Pretty much almost everything...
I keep reading all the critics and even some fans reviews of the the box set, the kinks history from all their different era, and to me it's all a bunch of rubbish!
To some it may be just that "jukebox music" (a nice sound, and it's got a beat and you can dance to it) but to the fans of Ray, Dave and the kinks who identify with the music and lyrics it is a whole lot more. It's a way of life and looking at life and how you feel about everything and I mean everything.
to repeat what I have written before in other places...
If Ray and the KinKs speak to your soul, it really doesn't even matter, what it is,or when it came out or was recorded, be it 1963, 73, 83, 93, 2003, or 2017? does it...? If I were on a desert Island and could have only one song to play & listen to over and over again for eternity I'd pick my least favorite kinks or Ray song over my favorite song from anybody else, I can't explain it but if I had to you wouldn't understand anyway. Sure the box set if I were putting it together would have had some different stuff on it than it does, but everything is relative so I can always say yeah that's not as good as something else, or as that era, but when it comes to Ray and the kinks to me it is all great and it is all good, even the stuff I have never heard or he has not even written yet? He can do no wrong to me. Only a very select of few other artists even come close to talking or touching the part of my soul and spirit that Ray has (and still does) on a consistent basis through out every stage of his career, and Ray does it 100% of the time.
"you won't believe it but it's true
What a boring occupation can do,
It can make a nervous wreck out of you,
It can kill your spirit and destroy your mind."
Do you hate your working and or corporate life, do you hate waking up every morning dreading going to work, are you for the most part playing a role at work that is so far from the real you it actually makes you sick to your stomach, migraines, panic and anxiety attacks, nervous, depressed, even manic to a point ..probably not, or at least I hope not for your sake because it is a miserable existence, believe me I know, and I am not trying to brag or say that feeling that way makes me better than you or anyone else, or a bigger or better kinks fan than you or anyone else because believe me I would trade my thoughts, feelings and desires for anything to be happy and content, but like I said you are either born with that feeling in you or you are not, and it follows you every day of your life and for those who have these inbred feelings and are lucky enough to find away to channel these feelings, emotions in to their everyday life, and make it their life and earn living and survive doing it, it is heaven on earth, but if not, you are pretty much fcuked, or as Ray said it best destroyed, so I take Ray's lyrical content very seriously, it's very close and personal to me. It may be only jukebox music to some but to me it's a whole lot more, more than I could explain, again if I have to explain, you probably wouldn't understand " anyway...;that old Harley Davidson slogan has come in handy many times. I remain Johnny Thunder, riding my motorbike down the highway...
"Feel those vibrations flow in my brain.
Got my freedom riding down the highway,
Keeps me sane, feel alive,
I'm one of the survivors"
KinKdom, & What it all means, and I won't be destroyed like
everybody else
and " I won't be destroyed like everybody else " could be the greatest re-write in history...
Again someone wanted to know why I thought the " I won't be destroyed like everybody else line " Ray rewrote for I'm not like everybody else was so important to me, and what I thought he meant by it...well here is what I said;
I think if Ray had not made it as an artist, songwriter/musician, or what ever name, tag or label you want to give it he would have been destroyed like most everybody else ( and some of us here), any one of us who always hated the thought of having to live in the real world, the corporate, straight, business world and go to work hating the thought of waking up to another boring uneventful day and dreading every moment ahead, and even more not being able to be you, and having to put on some act, ,...well at least I know I speak for myself, but I think anyone else who never saw themself fitting in to the " 9 to 5 " world but ended up there anyway, it's hell on earth. Again unless you know what it is like, and it is something your either are born with or without, you wouldn't understand but I think there is a few of you here would understand that!? The real kinks fan has been a misfit all his life and even in his day never could quite fit in...truer words were never spoken, and Ray and dave should know because they were there, and still are, that's what makes them the real thing. Just wait till you read the liner notes in the Box set booklet, you will have no doubt.
and my Interpretation of what he meant using previous Rayism's...
" He was young and he had so much ambition
All the way he was overtaken
By the people who make the big decisions "...
or another song from the Misfits album " Get Up " aslo paint that same picture of what not being destroyed like everybody else means...
" Here's a song for all the little men who get forgotten time and time again
Here's a message for the little guy, don't let this situation pass you by
You're in the middle while the big mouths fight
You get it from the left and the right, ain't it crazy"
and the fact of it...
The world's goin' crazy and
Nobody gives a d**n anymore.
" and the fact of it...
The world's goin' crazy and
Nobody gives a dam anymore.
When a solution comes, it's gonna breathe right down on everyone...
But me, I'm only standing here
Watching it all go on, and I'm watching it all go wrong
And it's painfully clear that the battle is near
And I wish I could just disappear.
" ""Got to get out of this life somehow
Got to be free, got to be free now"
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