Ray Davies "Thanksgiving Day"

Earlier this week I was loading up the mvyradio Holiday Music Channel, and piling on song after song, by artist after artist, of Christmas tunes.

Then I went to find a song for Thanksgiving.

For a day about filling your table with plenty, the song-cupboard is pretty bare.

There’s the Adam Sandler tune.  “Over The River And Through The Woods To Grandmother’s House We Go” was originally a Thanksgiving song.  Of course, there’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”

But compared to the number of Christmas songs out there?  Pretty meager.

Which is strange, considering the lyrical possibilities.  I mean, it’s a little hard to write a song about, say, the Lenten season.

But Thanksgiving has some pretty clear metaphors, emotional touchstones and simple accessible imagery.

How is it that something like Ray Davies’ “Thanksgiving Day” is so rare?


Hear the song on Youtube.

Paul Kelly "How To Make Gravy"

There's a certain segment of the listening audience, that wants to hear new music, but wants to hear it from old artists.

Yes, that's a complete paradox. But these people exist.

They aren't quite up for the challenge presented by new artist. They tune into mvyradio because they are into Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Costello and they aren't willing to go down the road with Death Cab For Cutie or The Decemberists or some other young band that one day (in my opinion) will engender the same quality of feeling to this music listening generation, as those previously mentioned venerable artists do.

But in the meantime, I'm a little bit stuck, since there are no "new" old Bob Dylan songs. There are no new, never-before-discovered tracks on "This Year's Model."

For better or worse, the musically lazy aren't likely to look beyond the U.S. borders for that sound they're missing.

So that's what I recommend.

Paul Kelly is a legend in his native Austrailia. Depending on what review you read, he's Down Under's answer to Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello or Bruce Springsteen or Ray Davies.

And he's got a new Best Of double disc out now, in the States, featuring this song (which, though it's about Christmas, has a title that seems to better suit Thanksgiving).

So if you're looking for something new that feels like something old (or know someone old who wants to hear something new that is actually something old), this is a good place to start.


Hear the song on Youtube.


PS. Doesn't this sound just a little like last week's Belle Brigade tune?

Ray Davies "Postcards From London"

Kind of the flip-side from last week . . . sometimes you need an old girlfriend to finish a song.

Take this Ray Davies track.

Davies and Chrissie Hynde were a couple 30 years back.

What a neat idea to have her come in and be a part of this Davies song, about looking back at his old town.

You know, I never fully understood how you could be with someone so completely, like them so much, decide that it wasn't really going to work out, and then never speak again.

Sure, they may not have been "The One" but that should negate whatever positive attributes they had in the first place. If you started as friends, well, it doesn't seem so impossible that you could end as friends, even if you were lousy lovers.

That being said, full disclosure about this "reunion": apparently, Davies and Hynde were never in the same room together. They recorded their tracks, and filmed their parts, separately.


See the video on Youtube.

Ray Davies “Working Man’s Café”

I heard Whoopi Goldberg talking about her movie career, and how, the more famous she got, the harder it was for her to get cast in interesting roles---especially movies that were set in the past.

Essentially, she had gone from actor to celebrity, and in that transition, producers felt that her real personality trumped her acting talent. In her words, her presence “took viewers out of the movie.” You couldn’t be transported to the 1920’s, because as soon as she walked into the Speakeasy on screen, the viewer would think, “Hey, there’s Whoopi Goldberg.”

I kind of have that same problem with Ray Davies.

He’s always been a vignette-ist, sketching scenes and characters. But at some point, for me, he is Ray Davies. Ray Davies of The Kinks. And when he sings about meeting an old friend at a café, it’s not Everyman, or me, that I picture. It’s Ray Davies. Ray Davies of The Kinks. And it kind of takes me out of the story.

Which is too bad, because a writer shouldn’t be limited to writing from a solely personal perspective. He should be able to assume a character, to transform and become, like an actor.

But unfortunately, despite what the artist wants, it’s the audience that interprets the art, and for that matter, the artist.





Ray talks about his character sketches, in his tour diary