EMPIRE STATE OF MIND
The Kinks made a British history lesson a masterpiece
England is in disarray. A generation feels betrayed. And who better to sing about it than the Kinks?
“Did you know Boris Johnson has written a book about Churchill?” says Ray Davies, the leader of easily the most literate and dysfunctional band of the British Invasion.
It’s an intriguing connection to make, particularly as the current prime minister gets blasted for the way he has fumbled through attempts to extract the U.K. from the European Union. Hearing Davies, you almost can daydream of the disbanded Kinks returning with their Brexit record.
After all, the group’s 50-year-old masterwork, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), just released as a deluxe box set, is a surprisingly easy time-travel from Queen Victoria to the parliamentary punditry on the BBC World Service.
“When (the record company) told me they would do a box, I got the tapes out and listened to them,” says Davies. “And Arthur is not a concept album. It’s more like a documentary album. And it’s based on a real character called Arthur, who was my brother-in-law (Arthur Anning), who came out of the war disillusioned — voted Churchill out. There are lots of parallels in Arthur to what’s happening in the world.”
The expanded and remastered Arthur includes alternative mixes, unreleased songs and an abandoned solo album from younger brother Dave Davies. The record captured the Kinks at their artistic peak, but also an odd time for a band that emerged with the Who and the Rolling Stones. The group was banned from touring the States from 1965 to 1969 for reported bad behaviour on a previous tour.
Ray Davies today says that ban contributed to the creative surge that started with 1966’s Face to Face.
“I buried myself in English culture,” says Davies, 75. “And I wrote songs like Waterloo Sunset, Sunday Afternoon, Dedicated Follower of Fashion rather than trying to write
Stairway to Heaven. I think the band suffered because we couldn’t tour America at that time. We would have toured with Hendrix and Led Zeppelin; the peak of the great second invasion. We missed that. But I immersed myself in writing English folkish material.”
Other groups wrote about girl problems; Davies wrote about social class and social climbing, crumbling ceilings and teen envy. All of it was delivered with a punkish wink by musicians who sounded as if they had one foot in the studio, the other in the pub.
Arthur would seem the unlikeliest theme for compelling rock ’n’ roll, yet it works. It’s a record that features a snaky blues with quotes from Winston Churchill. It also finds Davies, seemingly lost in his characters, slipping into different voices and deliveries.
“I think Ray always wanted to be an actor,” says bassist John Dalton. “In his songs, he’s playing a part.”
“Well, I sing in character a lot,” says Davies. “... It must be confusing for people, but it’s the way I get through.”
Arthur was originally meant for actors; Davies planned it as a television program. It became a record when the project fell through. Anning ’s decision to emigrate to Australia with his wife, Rosie, the oldest of eight Davies siblings, “was a big wrench,” says Dave Davies, 72.
Through Anning, Ray Davies darts through the first half of Britain’s 20th century. The reign of Victoria and the social classes, the horrific losses of the First World War, the Churchillian comeback and the postwar struggles for a generation that had sacrificed everything yet often seemed to be running in place. Seen through the eyes of a 24-year-old art school kid turned reluctant rock star, it could be hard to tell whether Davies was attacking the man sitting by the fire in his Shangri-La or admiring the satisfaction he took from the simplest middle-class pleasures.
“Arthur was a soulful guy,” says Ray Davies. “Obviously another generation. But the album in some ways is critical of his generation but also supportive and understanding. At the end of Arthur, the song, I sing, ‘we’d like to help you and understand you’ and ‘somebody loves you, don’t you know it.’”
In typical Kinks fashion, the original Arthur was hailed by critics but didn’t even crack Billboard’s Top 100. And after Ray Davies reportedly apologized to the musicians union for the band’s behaviour during its 1965 U.S. tour, the Kinks were able to play the States. In 1970, a new song, Lola, would even return them to the Top 10.
But the Kinks who arrived at New York’s Fillmore East in the fall of 1969 were far from the arena stars they would become in the late 1970s. They had lost bassist Pete Quaife, who had quit to form his own band and replaced him with Dalton, who had spent a chunk of the ’60s at his day job delivering coal. Dalton’s driving style gave a boost to the band’s sound, particularly on songs like album-opener Victoria.
Dalton seemed unfazed by the warring within the band. The famously dysfunctional Davies brothers were just one issue. Drummer Mick Avory and Dave Davies were known to fight onstage and at some point in 1969, Avory now says he actually tried to quit.
The brothers, he says, didn’t seem to acknowledge his written resignation. And he forgot about the notion when they began touring the States again.
The Kinks haven’t released a studio album since 1993’s Phobia. Ray Davies remains cagey about the prospects of getting the band back together. He seems to float the idea regularly, sparking yet another round of reunion headlines.
“It’s been all talking almost since they packed it in 23 years ago,” says Avory, with a laugh. “If it carries on any longer, we’ll have to have a resurrection rather than a reunion.”
I sing in character a lot ... It must be confusing for people, but it’s the way I get through.
RAY DAVIES, the Kinks