Imported Americana: Ray Davies' Transatlantic Quandry

It's been ages since I've even bothered to post anything to this blog. I don't know if I will entirely resurrect it, but having just speedily gobbled down my hero Ray Davies' latest literary work, a second memoir, I feel inclined to share my thoughts in review form.  

WARNING: Spoiler alert, if you can call the details of someone's otherwise publicized life spoilers.

Davies' latest autobiography, Americana: The Kinks, the Riff, the Road: The Story, picks up where his last memoir, 1994's X-Ray: The Unofficial Autobiography, left off. Americana offers a look at Davies' determined reconquest of the American music market after the Kinks had experienced a four-year ban in the late '60s, perhaps the height of the band's career in some critics' eyes. Parallel to this narrative is a later experience in New Orleans, leading up to his most harrowing life event: a shooting by a mugger in 2004.

The structure of Davies' book is effective. He jumps through several periods of his life, but with an amazing flow that doesn't give the reader a sense of disjointed storytelling. He only vaguely retells the details of the exploits discussed in X-Ray for the sake of clarity and continuity without completely rehashing such tales and without boring dedicated fans who are (I'm sure like myself) very well acquainted with his first book. I particularly enjoyed a chapter in which we are painstakingly show the daily touring diary of 1977, which to some readers might seem daunting to read through, only to have it then retold in more minute detail in the second half the the chapter. It's a bit of brilliantly placed exhaustion and anxiety that allows the reader to feel as if they too experienced the tiring journey of touring that Davies' and the Kinks carried on with year after year in an attempt to avoid slipping away into rock 'n' roll limbo as some had predicted they would in the 1960s.

Unlike X-Ray, this book, in some ways, deals less with Davies' personal life. In the former memoir, for example, he shares enormous detail of his relationship with his first wife, Rasa; in Americana, he makes vague references to his second and third marriages and only a few more direct mentions of his infamous relationship with the Pretenders' Chrissy Hynde. Ray Davies has always been a relatively private figure, and unlike others in the general music or celebrity realm, he has maintained much us his privacy, staying out of tabloid papers and speaking cryptically or not at all concerning certain details of his past. You have to applaud him for that, especially now in the extreme age of celebrity gossip, all the more intrusive in the Internet age.

Within the book, the reader also finds a number of song lyrics used to complement whatever anecdote he is offering. Some are familiar favorites and hits, while others are unknown. The reader is left wondering if these songs are old or new, and if they will ever see the light of day.  Perhaps more than any other songwriter of the 20th and 21st century, Davies' catalogue is almost obscenely extensive and he admits in Americana, as well as many previous interviews, that songwriting is a natural drive for him. As fans, we can only hope that more of his songs will reach our ears in the years to come.

I was unsurprised at the conclusion of Americana, as it again mirrored much of X-Ray. He ends this book at his return from New Orleans after the shooting to London, taking this book as far as the year 2004 and no further. Similarly, X-Ray focused almost entirely on the Kinks' story in the '60s and only briefly touched, in vague passing, to later events. Americana mentions the production of his first solo album Other People's Lives, but only mentions a few songs from his second, Working Man's Café, and discusses none of his more recent accomplishments, including stints at Glastonbury, his role as curator for the 2011 Meltdown festival, or his performance at the 2012 London Olympic games. There isn't even a nod to his brother Dave's own life-threatening experience later in 2004 when he had a stroke.

With recently revived rumors of a Kinks reunion spreading through all corners of the media following the press surrounding this book as well as Dave's return to public performance this year, I wonder if Ray has deliberately delayed writing about events beyond 2004 in the hope that he'll have even more exciting stories to tell if these 50th Anniversary whispers culminate in something real. As a fan, I do hope that he has another book in him, as he has always had a number of projects keeping him busy. In other decade I'd love one more memoir to bring finality to Davies' story.


Americana: The Kinks, the Riff, the Road: The Story is now available in the UK and US as of October 1st.

Ray Davies will appear at NYC's Union Square Barnes and Noble on October 25th at 7pm. You know I'll be there.

Literary Lyrical

The bands I tend to fall in love with are bands that have lyrics that tell stories through their lyrics. That's why I really admire songwriters like Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, and Roger Waters; their lyrics open up the imagination and create vivid imagery in my mind every time I play one of their albums. Perhaps that's why I'm also attracted to concept albums and the like.

But I also appreciate the songwriter who acknowledges the power of storytelling, not just in music, but in actual literary history. In college, I majored in Literature, and being a music lover, I was prone to making literary connections to the music I listened to.

Here are some of my favorite "literary" songs, that either reference or acknowledge literature:

• "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles -- Okay, this first one is just a song about being an author and writing novels. How can you not love the narrator's desperation to get his work published? This is a classic, people.
• "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by The Police -- For the line "He starts to shake and cough / Just like the old man in / That book by Nabokov." This is a reference to Lolita, in case you haven't bothered to look that up by now.
• "Misty Mountain Hop" by Led Zeppelin -- I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a bit of a Tolkien nerd. I love this trippy interpretation of The Hobbit. Of course, Zeppelin fans will know that this is not the only time Robert Plant has referenced Tolkien's work in song. "Ramble On" is the next obvious choice, and there is still debate on whether or not "Stairway to Heaven" contains any allusions.
• "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones -- This is another contested literary allusion, but many people believe the subject for this bass-driven tune were inspired by The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which is an amazing novel along the lines of Goethe's Faust. Care for a little philosophical debate on the motives of Satan?
• Black Magic: All Mysteries Revealed by Year Long Disaster -- I had to follow that last song with this album by a still relatively unknown, but great contemporary band. This second album is also loosely based on Bulgakov's novel. "Sparrow Hill" is my favorite track off this album, and I think captures the mood of the novel best.
• "Where Are They Now?" by The Kinks -- This song is especially close to my heart because the literary references made in this song were partly the subject of my senior thesis in college. Here Ray Davies references the great authors of the "Angry Young Man" genre, popular in the 1950s and immortalized in film adaptations in the early '60s. "Where are all the angry young men now? / Barstow and Osborne, Waterhouse and Sillitoe / Where on earth did they all go?". Think of these authors as early rockers who couldn't afford a guitar. Recommended reading: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe.
• Animals by Pink Floyd -- Here's another album with a popular literary influence. Roger Waters takes the animal metaphors of George Orwell's Animal Farm and updates them with his concerns for politics, capitalism, and a lack of empathy in society. This album was released just before the Thatcher years in England.
• "Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream -- Cream's music is always a bit of an Odyssey, but this song transforms Homer's epic poem into a psychedelic hit. Want to trip out without taking dropping acid and listening to Cream? Try reading James Joyce's Ulysses sober; this Homeric tale will mess your head up just as much. (It's been two years since I read it in college and my brain still hurts.)
• "Empty Glass" by Pete Townshend -- In a 1980 Rolling Stone interview, Townshend explains that his spiritual song was based on the work of Hafiz, a Persian Sufi poet who "used to talk about God's love being wine, and that we learn to be intoxicated and that the heart is like an empty cup." Interested in Sufi poetry? Rumi is another popular poet.

Now go listen to those songs, but don't forget to pick up a book once in a while too.

What's for tea, darling?

One thing I enjoy doing is creating fun playlists that tie songs together with common threads that are a little more fun than "Dance Music" or "Stuff to Listen to While I Exercise."

For instance, I am an avid tea drinker. I was raised on tea, thanks to the influence of my grandfather, whose parents immigrated to the US from Scotland in the 1920s. As I grew older and developed my love for what is usually termed "classic rock" I became enamored with British bands and came to discover many songs that were about tea, or at least mentioned tea in the passing. And so I have created a rather lengthy playlist of such songs. But rather than bore you with the entire list, here are just 5 great songs about or mentioning tea, for your enjoyment.

1. "Have a Cuppa Tea" | The Kinks -- I thought I would begin with the obvious choice. This Kinks classic, from the 1972 album  Muswell Hillbillies, boasts of the benefits of drinking tea, from its apparent cure-all magic to its power to unite people despite class or political differences. This bouncy song includes the clever chorus of "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Rosie Lea." To the unknowing listener, this may seem an odd interuption in a song about tea, until one realizes that the name Rosie Lea is actually cockney-rhyming slang for tea. Tea is a topic mentioned in many a Kinks tune; another great song is "Afternoon Tea" from Something Else By the Kinks.
2. "Tea & Theatre" | The Who -- A more recent track from a great old band, this song from the 2006 album Endless Wire is a bit of a tear jerker. Its a song of memory and loss and a search for comfort, which happens, in some part, to come in the form of a good old cup of tea. This is the first Who track to feature the drink in its title, but not the first mention of it in song. Just one example is on 1971 Who's Next; the song "Going Mobile" featured Townshend singing "make the toast and tea." How English.
3.  "Tea for One" | Led Zeppelin -- There's no mention of tea in this song's lyrics whatsoever, but who doesn't love a 9.5 minute Zeppelin rocker? Jimmy Page's guitar work on this track is phenomenal on this bluesy number, and John Bonham's slow, clear drumming is sure to hypnotize the listener. Presence is worth the buy just for this song alone.
4. "Lost in the Supermarket" | The Clash -- The London Calling album is a collection of many amazing songs, and this is perhaps my second favorite track. Our tea track here comes from the second verse, in which the narrator claims that he "save[s] coupons from packets of tea." Not only does this line speak of immense "Englishness" but also of class politics. You're not saving coupons unless you need to save a bit of dough on your groceries. This song is a great nostolgic classic which looks at class politics and superficialiaty.
5. "I'll Be Late for Tea" | Blossom Toes -- I honestly never heard of this band or knew of this song until I happened upon it from a cd included with an issue of Mojo magazine. And I still don't know anything about the band other than this song, but I must say, I quite enjoy it. Featured on the band's album We Are Ever So Clean, it's a trippy song with lyrics that don't make much sense and border on a dream-like state of consciousness, but it's also very up beat and very sixties.

So start building up a nice tea playlist of your own to play in the mid afternoon as you relax with a nice cuppa and perhaps a scone.

But beware the evils of tea: