Misfits

A lot of people don't know this about Harrogate, but the very first piece of music he ever fell absolutely, madly, in love with, is Misfits by the Kinks. Introduced to the record by his father at the tender age of 10, Harrogate didn't then understand most of the lyrics on the album. For example, the raucus track "Live Life" includes the verse: "Have you heard about the troubles throughout the land/ With the fascists and the left wing militants?/ Out of work executives are killing themselves/ And the I.R.A. are killing everybody else." That's pretty heavy, no?

Yet while Harrogate didn't get the lyrics as a boy, the plaintive, almost desperate sound permeating the record hit a chord with him nevertheless. Harrogate realizes that a lot of people are not familiar with Misfits or indeed most of the Kinks work; beyond "Lola," "You've Really Got Me," "Apeman," and a precious few others, the popular pickins seem to get pretty darned slim. The Kinks, thusly, remain arguably the most underappreciated band in the history of rock and roll, though in their own late 60's-70s heyday, they enjoyed a small devoted following.

The album cover, of course, might well be the greatest ever made. But Harrogate wishes to talk a bit about what he believes to be the crown jewel of the record, a song called "Rock and Roll Fantasy." Ray Davies supposedly wrote the song in 1977 about a week after the death of Elvis Presley, which you can see referenced in the lyrics, printed below. At the time, brother and lead guitarist Dave Davies was thinking about quitting the band and doing something else. This song was a response to Dave, a powerful Rhetorical Appeal that perhaps contributed to keeping Dave on board (a great thing not only for the Kinks, but for Rock and Roll in general, as Dave's experimental guitar style inspired such greats as Eddie Van Halen and Zach Wilde, among others)

Anywho, Harrogate's been thinking a lot about this song, lately. It really points up the raison de etre--as well as the dark side--of cultural production, in Harrogate's award-winning opinion. Staggering numbers of people, after all, take their meaning, and even their will to keep going, from popular art (Eminem speaks to the same thing in "Sing for the Moment"). To a great extent Harrogate has always identified with "Guy in my block" portion of the song. Maybe there are Readers out there who also identify.

The argument of the song seems simple enough, it is two pronged--Ray seems to be telling Dave:

1)We cannot quit because we'll be letting down people like the guy on my block and fans like Dan who have followed us through all the hard times as well as the good ones; &

2)We cannot quit because what if our band is the only thing protecting us from becoming just like these people that depend on us. If we are not to be producers of culture, if we are not to make a contribution, if we are not to impact the world, then really we just become consumers waiting for the next thing to come float our boats. This is not what I, Ray Davies, want, Dave, and I don't think it's what you want either. I don't want to live in a Rock and Roll Fantasy, "hiding away."

Hello you, hello me, hello people we used to be
Isn't it strange, we never changed
We've been through it all yet we're still the same
And I know it's a miracle, we still go, and for all we know
We might still have a way to go

Hello me, hello you, you say you want out
Want to start anew, throw in your hand
Break up the band, start a new life, be a new man
But for all we know, we might still have a way to go
Before you go, there's something you ought to know

There's a guy in my block, he lives for rock
He plays records, day and night
And when he feels down he puts some rock 'n' roll on
And it makes him feel alright
And when he feels the world is closing in
He turns his stereo way up high

He just spends his life living in a rock 'n' roll fantasy
He just spends his life living on the edge of reality
He just spends his life in a rock 'n' roll fantasy
He just spends his life living in a rock 'n' roll fantasy
He just spends his life living on the edge of reality
He just spends his life in a rock 'n' roll fantasy
He just spends his life living in a rock 'n' roll fantasy

Look at me, look at you
You say we've got nothing left to prove
The King is dead, rock is done
You might be through but I've just begun
I don't know, I feel free and I won't let go
Before you go, there's something you ought to know

Dan is a fan and he lives for our music
It's the only thing that gets him by
He's watched us grow and he's seen all our shows
He's seen us low and he's seen us high
Oh, but you and me keep thinking
That the world's just passing us by

Don't want to spend my life living in a rock 'n' roll fantasy
Don't want to spend my life living on the edge of reality
Don't want to waste my life hiding away anymore
Don't want to spend my life living in a rock 'n' roll fantasy