"Have A Cuppa Tea" / The Kinks

Of all the great songs on Muswell Hillbillies -- my personal favorite of all the Kinks' albums -- why pick "Have A Cuppa Tea"? Well, for one thing, I've already written about Complicated Life and Oklahoma USA, and tackled all the big "themes" of this very funny, and deeply serious, album. But also, I can't help loving this song. I've loved it since the day I first brought home this album in 1973. (I know, I know, it was released in 1971, but I was a bit late to the party.)

It may be gussied up with bluegrass and gospel and country-music twang, but Muswell Hillbillies is still really about North London. On Village Green Preservation Society, Ray mourned the passing of quaintly English things like church steeples and china cups and steam trains; on Muswell Hillbillies, he eulogizes something even dearer to his heart, the working-class urban districts that English Heritage preservationists paid no attention to. This was Ray Davies' village green; this is where he belongs. He can't stop the people in grey from knocking it down, but he can preserve its essence in song before it's wiped away forever. And for a kid like me -- raised in Indiana, but madly in love with London, right down the last sooty brick and grimy chimneypot -- Ray Davies' song were like a magic portal into what I saw as the "real" London.




"Have A Cuppa Tea" begins like a 1930s cakewalk, just acoustic guitar and piano, but if you're expecting some twee tea party -- the sort Paul McCartney might serve up -- think again. Starting in his lowest voice, Ray bounces up the scale like he's bounding up stairs, as Granny bursts onto the scene : "Granny's always ravin' and rantin', / And she's always puffin' and pantin', / And she's always screaming and shouting, / And she's always brewing up tea." Hardly your typical genteel little old lady, eh? I can just see this woman racketing around her narrow two-up-two-down row house, pinafore flapping, hair under a kerchief, sleeves rolled up above her red rough hands. (No dishwashers for her.) And then her husband bellies up to the table: "Grandpappy's never late for his dinner, / Cos he loves his leg of beef" -- reminds me of the bloke in "Autumn Alamanc," and how he loves his "roast beef on Sunday, all right!" But just so we don't idealize Grandpappy either, Ray tells us, "He washes it down with a brandy, / And a fresh made pot of tea."

The chorus switches into a dainty minuet -- ironic, of course -- as Granny invites us in: "Have a cuppa tee-ee-ee-ee-ea, have a cuppa tea." But there'll be no little fingers crooked here; the second half of the chorus is a thigh-slappin' gospel hoedown: "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Rosie Lea!" That Cockney touch at the end -- "Rosie Lea" being rhyming slang for "tea" -- perfectly seals the deal.

In verse two, Ray recites all the ills Granny claims a cuppa will cure, getting more and more ludicrous -- "It's a cure for hepatitis, it's a cure for chronic insomnia, / It's a cure for tonsillitis and for water on the knee." Another hearty round of the chorus, and then -- this never fails to crack me up -- for the bridge Ray spins into a parody of the old McGuire Sisters/Johnny Cash hit "Sugartime": "Tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea at supper time, / You get tea when it's raining, tea when it's snowing, / Tea when the weather's fine." I can just imagine that song playing on the radio in the front room when Ray was a kid.

Remember how in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the family was always urging people to "put a little Windex on it"? Tea is the same deal for Ray's Granny, and you've got to love her for it. "You get tea as a mid-day stimulant / You get tea with your afternoon tea" -- sure, Ray sees how crazy this is. But he loves her for it, and we do too.

With a lot of writers, the last verse often slacks off, just trying to fill out the scheme. Not so with Ray. In fact, I think it's the third verse that turns this song from a novelty piece into a real statement: "Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed, / Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree / It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation, / It knows no one religion, nor political belief." For the Granny Davieses of this world, tea is a way to show love, and she let no one escape her crushing embrace. This is what happens when you grow up in a big family crowded into a tiny house, on a street full of other tiny houses; everybody is in and out of each other's lives, not isolated in carpeted bedrooms and set off by velvety lawns. That's what you lose when you knock down rowhouses and put up big modern anonymous towers.

Working on Muswell Hillbillies, as Ray Davies looked back on his North London childhood, I sense he fully realized at last how much he loved his family. (Yes, and brother Dave too.) As for the people in grey -- well, he's not done with them yet. To be continued...

"The Way Love Used To Be" / The Kinks

Well, I had to buy Percy to be a Kinks kompletist -- but I can't say I listen to it much. As a film soundtrack (and by all accounts the film is truly dreadful), it caters to the story rather than telling its own tale. All the Kinks play on it, but it doesn't much sound like a Kinks album.

NEVERTHELESS!



"The Way Love Used to Be" may not sound like a Kinks song, but it's still simply gorgeous. It isn't just the orchestral arrangement that's unusual (the Kinks never got hooked on string quartets like some bands did); its tender quality is something Ray Davies rarely employed on Kinks records. It's the sort of stuff he could handily turn out for TV themes, however, as he did for several BBC productions, like "Until Death Us Do Part" (the British series that America's All In the Family was copied from). A handful of these and other stray tracks are cobbled together on the rogue album The Great Lost Kinks Album, issued in the US by Reprise Records after the Kinks had moved to RCA. (Every time the Kinks changed labels, the old label would crank out a couple of tacky compilations to recoup their lost investment.) And what do you know, "The Way Love Used to Be" also appears on TGLKA, where it fits in just fine.

Listen carefully and you'll discover that "The Way Love Used To Be" has all the hallmarks of a Ray Davies song -- the secret handshake, if you will. There's the yearning to escape ("I know a place not far from here / It's not far away, love, but if you come / I know a place where we'll be alone"), the nostalgia for times past ("And we'll talk of life, the way love used to be"), the horror of modern civilization ("And we'll find a way through the city streets / We'll find a way through the mad rushing crowd"). Although Ray sings it with a tremulous flutter, for once it doesn't sound campy to me -- no, it's wistful and yearning, not hiding behind a scrim of irony.

Yes, the arrangement is old-fashioned, like something from the 1940s or early 1950s, with a pillow of strings and delicate classical accents. It's movie music, pure and simple -- something that wouldn't be out of place in a film like Brief Encounter or Mrs. Miniver. But I get the idea that Ray loves old movies, that he's totally into recreating this romantic, gently melancholy sound.

So what was a song like this doing in a movie about the comic adventures of a man with a penis transplant? I swear, it would almost be worth watching Percy to find out.

Almost.

"Get Back In Line" / The Kinks

Oh, I'm NOT going to write about "Lola." I am grateful to that song for resurrecting the Kinks' US popularity in 1971; and yeah, I'll sing along lustily when Ray performs it in concert. But it's been overplayed and I'm tired of it. I hate the fact it's one of the few Kinks songs that most people know.

And there are so many better songs on Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround Part One. (Crazy title, hunh?) One of the first Kinks albums I ever owned, its songs are deeply imprinted in my brain. I've already written about two of them, Strangers and Apeman. But for today's designated album, I had to write about "Get Back In Line."



A lot of Lola v Powerman's satire about the music business went right over my head as a kid -- I'd never been to "Denmark Street," had never read NME or Melody Maker or watched "Top of the Pops" on TV; I had no idea who those guys were in "The Moneygoround" (Robert? Larry? Grenville?). Not that that stopped me from loving those snappy comic gems. Nestled amidst them, however, "Get Back In Line" always stole my heart. I'd seen all those gritty black-and-white 1960s British working-class movies, like "This Sporting Life" and "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning"; just like their working-class protagonists, Ray's aspiring musician goes glumly back to his day job -- or rather, back to the labour exchange hoping to get a day job. With its plodding melody, bucketing drums, and Salvation-Army-style organ, it's like a snapshot of workers hunched in shabby overcoats, shuffling along a sooty brick wall.

Ray Davies has never done a day's menial labor himself, but it was all around him growing up, especially in the austerity of 1950s Britain. Unemployment was on his mind five years earlier, when he wrote the jaunty but dark "Dead End Street"; on this song his empathy with the working man has become gentler, more tender. "Facing the world ain't easy / When there isn't anything going," he remarks wistfully in verse one; "Standing at the corner waiting / Watching time go by." Hopelessness, male pride, and mind-numbing boredom well up in his heart, as he wonders dully: "Will I go to work today or / Shall I bide my time?" The most touching line comes later, in verse two, when he says to his wife/sweetheart: "I don't ever want you to see me / Standing in that line." Poor emasculated guy! (Trust Ray to focus on wounded pride rather than the rumbling belly...)

With a momentous drum fill, our hero looks up and sees the ruler of his miserable little universe: The Union Man. "He's the man who decides if I live or I die, / If I starve or I eat," he declares, the line swelling with apprehension as it hangs on one anxious note. And then we get a cinematic little shot: "He walks up to me and the sun begins to shine" (cue up spangly guitars), only to dissolve into a series of sledgehammer beats as "he walks right past and I know that I've got to get / Back in the line." I love how the back-up harmonies chime in on alternate lines here; our hero's not the only person holding his breath as The Union Man struts past.

I love the slow wheezy twang of "Get Back In Line"; it's a taste of what we'd be getting on the Kinks' next album, Muswell Hillbillies. In a way, this song is the flip side of Muswell's "Uncle Son," another song about union politics; you could also match it up with Think Visual's "Working At the Factory," where Ray moans about the assembly-line drudgery of recording. (May I repeat: Ray Davies has never done a day's menial labor.) But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's just savor the sweet melancholy of "Get Back In Line." Funny how Lola v Powerman set out to be the Kinks' most satiric album -- and yet it contains some of the most wistful, affectionate songs Ray Davies ever wrote. Go figure.

"Victoria" / The Kinks

Talk about starting off with a bang. After the introspection and retrospection of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, the opening riffs of "Victoria" signaled to the world that the Kinks were ready to rock out again on Arthur, Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. So what if Pete Townshend had beaten them to the wire, officially making The Who's Tommy the first "rock opera"? So what if the film of Arthur never made it into production? Arthur would nevertheless be the beginning of the Kinks' renaissance -- and its lead-off single, "Victoria," would blaze the way.



"Victoria," in fact, was the first Kinks single to chart higher in the US than in the UK (it hit #62 in the US, and never even charted in the UK). With the mysterious concert ban lifted, the Kinks could once again tour in the US, and "Victoria" was their re-entry key. It's pretty hard to resist the whooping energy of this track; I can't dial up this song without wanting to dance, pound my fist, and sing along. This was the first track that won my teenage son Hugh over to the Kinks, with its pulsing energy and upbeat joy. It almost doesn't matter what it's about . . . but oh, what am I saying? With Ray Davies' lyrics, it always matters what it's about.

"Victoria" has a very specific dramatic purpose. Though Ray originally conceived of Arthur as the story of his sister Rosie (as in"Rosy Won't You Please Come Home") and her husband Arthur emigrating to Australia, by the time he was finished Arthur had grown into a sweeping fable about Britain's declining luster. At the story's outset, therefore, Ray had to present the magnificence of Great Britain at its imperial height, and ever so subtly foreshadow its fall.

But plot be damned, it also had to kick off the show with a jolt of energy -- and "Victoria" does so brilliantly. Have I ever mentioned what a kick-ass guitarist Dave Davies is? The guitar motif of "Victoria" is a thing of glory indeed. It's like a trumpet flourish ringing out, yet with a hint of surf guitar twang; driven by the fierce locomotive of Mick Avory's drum beat, it charges out of the gate hellbent for whatever. Eventually Ray Davies comes in to sing, but he can barely keep up with the breakneck pace.

I used to puzzle over the half-strangled, fluttery quality of Ray's voice here, until I realized {smack to head} he's playing a character. That is crucial to remember. At first Ray -- or rather his character, Arthur -- seems to be extolling the good old days of Victorian England: "Long ago life was clean." But then he adds, "Sex was bad and obscene / And the rich were so mean." Ray can't be in favor of that, no way! But wait . . . the next couple of lines sound eerily familiar: "Stately homes for the Lords / Croquet lawns, village greens / Victoria was my queen." Isn't that Village Green Preservation territory?

And in verse two, Arthur's totally sympathetic: "I was born, lucky me / In a land that I love / Though I am poor, I am free." We have to root for that, and admire his patriotism as he adds, "When I grow I shall fight / For this land I shall die / Let her sun never set." Pride and national sentiment leak into Ray's voice as he sings lines like "Land of hope and gloria" and recites the vast holdings of the Empire. "From the rich to the poor / Victoria loved them all" -- well, if that were true, it would be a noble thing indeed.

So where does Ray really stand on all this? The obvious answer is that you have to follow the rest of the story, where the cracks in Britain's facade are revealed one by one. But irony would be fatal to this opening track -- and so Ray balances on the fence between satire and sincerity. At this point in the story, you should be on Arthur's side; plenty of time later to see his flaws.

And in the end, you must join in with Arthur on the chorus. Those repeated "Vic-TORR- ee-ahs" simply cry out for a singalong -- a LOUD singalong. I myself have ripped out my throat many nights joining in with Ray on this song. That is what it was written for. And with Ray on stage, kicking out all the jams, cajoling, seducing you -- well, how can you resist?

"Picture Book" / The Kinks

As a card-carrying Kinkaholic, I am honor-bound to say that today's album -- officially titled The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, fondly known as VGPS (Kinks Kultists have to be handy with acronyms) -- is one of the greatest record albums ever made. This isn't just group-think, though; I really and truly believe it. So naturally I've already written about several songs on this landmark album, like "Starstruck" and "Phenomenal Cat" and the title track, "The Village Green Preservation Society". I've even broken with my song-a-day format to write about the entire VGPS album. But have I said all there is to say about the Village Green? Hey, I've barely scratched the surface.



For a number of reasons (the White Album, the Kinks' US ban, adolescence), I knew nothing of this album for years. The Kinks' great single of this period, "Days," wasn't even included on the album (and in the US we barely heard it anyway). So my introduction to VGPS was, oddly enough, a clever HP printer commercial a couple of years ago, which showed satisfied HP customers melting in and out of their own home-printed photos -- all to the tune of "Picture Book." The first time I saw this on TV I sat up, immediately riveted. I didn't recognize the song but by god I knew that was the Kinks -- and I had to track it down. It was all part of that curious tangle of fate, destiny, and serendipity that led me back into the Kinks fold, after years in exile. (A story for another day.)

With so many incredible songs on this album, "Picture Book" might not otherwise have ranked among my favorites, but I'm so grateful it triggered my Kinks renaissance, I still feel a rush of happiness when it comes on. It's actually half of a "picture" pair on the album, the other being the LP's last track, "People Take Pictures Of Each Other." As the album's send-off, PTPOEO finally shrugs off the nostalgia that runs throughout the album, declaring "People take pictures of each other / Just to prove that they really existed." But "Picture Book" falls earlier in the album, on track 3, and it shows Ray still fondly flipping over the pages of his memory book.

"Picture yourself when you're getting on," he sets the scene, "Sat by the fireside a-pondering on." This song is like Ray's version of the Beatles' "When I'm 64," except he isn't just projecting into the future -- he's looking back over his life from the future. And to further complicate the time scheme, that picture album's parade of images depicts not only his past but his family's past before he was born: "Pictures of your mama, taken by your papa a long time ago." There's a weird fascination to pictures like that, isn't there? how you stare at the image of those carefree youngsters, rearranging their features to find your parents in them.

I'm betting that Ray Davies had in mind a specific photograph for every picture he describes in verse two: "A picture of you in your birthday suit, / You sat in the sun on a hot afternoon . . . Your mama and your papa / And fat old Uncle Charlie out boozing with their friends. . . . A holiday in August, outside a bed and breakfast / In sunny Southend" (or South Bend, as one Kinks friend used to mishear it.) What I wouldn't give to get a look at the Davies family scrapbook, to see Fred and Annie Davies and Uncle Son boozing it up at the Clissold Arms. And as Ray looks at those images, the people flare briefly into life, just as they were.

So how does Ray feel about this? Well, come on, this is Ray Davies -- naturally he feels ambivalent. He's skeptical of the picture-snapping impulse in verse one ("Picture book, of people with each other, / To prove they loved each other / A long ago"). But as he leafs through the holiday snaps, they work their spell on him; by the end of verse two, he's sucked into the emotion ("When you were just a baby, / Those days when you were happy, / A long time ago" -- implying, of course, that happiness is a thing of the past).

The whole song is propelled by that steamroller bass/guitar line, charging up and down the scale, punctuated by fat splashes of cymbals from Mick Avory. While that marks the time, Ray's melody hopscotches all over the place, before and behind the beat; the two lines dive and cross each other over and over, in spectacular rock counterpoint, like they're weaving a tapestry of time and memory. Ray's voice sounds light-hearted, youthful, even a little campy -- no, a lot campy, goofing through the repeated chorus of "na-na-na na na na's" and tossing in a little Sinatra-esque "scooby doo be doo." In the background, Dave's falsetto echoes of "pic-ture book" are jolly and jaunty; the whole song is sung with reckless gaiety. It's simply irresistible.

Fifteen years later, on the album State of Confusion, Ray would write another song about photos and souvenirs that trace the course of a life. It's called "Property," and it's one of his most heart-breaking songs ever. "You take the photographs, the ones of you and me, / When we both posed and laughed to please the family" -- now he's at the other end of life, not sitting by his fireside but standing in the doorway with a suitcase. Yet don't let the jauntiness of "Picture Book" fool you -- the sorrow and regret of "Property" are already there, in utero. Now consider that Ray Davies was only 23 years old when he wrote this song. Humbling, ain't it?

"Waterloo Sunset" / The Kinks

One of the loveliest benefits of this album-a-day Kinksathon is the chance to savor the album back tracks, not just the obvious "big" songs. However, today's album is Something Else By the Kinks (released 1967), and the last song on that album is so monumental, I have no choice but to write about it. "Waterloo Sunset" may be one of the Kinks best-known songs, but no matter how many times I listen to it, it always devastates me.



Although Ray Davies claims this song was written as an elegy to the end of a musical era -- at one time, he says, he considered calling it "Liverpool Sunset" -- by the time he got done it was something else entirely. Even as he was writing it, he suspected it might be his masterpiece (although for a long time he kept the lyrics a secret from the other Kinks, fearing they would think he was daft). After the Kinks' producer, Shel Talmy, had finished mixing the song, Ray stole back into the studio with the other Kinks and recorded it all over again, until it was just the way he wanted it. I love those majestic marching bass thrums of the opening, the twangy counterpointing guitar riff, the ethereal oohs in the background (Ray's wife Rasa singing an octave above Dave), the "sha-la-la's" in the bridge and the overlapping repeats of "Waterloo Sunset's fine." It's a damn near perfect recording.

Even the melody sounds like a sunset, with sets of gently descending D-A-G chords, each short phrase making an arc until the final phrase dips below the horizon. Each verse begins with a widescreen panorama -- the "dirty old river" flowing under the bridge, the lovers Terry and Julie meeting by the platform, crowds swarming "like flies" into the tube entrance. Then, in verses one and two, after the panorama Ray telescopes his view, bringing himself into the picture -- saying the busy crowds make him feel dizzy, and he's too lazy to leave home and meet friends. It's not just about London, it's really about his aching heart. The end of verse one shifts into minor chords as Ray plaintively muses, "But I don't need no friends" and protests "But I don't feel afraid." And yet, in his isolation, he still is nourished by the world outside his window, as he return to the D-A-G chords for that grand final line: "As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset / I am in paradise."

The tension between the lonely observer and the teeming metropolis is the bittersweet heart of this song. He never gets out of that room, as he admits in the bridge (all those wistful 7th chords): "Every day I look at the world from my window," a memory drawn from Ray's childhood, when he was confined by a long illness in St. Thomas hospital near Waterloo. His perspective is tinged with a fear of death -- "Chilly, chilly is the evening time" -- but at the moment, nature uplifts him, and "Waterloo sunset's fine." Not since John Keats wrote his ode "To Autumn" has anyone quite so poignantly etched the intersection between life and death.

It's almost as if writing the song itself conquers death. By verse three, notice, he has shifted the story completely away from himself and over to Terry and Julie -- they're the ones who "don't need no friends" now. And unlike loner Ray, they don't need friends because they have each other. They're in love, and we get our happy ending. Or do we? The shadows haven't entirely been chased away -- as Terry and Julie "cross over the river," I recall old myths in which crossing a river means death (which gives the line "they are in paradise" an extra twist). Love and loss are intertwined, tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same mask.

"Waterloo Sunset" is like a great landscape painting, worthy of Turner or Monet; it's also a cinematic piece, with its wide-angle shots, dissolves, close-ups, and long tracking shot. It's a lyric poem, and it's also an epic novel. To do all this with one pop song, in the space of three minutes and seventeen seconds -- and to do it with a simple four-piece band (no added strings or horn sections, thank you) -- well, it's a wondrous achievement. If Ray Davies had done nothing else in his life, he'd be worthy of undying respect.

And of course, he has done more -- so much more....

"Too Much On My Mind" / The Kinks

The Kinks' first three albums were pumped out one after another, in a little over a year; it took them nearly another year to produce their fourth, Face to Face, released in late 1966. In the meantime, lead singer and songwriter Ray Davies had suffered a nervous breakdown (the Kinks had to tour Belgium and France with a stand-in); even after he returned, sporting a tentative new moustache, many concerts were cancelled and endless obsessive hours were spent in the studio. The bassist, Pete Quaife, quit; a new manager, the infamous Allen Klein, was hired. It was a rough time.

But painful as it was, that transition was necessary, for the Kinks were refusing to stay in a box. Dave wasn't going keep on playing the same stale blues riffs, and Ray was done with writing generic love songs. And amid all the smart, snappy satires and character studies of Face to Face, Ray Davies gave us one introspective song to explain what was going on inside that messed-up head of his.



Introspective? That's an understatement. "Too Much On My Head" is practically a textbook definition of introspection. "There's too much on my mind," Ray sings wistfully, over the simple acoustic guitar of the first verse; "there's too much on my mind," he repeats, "and I can't sleep at night thinking about it." (Ray Davies has wrung more fine songs out of insomnia than any other living songwriter.) Notice that last phrase -- if this were a love song, he'd have sung, "thinking about you." I have to admit, conditioned by pop love songs as I am, I still half hear "you" at the end of that line. But Ray is not singing about a girl, he's singing about his favorite subject -- himself.

Now a tentative harpsicord tiptoes in (thank you, Nicky Hopkins!) as Ray expands his complaint to the daytime hours. "I'm thinking all the time, / There's too much on my mind." How exhausting it is to be a neurotic! (Yes, Ray does indulge in self-pity here -- but he makes it seem so charming, doesn't he?) And next comes my favorite line in the song: "It seems there's more to life than just to live it." In that one line -- he sweeps away carefree youth and trudges into adulthood, still feeling stung that life has tricked him.

Drums and back-up harmonies join in on the chorus, lending muscle to the wispy ballad as he kicks back in protest: "There's too much on my mind, / And there is nothing I can say / There's too much on my mind, / And there is nothing I can do / About it, / About it." I love how those last two words slide briefly down to a dissonant chord, groaning miserably before resolving.

Ray Davies didn't need pop psychobabble to explain the mind-body connection -- in the second verse he tells us in concrete detail how his mental state has affected his physical state: "My thoughts just weigh me down, / And drag me to the ground, / And shake my head till there's no more life in me." (Dig how he adds the extra words, "life in me," as if giving himself an extra shake.) Woefully, he projects into the future: "It's ruining my brain, / I'll never be the same, / My poor demented mind is slowly going." The telegraph monotone of that last line is especially miserable. Sunk in the blackness of melancholy, he sees no way out.

But the tempo remains just upbeat enough; the bright harpsicord, the brisk high-hats, and the rising guitar riffs buoy the song -- as if the music itself rescues him from the depths of despair.

Perhaps that is exactly what happened to Ray Davies in 1966 -- being able to write the kind of songs he wanted to did pull him through. And on bleak days, when this song creeps into my mind -- as it always does when I'm blue -- this lovely little wistful melody saves me as well. Works like a charm.