seemed to be one of those forced rockers that have wormed their way into Ray's repertoire recently (see Phobia for a case in point). Plus, there were a number of what I think of as Ray's "glib" songs where his lyrics seem almost too simplistic: the big example here being the title track's "Can't believe what I just read/ Excuse me, I just vomited"; the simplistic rhymes and easy, lilting rhythm screams Filler! when compared with the pop perfections that he can come up with when inspired. However, after a listen or two, I realized that there's a number of gems here. "Lonesome Train (The Getaway)" is a beautifully driving song about the need to escape your life that almost ranks up there with the Cowboy Junkies' "Good Friday" (from their excellent Miles from our Home album). "All She Wrote" is a rocking toon about being dumped, and contains some great lines comparing the beginning of the relationship with it's end.
But enough of this; what about the show? That's the thing; when it comes right down to it, the man knows how to rock and roll. He started with a collection of his older power pop songs and instantly got things rocking. But the irony is never far away: he lead a sing along to the classic "I'm not like everybody else" and if irony is not defined as a club full of people singing the same lyrics about their own uniqueness ("And I don't want to ball about like everybody else/ And I don't want to live my life like everybody else/ And I won't say that I feel fine like everybody else/ 'Cause I'm not like everybody else), I don't know what it means.
The scene was a real trip; I met an old friend out front of the Orpeheum in downtown Boston and, waiting for him at the front of the alley leading to the venue, was taken in by the old concert standbys: the twitchy guy in a windbreaker muttering "doses, doses" as he paces up and down the sidewalk; a guy, showing the effects of what must have been at least 55 years of hard living but still fitting into his Low Budget Tour jean jacket tossing back beers and playing a mean air guitar to "Set Me Free"... but added to this was the surprising experience of sitting down next to a girl of 12 or so, and hearing her tell her Dad "I hope he plays 'Picture Book'" (because of the recent TV commercial) and realizing that here was a may who has fans from just about every generation that's come along since he's been recording. It's an impressive feat, and was reflected in the diversity of songs he played before a very enthusiastic crowd.
Setlist:
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
All Day and All Through the Night
Till the End of the Day
After the Fall
20th Century Man
Oklahoma USA
... moving to an acoustic guitar, with one other musician
Village Green
Picture Book
Animal Farm
Johnny Thunder
Sunny Afternoon
Dead End Street
...back to the band...
Next Door Neighbour
Creatures of Little Faith
Over My Head
Tourist
Low Budget ("My Theme Song" Ray sez)
BREAK
Stand Up Comic
Things are Gonna Change (The Morning After)
Harry Rag (improv, just Ray singing)
Long Way From Home (a warning song he said he wrote for, and dedicated to, Dave), with female vocals
Lonesome Train (The Getaway), with female vocals
Tired of Waiting
Set Me Free (including a singalong)
All Day and All Through the Night
You Really Got Me, with Storyteller-style break down
ENCORE
Lola, introduced with him imitating the black New Orleaners who mused about "the english honky who moved in next door; he's that guy who wrote Lola! Oh yea, what do you think he'll do? I don't know... probably nothing good!)
Back to TGM's Musings