tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36596203.post8884272105181641668..comments2024-03-28T14:09:53.330-07:00Comments on The Song In My Head Today: Holly A Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17828633442418722187noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36596203.post-88172227462292222962010-06-30T15:37:05.255-07:002010-06-30T15:37:05.255-07:00Like Ray did in the video for "No More Lookin...Like Ray did in the video for "No More Looking Back," when I hear it I want to turn my waistcoat away from the wind and clutch my ascot (!)close to my throat. Yes, I agree that this song is the real thing, right up to Ray's plaintive wails that end it. Whine away, Ray, whine away, even to a calypso beat.<br /><br />Yeah, Holly, "Schoolboys" methinks, got lumped into the wayward "Soap Opera" (whose one bona fide had us raise a glass to the rock stars of the past) by the critics of the day. I think it might even sound better Now then Then.<br /><br />Also like you I loved the helium high background vocals of "The First Time We Fall In Love," and, of course, "Schooldays" (especially Dave's ass cracking background rememberance "Now they seem so far away".)<br /><br />Good night, RichAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36596203.post-41599880140943049072009-11-21T10:45:02.965-08:002009-11-21T10:45:02.965-08:00"Ray's announcement that he's going b..."Ray's announcement that he's going back to non-concept albums" -- you've hit the nail on the head, wwolfe. And that ambivalence is wonderful, typical Ray. He's never really given up concept albums, though, has he? Every single LP from here on has a sneaky sub-theme. I don't think he's capable of putting out a non-concept album!Holly A Hugheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17828633442418722187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36596203.post-9431970247422490122009-11-18T11:30:58.750-08:002009-11-18T11:30:58.750-08:00I, too, was hoping this would be your choice from ...I, too, was hoping this would be your choice from this album. "Schoolboys" holds a special place in my Kink-ly affections: believe it or not, it was the very first album of theirs that I bought. As I recall, I'd seen the band on one of the three late-night weekend rock concert shows of the 1970s (Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, In Concert, and The Midnight Special - and can you imagine a time when the Big Three offered live performances by major bands every weekend?). Although I don't remember what songs they played, I must have been sufficiently impressed to go out and buy whatever album I could find in my local record store - or, more likely, in Woolworth's or Grant's, where a little corner was allotted for records. "Schoolboys" was the current, and therefore available, album, so I bought it. Although in restrospect it doesn't measure up, to put it gently, to "Something Else" or "Face to Face," I liked it very much at the time, and began slowly buying the rest of the band's catalogue. (For some reason, I could never find my way into the two Preservation albums. I love the songs that were included on various anthologies, but the prospect of digesting such a mammoth storyline cowed a dedicated lazybones such as myself.) Anyway - "No More Looking Back" is the one song that stands independent of the album that produced it - that is actually made stronger and better by being excised from the story that surrounds it. As such, it's always sounded like Ray's announcement that he's going back to non-concept albums, after devoting many years and albums to a series of concepts, from "Arthur" to "Preservation Act 2." Given punk's imminent arrival, this was either prescience or lucky - and one of the benfits of luck is that it allows you to be seen as prescient.wwolfenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36596203.post-33304136586588407012009-11-17T23:50:28.142-08:002009-11-17T23:50:28.142-08:00Thanks for this post, Holly. I hoped you'd wri...Thanks for this post, Holly. I hoped you'd write about this song. This is one of best songs Ray ever wrote (and we know he's written many great songs). <br />And again, you said almost everything I feel about this song.Vivalabeathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636432690758432319noreply@blogger.com