On a lighter note, I ask the proverbial question, What constitutes Folk Music? Now this query revolves around one Raymond Douglas Davies from Muswell Hill who has written a number of songs that have just naturally filtered into my brain. But, He is British! He plays popular song often in the form of Rock and Roll (of course British Rock and Roll)! His later post rock melodies and metaphors are often based more on vaudevillian / showtune type British Public style song. His images conjure nostalgic pasts and uncertain futures full of fragile commoners and would be emperors with wasted efforts and fallen prospects but always with the possibility of a sentimental Sunset ending if one would just reconcile the world in a proper perspective. When the Stones released Beggars Banquet and the Beatles the White Album, our candidate turned away from rock and looked inward at his society and produced the amazingly unsuccessful masterpiece The Village Green Preservation Society! Yes, he is British! (I will note that in America at that time none other than that Shaman of Modern Time, the amazing Bobby D produced John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline and the Flying Burrito Brothers were just piercing their shells and beginning to take off and well Arlo was doing everything from rock to country to blues to jazz to showtunes but we all know he is a bit touched) So I ask you, knowers of Folkdom, Does Raymond Douglas Davies deserve the mantel of "Legend of Folk Music"?

I leave you with an example of his work:


Have a Cuppa Tea

Granny's always ravin' and rantin',
And she's always puffin' and pantin',
And she's always screaming and shouting,
And she's always brewing up tea.

Grandpappy's never late for his dinner,
Cos he loves his leg of beef
And he washes it down with a brandy,
And a fresh made pot of tea.

Chorus:
Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea,
have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea,
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Rosie Lea
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Rosie Lea.

If you feel a bit under the weather,
If you feel a little bit peeved,
Take granny's stand-by potion
For any old cough or wheeze.
It's a cure for hepatitis, it's a cure for chronic insomnia,
It's a cure for tonsillitis and for water on the knee.

Chorus

Tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea at supper time,
You get tea when it's raining, tea when it's snowing,
Tea when the weather's fine.
You get tea as a mid-day stimulant
You get tea with your afternoon tea
For any old ailment or disease
For Christ sake have a cuppa tea.

Chorus

Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed,
Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation,
It knows no one religion,
Nor political belief.

Chorus

while i'm a fan of ray davies and the kinks, i think it's just a little bit of a stretch to call him a legend of FOLK music... but since i also think folk is very malleable and adaptable, i have no problem annoiting ray a legend of folk(s)

how's that? - not bad for a guy who sang about potatoes! (boiled, french fried, any ol' way that you wanna decide!)

remember, you can see all the stars as you walk down hollywood boulevard...

spuds are good fare for folksongs. you know I always thought and I always figured if that damn (tater) stew had been just a little more thinner then some of them politicians could a seen through it!

So what are ya sayin' Arnie, Folk songs are serious?

are there criteria to be a Legend?

Mighty Skinny Kids

I think I'll have a scotch and listen to this one!


Here's a story about a sinner,
He used to be a winner who enjoyed a life of prominence and position,
But the pressures at the office and his socialite engagements,
And his selfish wife's fanatical ambition,
It turned him to the booze,
And he got mixed up with a floosie
And she led him to a life of indecision.
The floosie made him spend his dole
She left him lying on Skid Row
A drunken lag in some Salvation Army Mission.
It's very sad.

Oh demon alcohol,
Sad memories I can't recall,
Who thought I would say,
Damn it all and blow it all,
Oh demon alcohol,
Memories I can't recall,
Who thought I would fall a slave to demon alcohol.

Barley wine, pink gin,
He'll drink anything,
Port, pernod or tequila,
Rum, scotch, vodka on the rocks,
As long as all his troubles disappeared.
But he messed up his life, went and beat up his wife,
And the floosie's gone and found another sucker
She's gonna turn him on to drink
She's gonna lead him to the brink
And when his money's gone,
She'll leave him in the gutter,
It's such a shame.

Oh demon alcohol,
Sad memories I can't recall,
Who thought I would say,
Damn it all, blow it all,

Oh demon alcohol,
Sad memories I can't recall,
Who thought I would fall,
A slave to demon alcohol.

psb can i assume you've seen RD do a live version of Alcohol??
Have you seen him do it while under the influence?? One of the absolutely all time memories (and I can't remember many) I have is where he stopped the show with that number...
Of course he then went on to perform for another hour... and this was prior to doing a full stage show presentation of Preservation for the second half of the evening.

I have seen Ray stop the show with that number, pint in hand, in Beautiful Dallas Texas back in 73 or so, God Save The Kinks!

I can't wait to go to Muswell Hill, I hope Ray shows up (he has been known to show up at this particular celebration although he hasn't joined the band which is the line up from the 68-78 period sans Dave) Dave has showed up and does join the band but I hear his heart is ailing. Ray is reported ill as well but I hope it is not bad.

i hope it turns out that they do show up.

i know it's probably the most overplayed kinks song on the radio, but it so reminds me of the neighborhood i grew up in and i turn it up every time...

"well that's the way that i want it to stay
and i always want it to be that way..."

And so the story goes that John Lennon looked down his (in Ray's Words) exquisitely long nose and told Ray (the opening band for the fab four) if you need a few songs to play you can use some of ours and of course Ray nixed the opening song (a Bo Didley remake) and played All Day and All of the Night with the lead guitar cranked to distortion and upset the whole Love Me Do moment with a little bit of rebellious attitude sometime in late ’63. Folklore, Rock and Roll Folklore.

and I want to warn ya, its a really heavy number and if you can't take it, leave the building!
Maestro uh:1 2 3 4

I'm too terrified to walk out of my own front door,
They're demonstrating outside I think they're gonna start the third world war,
I've been to my local head shrinker,
To help classify my disease,
He said it's one of the cases of acute schizophrenia he sees.

Well the milkman's a spy, and the grocer keeps on following me,
And the woman next door's an undercover for the K.G.B.,
And the man from the Social Security
Keeps on invading my privacy,
Oh there ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease.

I've got acute schizophrenia, paranoia too,
Schizophrenia, schizophrenia,
I've got it, you've got it, we can't lose,
Acute schizophrenia blues.

I'm lost on the river, the river of no return,
I can't make decisions, I don't know which way I'm gonna turn,
Even my old dad, lost some of the best friends he ever had,
Apparently, his was a case of acute schizophrenia too.

I got acute schizophrenia, paranoia too,
Schizophrenia, schizophrenia,
I've got it, you've got it, we can't lose,

They're watching my house and they're tapping my telephone,
I don't trust nobody, but I'm much too scared to be on my own
And the income tax collector's got his beady eye on me,
No there ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease.

No there ain't no cure for
Schizophrenia disease.

of course the raucous sound of the Kinks led Brian Epstein to replace the Kinks with the High Numbers in the position just before the for lads?

well, i s'pect this rendezvous is shortly underway...have fun...and don't forget to write! now...
...and again!

whatever that means...it made sense once!

nobody's gonna ask Who are the High Numbers?

Big Sky looked down on all the people looking up at the Big Sky.
Everybody pushing one another around
Big Sky feels sad when he sees the children scream and cry
But the Big Sky's too big to let it get him down.

Big Sky too big to cry
Big Sky too high to see
People like you and me

One day we'll be free, we won't care, just you see
'Til that day can be, don't let it get you down
When I feel that the world is too much for me
I think of the Big Sky, and nothing matters much to me.

Big Sky looked down on all the people who think they got problems
They get depressed and they hold their head in their hands and cry.
People lift up their hands and they look up to the Big Sky
But Big Sky is too big to sympathize

Big Sky's too occupied
Though he would like to try
And he feels bad inside
Big Sky's too big to cry

One day we'll be free, we won't care, just you wait and see
'Til that day can be, don't let it get you down.
When I feel that the world is too much for me
I think of the Big Sky, and nothing matters much to me.

you know, at ninety miles an hour i did wonder about them, as my thoughts hovered.

you know how it is.

i think someone is reading these boards...i heard "paranoia" on the radio today
(haven't heard that in ages)

"his clothes are loud, but never square!"

(been having trouble getting on the internet (uh-genn) and wasn't sure when i'd get back on so i just blurted out what i did up there...i hope the issue will be resolved soon) i'm just sayin!

sometimes caring shows up

I look at the world as a big conglomeration of distributions. Like Darwin, when you scatter seeds in the wind in an environment that will allow them to sprout and grow, a distribution will survive. Their seeds will distribute and survive. The world they survive in selecting traits that help ensure their persistence. I know the fallacies of social Darwinism, how Spencerian Darwinism led to the validation of Empire, Nazism and Apartheid. Subjectivity has no place in the science and I believe there is validity in Anthropomorphic Darwinism.

So you are wondering why is this discussion of Social Darwinism and Brit Punk bands of early sixties London (and the Beatles) in the Legends of Folk Music section. In Britain, the rigidity of the label of folk music is even stronger than in the USA. So much so that the label Folk Festival suggests that the players are archivists preserving a dying collection of simple melodies passed down through the ages and not a growing relevant contributor to the growth of humanity. Certainly no place for Brit Punk bands in the early sixties.

However, I believe that is misleading, because I believe the genesis of the burst of creativity known now as the 60’s has social roots and it was the input of a number of variables on places like Muswell Hill or Shepherds Bush (the land from which the band the High Numbers evolved), or Liverpool or Hibbing Mn or Brooklyn NY or San Francisco Ca or OKC OK.

Now focusing on Muswell Hill and Shepherds Bush and coming of age in these places in 1958 to 60. Well, you come from families of humans with a strong “working class background” and in fact you are the product of the “Industrial Revolution”. So, you are well aware of many of the social inequalities that have been to common place around your family in the past two hundred years. You may even look into the local graveyard and see the grave of Karl Marx but you know your family has always been supportive of King (Queen) and country. But, it is the 20th Century, and as the sun sets on Empire there are many resolutions that must happen to extricate your country from a past of unclear morality.

Inside, you know your people have only been fodder for the grand scheme making the best of what is presented to you and how to survive. This includes a strong history of melodies and song recently infused with a radical new pulse from the American Musical Stew (Including Hollywood, Show, Negro, Country and Folk influences). Then you come of age In the world and realize you are the first generation in sometime that is not currently slated to be decimated in bloody senseless conflict in the fields of Europe and Empire. The threat does loom as two overly armed behemoths square off with your little world trapped in the middle. So you burst forth in a frenzy of creativity that on the surface sounds only to be a raucous outburst of pent up young sexual frustration.

In the end, you will (if you are one of the survivors) find yourself in the 21 century looking back at an amazing output of creativity in which the pains of sexuality are but one of the many of psychological, emotional and societal issues you have chosen to express through a collection of folk, rock and show melodies that run through your head as you have grown through your world.

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, makes me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don't need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don't want to wander
I stay at home at night
But I don't feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And they don't need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset
They are in paradise

Waterloo sunset's fine
Gotta catch a plane,
Later

have fun...we'll look forward to hearing from you soon!