No Reason Ray-Ray

Just decided to take about 3 seconds to remind us all how much we all should love Ray Davies:

All the Kinks did, with Davies in command as frontman, songwriter, producer and arranger, was create the warmest, funniest, most varied and keenly intelligent body of work in the rock canon.

...his characters are never heroic. They have everyday frustrations and everyday enjoyments. When Davies delves into his own psyche, a listener hears him coping with loneliness and loss and disconnection from family and friends, but also struggling to find enough heart and encouragement to snap out of a funk and move forward. No one has written more songs about how hard it can be simply to get out of bed and face another day, but Davies’ characters almost always find a way to do it.

Nevertheless, there’s never been a Kinks album that was a downer. Even a song of roaring anger like “20th Century Man,” a magnificently arranged and performed piece that builds momentum from its opening acoustic tension to a blazing rock release of fear and disgust, starts with a certain bleary humor before erupting against the march of mass-retailed modern culture. Humor is Davies’ guiding spirit – for example in “Life Goes On,” whose first-person protagonist (someone not unlike the songwriter himself) is grateful and amused to recall a thwarted suicide attempt as a lucky pratfall.

Thanks Ray! 🤗