The Kinks : When Work is Over
Soap Opera was wonderful. I was a man who was imagining I was an accountant imagining that he was me
-Ray Davies
After ten years as a rock star, and the last few fumbling through crisis after crisis, Ray Davies must have been intrigued by the anonymous lives of ordinary 9 to 5 working men. The concept album Soap Opera is about a rock star named Starmaker who exchanges lives with an ordinary accountant. He has a wife ( voiced by actress June Ritchie), a 9 to 5 job making decisions that will affect no one, and the need of a good stiff drink or two before he heads home for Shepherd's Pie.
It all began as a teleplay for Granada TV. Apparently the concept worked better onstage that in the album which was blasted by critics. Unfairly in retrospect.
Soap Opera was brilliant 40 years ago and it only sounds better now! The Kinks will never be to everybody's taste, 'twas ever thus. I still have stains on the cover of my vinyl album from a very big 1975 party. Yes, I fell for Lavinia, and Norman.
ReplyDeleteStill got the ducks on the wall.
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