Ray Davies of The Kinks, a great Kronickler of character(s)
Welcome to Week 8 folks. I?ve been fortunate enough to receive many a kind word in regards to weeks 1 ? 7 (Hi Mom!), and so please, allow me a brief moment to thank everyone who has been reading.
Emboldened by your lovely attentions, I will step briefly outside the CSSC blog?s usual sphere of concerns into something tangential, but yes, relevant:
The Kinks. Specifically the band?s chief songwriter*, the interminable Ray Davies.
Why The Kinks? Why Ray Davies?
For the purposes of a more musically-inclined blog, I could speak volumes as to how sorely neglected The Kinks? seven-album run from 1965 (The Kink Kontroversy) to 1971 (Muswell Hillbillies) is within the wider scope of 1960s-70s British Invasion rock. All great albums that anyone with even a passing interest in the music of that era should explore.
Alas, though, I promised relevance and relevance I shall deliver. When I first started thumbing through my Dad?s CD collection in middle school ? the serious beginning to my British rock self-education ? I started with the acknowledged heavy hitters: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who. And I loved it all.
I resisted The Kinks. ?You Really Got Me? was all I really knew of them, and as any dumb teenager would be when presented with greatness, I was unimpressed. Father knows best, and of course, he pointed me to The Kink Kronickles set ? a double-disc of collected singles from 1966 ? 1970, their golden years.
Here I was confronted with something wholly unexpected. John Lennon and Mick Jagger were the first two songwriters I seriously hooked onto. However diametrically opposed to one other, they both spoke to grand, universal ideas. Love, hate, exploration, (self-)destruction. Big canvases, and in that realm, they were better than anyone else.
But in the songs of Ray Davies and The Kinks, I found something wholly different. Small canvases. Little characters living cramped lives, the intense details taken down by a keen observer of human interaction.
The model songwriter for the aspiring screenwriter.
There are plenty of other writers who deserve such a distinction. Nick Cave comes to mind, although that?s a bit unfair. Neko Case, who really never needed to name check David Lynch for anyone to pick up on the influence ? the connection between cinema and music is nearly cyclical. The inspiration comes back around.
I singled out Davies on account of two songs in particular: ?David Watts? and ?Two Sisters?, both phenomenal in their own right.
The genius of the latter song, ?David Watts?, lies in Davies?s subtle interplay of show-and-tell. Through the unnamed Narrator (or singer), Davies tells us everything about the enviable David Watts, rattling off a laundry list of desirable qualities. On the surface, the lyrics are simple. What Davies shows us, though, is far more interesting than anything contained in the stated qualities of a character who appears, from what the Narrator tells us, to be absolutely perfect.
?David Watts? is a well-delivered piece of misdirection: The song isn?t about Watts at all, but the Narrator who ?cannot tell water from champagne?. It?s a story of jealousy and longing, emotions the Narrator has transferred onto one single character. We can extrapolate more about the Narrator from his POV of David Watts than we can ascertain about Watts himself. The song is far less literal than it first seems.
And then, ?Two Sisters?. The glockenspiel simultaneously establishes the melancholy and ?drudgery? of Sybilla?s domestic life. Like ?David Watts?, another story of jealously and disappointment. Both songs could almost be considered Hitchcockian in their obsession with duality & doppelgangers.
Later on, Ray?s brother Dave would have much a far more playful time employing a deliberately vague use of pronouns (see ?Lola?). Here, in ?Two Sisters?, the slip from Sybilla to her sister Priscilla comes on like a dissolved cut between parallel scenes: ?Sybilla looked into her mirror / Priscilla looked into the washing machine,? and then, ?Sybilla looked into the wardrobe / Priscilla looked into the frying pan.? The differences in their lives are readily apparent, but the shared thread of unhappiness runs through the structure.
Davies is a master of shorthand. In roughly two minutes apiece, he establishes two carefully drawn characters ? people we understand and recognize without any lengthy explanation. It?s no surprise Wes Anderson has found inspiration in The Kinks (three times in The Darjeeling Limited, mining the Lola album, and once in Rushmore). Davies and Anderson share a mutual understanding of how to shorthand character and setting, without shortchanging either.
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*No slight meant to Ray?s brother and band mate Dave Davies, a superb songwriter in his own right. One day, much to my family?s chagrin, I may insist his song ?Death of a Clown? be played at my funeral. Though I admit ?Strangers? would be a far more tactful choice, if I must compromise. Anyway, the point is Dave was every bit as talented as his brother. In fact, as I write this apologetic footnote, I?m nearly reconsidering my decision to focus exclusively on Ray Davies for this post. On ?Susannah?s Still Alive?, Dave?s writing exhibits all the incisive probing of character I would usually attribute to his brother?s songs. The line gets blurry between the two, but ultimately, when I came up with the idea for this blog entry, I immediately thought of two Ray Davies songs,?David Watts? and ?Two Sisters.?
What I?m trying to say here is? sorry Dave. Big fan.
Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, Zachary Herrmann started off writing entertainment journalism during college, interviewing a wide variety of personalities in film and music. He now works in Manhattan by day, and pursues creative writing in his apartment by night. In May 2011, he and his brother Jesse received top prize in the 2010 ? 11 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition for their short script, Elijah the Prophet. Through the summer and fall, Zach helped coordinate a Kickstarter.com fundraising campaign with director James Cooper and CSSC?s own David Cormican, successfully raising over $20,000 in production funds. The film wrapped shooting in April 2012, and is now awaiting the start of its festival run.
Source: http://www.screenplay-contest.com/2012/08/22/ww-cssc-writer-wednesday-blog-the-8th-i-wish-i-could-be-like-ray-davies/
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