I have no lonely songs on today's list though I wish I'd have picked Remember the Future: it seems such a Dave thought. My tally at the half-way mark is 2/10 for Dave and just 1/10 for Ray. I think those low scores increase the likelihood of me getting a high success rate in the top 10.
For interests sake, with folks speculating whether the top 10 with deliver more songs they chose. Between the two lists, 3 songs got 18 votes, and most of the rest are 15 and under. So the strike rate should get better, with 20? votes on each list.
Ahah, try me!! But yeah, that's an excellent point, I agree! I’m the hopeless person responsible for the lonely vote in favor of Hope, my favorite Fragile Dave tune, one of his best demos as far as I'm concerned, as shown by the fact it landed at #6 in my top. And although my Dave Top 20 was more about selecting the songs than ranking them, I’ll stand by this appreciation. I've just re-read the comments from July 2022, 1000 pages ago, and I'm struck by the general hostility towards the song. I suspect the heavy drum machine sound is the main culprit. I too am usually allergic to this kind of sound but for some reason, I've managed to identify it with some Tears for Fears stuff from my youth that I have some Proustian keenness for, so it doesn't bother me at all in this case. I've also overlooked the usual "politicians" rant when I compiled my list because except from that detail, it's a cracker of a tune, extremely melodic, most especially the call & response (Dave & Dave) chorus, one of the best he ever did imho (in my hopeful opinion). The demo's long-ish but demos are either too short or too long, that's their curse and I don't mind it, I know the track's not finished, not the lyrics, not the sound, not the structure. I appreciate it as a sketch of a track with an utterly brilliant chorus, one that Dave shouldn't've left on the demo floor.
Nobody else voted for Dave’s ‘Lost In Your Arms?! Just me? And I had it at #3! I checked to see if I commented back in the day and I did: “Today’s pick is most certainly ‘Lost In Your Arms’ as it fits perfectly with the ‘Fragile’ album title. A plaintive, “fragile”, Dave vocal, even in this unfinished stage I can see myself warbling a harmony vocal as a counterpoint. I like it.”
I was on the positive side…though, yeah, clearly didn’t like the drums (pasted from 2 years ago): ‘Hope’: this is the closest Dave’s been to mirroring Ray’s vocal, especially on “Comic strip characters fill my eyes From the tramp in the gutter to the politician's smile There's war in the east, confusion in the west.” With the lyrics, this takes me back to the Preservation albums…though I have no idea how the singer arrives at the conclusion, “The message is clear, that everybody's right and nobody's wrong.” The message certainly isn’t clear to me! The drumming ….I don’t wish to talk about! —-end paste—-
So far, Ray: 5/10, Dave: 0/10 I am the lonely voter for: #10 Remember The Future. A bit surprised at this one, figured the presence of the Jayhawks would pull in a vote or two. On the other hand, not surprised these were overlooked by the collective: #10 The Take #11 The Big Weird #12 Muswell Kills I regret not voting for The Great Highway.
I'm astounded I haven't snagged one on either (Dave) list plus I have so few selected in the group top 10!
I liked this Shirt, i wanted it but nobody else did! I had a soft spot having bought the UK 2CD in the late 90's and appreciated Ray's story telling even if there was no concise (and a fairly verbose) lyric, hummable melody or hook to fish for! Ray's masculinity and testosterone self worth take a beating to great detailed fanfare and loud laughter but it's all fantabulous! Ray had some doubts with Virginia on Holiday Romance was cut down to size on All She Wrote and winked knowingly on Creatures Of Little Faith but here he is castrated and facing a murder wrap somehow boarding the Midnight Express! Tell me true did any other Avid have it on their initial list or was the blood stain here solely my own?
I like the story lyrics but the music seems to serve as background, not much there. So, no, it didn’t make my initial, preliminary, list.
To be honest, in the context that we looked at it, I thought it was klassified as Kinks. Mind you, it wouldn't have won a top twenty placing for me.
This is very strange for me. I'm sure that I will listen to the Ray solo albums much more than the Dave solo albums in the future, but so far my score of picks is: Dave 6/10 Ray 3/10 I surely don't like Dave's songs twice as much as Rays. Right now I assume the imbalance will get better going forward, though who knows. I can take the credit/blame for two of the lonely one person vote songs. One for Ray and one for Dave. How's that for bringing back a little balance. Dave's song is Mindwash. Ray's will get a separate post, so I can try to embed the video. Here's what I said when we covered Mindwash. I don't have an impassioned defense of this song, it only made #20 on my list, and I forget the melody when seeing just the title, but I always like its slightly sing-song-y, slightly hip hop melody when I hear it.
The second lonely song that I picked is Ray's Space. This one was #16 on my list, and I don't even have the SDE that it is on. Here's what I said, in part, way back when. I really love this song in spite of it having such an abrupt, unfinished ending. While my wife and I were visiting my daughter last week, a couple of days after seeing Bruce, at my daughter's request, we got last minute tickets to see the musical Hadestown in Syracuse. It was pretty good, but I couldn't help thinking how much better it would have been with music composed by Ray Davies, lol. Here's hoping Ray's Come Dancing musical gets a Broadway run.
Well really, if Dave songs seem to be generally getting more hits with individuals lists, it suggests that folks are in more agreement on favourites, which suggests less of them. and Ray seemingly having less agreement on the favourites suggests he has more songs that folks feel worthy of making the list. If that's how it's turning out... I haven't checked. But either way they're two separate lists of two separate artists, so there would be no logical suggestion that one batch of songs is better or worse than another.
I can’t even claim any of these one vote songs. I’m looking forward to how the top ten turns out. Ray has some catching up to do!
Nosey Neighbours was my lonely companion this week. It's so good! We get Dave engaging in a more silly, tongue in cheek kind of paranoia, marrying it to a punky, nasty vocal and a crunchy riff that drives the song along, only to be punctuated by a psychedelic throwback bridge. All in under 3 minutes! It snuck in at #19 on my list but I think it could've been higher. Avid Luckless Pedestrian had a really good one too with The Big Weird. We talked a lot about the second half of Our Country working best as a self-contained project, and I mostly agree... but I think The Big Weird is one of those tracks that can stand on its own. It's got an energy and propulsion that make it compelling, I like the sophisticated, slinky chord progression, and Ray definitely nails it with the pre-2018 vocal. Both it and Empty Room (The Late Man mentioned the jazzy Americana tracks so I bet he picked that one) were in my top 30.
I had My Big Sister on my Ray list, and specifically the version that appeared on the Arthur set as a duo with Stevenage. It is a very brief jaunty kinda New Orleans swing musically, and is yet another look through the keyhole into the front room. It is somewhat slight upon a relisten today. I guess I was in a nostalgic mood when I went through the catalog and picked this. And speaking of sisters, mine is having a birthday today. Wishing you a good one sis!
I have no lonely Dave tune this week. A few of these are later recordings, and I have to admit that I picked up no song from after Fracture Mindz. It may be that by the time I re-listened to these albums to prepare the list I was no longer in a receptive mood. I had hoped that this new listen would bring forward some obvious choices, but it didn't. I don't have many songs from Fragile either (only one), though I did enjoy many of those, but I don't have the album in digital format and it crosses my listening habits. Maybe I will make a playlist of lonely Dave and Ray songs, it might be fun.
Only one lonely Ray song on my list, and @Jasper Dailey got it right: it's The Empty Room. The Big Weird was under consideration, but not in the initial top 31 that I reduced to 20. The Take was part of that Top 31, though. I excluded it because I only enjoy it in my edited format. As I said, I made an exception to that rule for Ladder of Success. But not here. Difficult to call it a rule, then, I guess.
I should have ranked Remember The Future higher than I did, I was just listening to it again and it struck me how it masquerades as a simple ballad but actually has an unusual structure along a wealth of interesting details and touches that arrive elegantly throughout the song so that the underlying sonic template is always gradually changing - some examples: Dave, in a very emotional performance, sings alone, then in lovely two-part harmony, then with a choir; the keyboard accompaniment is a piano, then an accordion, then a harpsichord. Stylistically it starts out with a country twang, gets ballady, and then it sounds very much like a traditional church hymn when the verse ends with the A7/D7/G that was grooved into my musical memory over a string of Sunday mornings very long ago. But when it transitions to the bridge it suddenly and quite elegantly gets very pop-Kinksian with the dramatic B7 and the pulsing female La La Las in the background. Winding down it defies resolution, switching to a minor key and long, moody, unresolved ending. It's great!
The Lonely Lists Part 2 Ray As with the first batch of lonely Ray songs, none of the second batch were mine either. Dave Wow! Someone actually ranked something from Purusha And The Spiritual Planet? Well, of course I did it. I wanted at least one or two of the more wacked out soundscape space things that Dave (and with his son Russ in this case) has immersed himself in so often and this one fit that bill plus a couple of others. Within its parent album after 20 minutes of synths and drum machines it's the first song that has some lead guitar and some real drums in it and those are welcome sounds by this point in the album. This is probably Dave's longest solo on a studio album, as well as the most searing, scorching and discordant atonal solo that he ever did and with a few fleet-fingered fast runs that he very rarely ever did. Plus, this is all in a 7/4-time groove, so it scratches that itch for me as well. This scan of the inner booklet from the CD from Discogs (courtesy of me - I put these inner booklet scans from this album on that site) tells you what the song is supposed to represent: Yeah, that all makes sense, right? I have a couple of instrumentals on my Dave list including this one and they also serve another purpose and have a side benefit. They solve the problem of Dave's lyrics by not having any .
15 - 21st Century - All She Wrote: neither on my list. Ray wins. 14 - Rock You, Rock Me - The Real World: I like both, but only Dave's in on my list, at #12. I guess it's a Dave win then. 13 - Let Me Be - Stand Up Comic: I don't have Dave's songs, but Ray's selection is #7 on my list. It was an instant classic for me. A rythmic fest, and a great chorus. Ray wins easily. 12 - Eastern Eyes - A Place In Your Heart: I have only the Dave tune. I rediscovered Glamour for this Top 20 exercise, and some songs are great, including this one. A Place In Your Heart was in my top 31, but had to go during the selection process. Dave wins this one. 11 - Don't Wanna Grow Up - One More Time: Only the Ray tune made it to my top 20, at #14. Ray wins. Don't Wanna Grow Up would have been a contender if I had decided to take a tune from Open Road, it's really catchy. Maybe more of a Russ Davies song though? One More Time has a great melody, I love the feeling of it, the lalas, the sadness... The atmosphere reminds me a bit of "The informer". As for the contentious verse... I really don't know. Each side made a very convincing case, and I successively agreed with the one who spoke last. I remember at the time of the album discussion I wanted to edit the verse out. I don't remember if I did it or changed my mind at the last moment. What's fascinating is, I totally agree with @Luckless Pedestrian 's analysis of the verse's brillance - it works really well as a verse, technically; and yet when @Steve62 said it would win the contest for worst verse I also totally agreed. Somehow the fact that it's so good technically enhances the offensiveness of it, or rather the unpleasantness of the contrast with the rest of the lyrics. Still, if I persuade myself that it's sung in character, I can decide it works. I decide it works. Last week I said that The Tourist almost made it onto my list but didn't; I just checked: it did make it, at #16. It's a really cool song. I was born in a pretty suburb of Paris devoid of any identity, and it kind of made me a nowhere man of sorts. The result is, I tend to live everywhere as a tourist, including during the decades I lived in Paris. Paris is a great place to live in as a tourist. So is Die, for that matter. And so is Life. For the time being, I have: 3/10 Dave tunes on my list; 4/10 Ray tunes. 6 Ray wins, 3 Dave wins, 1 tie.
Actually, I think Dave's story about Pursha/Mukti and the Spiritual Planet makes more sense than Pete Townshend's Lifehouse Project, which was made into a graphic novel as part of the recent Who's Next super duper deluxe box set.
I have one instrumental on might list, as well. (Nothing as well thought out as evading lyrics, though.)
Ha Ha, I don’t disagree! You know, I’ve had that SDE of Who’s Next since it came out in, what, September of last year? I’ve been through all of the audio several times but have now put it on the shelf for an extended period and won't return to it for a while. I have yet to even look at that graphic novel, I just can’t bring myself to crack that thing open even though I paid for the damn thing! Maybe someday if Pete can get his ever changing and evolving story straight… Ha Ha here too - no lyrics evasion here, I’m not that clever! I'm obviously a music first, lyrics second listener so Dave’s lyrics don’t bother me usually. I know others are much more sensitive and persnickety about such things though, so that joke and poke was aimed squarely at them! Badly tuned and played snare drums offend me more than weak lyrics . My Big Sister's birthday is tomorrow! (She's not actually bigger than me, but she is older than me by some 12 years) Happy Birthday @Someone-Else!
