Victoria - The Kinks (live)


Posted On: Friday - February 10th 2017 8:34PM MST
In Topics: 
  Music

There was too much else going on, and no time for posts today. Tomorrow morning will be the time for the 2nd salesmen story.

For now, per PeakStupidity's take on what makes a good song, this song by the British band The Kinks illustrates our point again. This is from the 1970's, and one could imagine how left-wing (not in the same whacked-out way as now) the audience was. Yet the lyrics of "Victoria" are about longing for the monarchy of Queen Victoria and the British Empire upon which "the sun never set", kind of a conservative theme.

However, the audience loves it anyway - Ray Davies (and all of them) are pretty high-energy. I bet that was a great show. From 1979 in Providence, Rhode Island:


Comments:
Moderator
Monday - February 13th 2017 8:16PM MST
Yes, the chorus is great. Maybe not a national anthem, but it was the "Anthem of the Empire", I guess.

Hey, a commenter wrote "Happy Independence Day, Britain" 7 months back - must have been the time of the Brexit vote.
borisputin
Monday - February 13th 2017 7:58PM MST
Here's something else, about as English as it gets. I had heard the tune before, but it is always performed at "The Proms," (whatever the heck that is) yearly in London's Hyde Park. There are a bunch of them on youtube from different years.

Actually your pal Derbyshire put up a link to a performance of this song at a past Proms (think he had some weird ass thing with a Peruvian Indian singing it - dressed as an Inca).

Anyway this is my favorite version I've seen.

God our anthem sucks compared to this. If you are going to have an anthem only an opera singer can perform, make it rock. And add a catch chorus that everyone can join in on.

(Note I'm not entirely sure the UK has a national anthem, but if they do this isn't it. Just been around about 3 centuries.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgd9nYqVz2s
Moderator
Monday - February 13th 2017 4:37PM MST
Yeah, as I recall, a good friend gave me the live album on CD "One for the Road" or something like that. I corrected my error - and let's also not confuse him with Dave Davies of Supertramp. They're also English, so I wonder if those 2 are related.

See, I didn't use to like these guys and I thought (still do) that "All Day and all of the Night" is the same song as "You Really Got Me" or maybe one other. Thanks for the stories.

I'll check out your music videos later on.

Oh, I see you put the album name up there in your last sentence (the live one my friend gave me).
borisputin
Monday - February 13th 2017 8:47AM MST
Ah, my favorite band still maybe. Just to nitpick, that is "Ray Davies," not Rick.

Anyway that song is from the late 60's, and was from an album named: Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire)

I mention that, because it is one of their two absolute albums. The other was released a little before that, and was called "The Village Green Preservation Society."

I'm not in Ray Davies head, and can't speak for what he believes. But even in swinging London I'm not sure even the people taking part in the big 60's party were totally comfortable where things seemed to be going. Could say lots, lots more about the Kinks.

I do want to say that I think they have the most "English" sound of all the British bands from that era. I've always thought it was because they were banned from the US during the height of the British Invasion. Ray Davies has some really oddball political views. You can't categorize him neatly.

Anyway the story goes that some union guy at a concert in their very first US tour (around 65) made some comment about the UK being a communist country. Ray Davies punched him. (Yeah, they were that kind of band, very working class.) No one is really sure how it happened now, but for about a decade afterwards the Kinks were denied admission to the country by the State Department no less (as far as I've been able to tell).

Really I think it worked out better. I think I hear a lot of English Music Hall stuff from them, which died out otherwise a long time ago.

Usually you seem to like original stuff, but I am going to put some links in of people covering their stuff (some of which I like better than the original).

From Arthur:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqPgLk6hxGk

From Arthur as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k7-1HispeY

And from Village Green:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_At1LrHMcIA

So many great songs on those two albums (though you've obviously heard a lot of them on the concert album, One More For The Road.

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