from upper-middle (“The taxman’s taken all my dough /Andrnleft mc in this stately home . . . All I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon”)rnto lumpen (“IHe got no home, I’ve got no nione7 Butrnwho needs a job when it’s sunnv?”). There were songs of oddrnbeauty, like “Witerioo Sunset,” with its uncxpeeted declarationrnthat paradise consists of watching dusk fall oer London’s \4iterloornStation—bv most non-British accounts, one of the ugliestrnsights in the wodd. There were songs defending the particular,rnbe it individualist and extraordinarx (“I’m Not LikernEvervbodv Else,” “Misfits”) or communal and ordinar-:rnTike me back to those Black I lills that I ain’t never seenrnMiiswell lUllhillks is a dark album. It depicts an England inrnwhich libcrt and community have been almost completely effaced,rnleaving Davies’ characters isolated and confused (“I’mrntoo terrified to walk out of my own front door .. . \c got acuternsciiizophrenia, paranoia too”), powedess before the authoritiesrn(“1 was born in a welfare state, ruled b bureaucracy / Controlledrnb civil servants, and people dressed in grey”), left to livernin dreams manufactured b’ others:rnI like my football on a SaturdayrnRoast beef on Sundays, all rightrnI go to Blackpool for my holidaysrnSit in the open I sunlightrnI’his is m street, and I’m necr going to leave itrnAnd I’m always going to stay herernIf I live to be ninety-ninern’Cause all the people 1 meetrnSeem to come from my streetrnAnd I can’t get awayrnBecause it’s calling mc: “Come on home”rn”Come on home “—another Daies theme. There were therndisappointing vacations of “I loliday in Wiikiki” and “Holiday.”rnThere were the loneK rock tours of “Motorwas,” “Sitting in MrnHotel,” and “The Road.” There were tales of -oung men (inrn”Village Green”) and young women (in “Polly” and “Big BlackrnSmoke”) who left their villages, only to miss the smaller worldrnthey left behind. And there were tales of those who werernforeibU renio’ed from their homes, to be sent oerscas to die inrnsome politician’s war (“Yes Sir, No Sir,” “Some Mother’s Son”);rnor whose homes were forcibly removed from them. Whichrnbrings us back to that riff, that voice, and those bloodshot, alcoholicrne’es. The song is “Muswell Ilillbilh’,” the final cut onrnthe band’s best album, Muswell / Ullbillies (l’971). The narratorrnis being uprooted, his neighborhood redeveloped, long beforernthe singer was born—rnThcN ve me up to Muswell Hill tomorrowrnPhotographs and souvenirs are all I’ve gotrnThernBut thevrn)f livi y re gonna try to make me change my way ot livingrn1 never make me something that I’m not,rnThe’ll try to make me study elocutionrnBecause they say my accent isn’t rightrnThe can clear the slums as part of their solutionrnBut the’re necr gonna kill m’ coekne pridern—leaving the singer to dream of a past he never experiencedrnbut faiiith’ remembers; a past he thinks he recognizes in gad^lcdrnimages of America:rnI’m a Muswell Hillbilly boyrnBut m heart lies in old West VirginiarnNcer seen New Orleans, Oklahoma, lennessccrnStill I dream of those Black I lills that I ain’t nenerrnThough mv hills are not green, I’NC seen them in mrndreamsrnShe lives in a house that’s near decayrnBuilt for the industrial revolutionrnBut in her dreams she is far awayrnIn Oklahoma, U.S.A.rnWith Shide’ Jones and Gordon McRearnAs she bus her paper at the corner shoprnShe’s walkin’ on the surrey with the fringe on toprnThis is tlie totally administered society of the FrankfurtrnSchool—in L5a’ies’ words, “the mechanical nightmare.” Butrnthere is hope, jjcrhaps even salvation, in little traditions (“Haverna C’uppa Tea”) and inchoate but angr- insurgenee (“MuswellrnI iillbilh”). Daxies’ respect for the traditional emerges even inrnthe musical genres he deploys on the album—shards of eountr,rnof blues, of old music-hall styles, of ancient ja/.z. “Bless you,rnUncle Son / Vc won’t forget you when the revolution comes.”rnThose little signs of life figure ]3rominently in Davies’ mostrnrecent project. The Storyteller: An Evening with a ‘twentiethrnCentury Man. This began as a simple series of readingsrnfrom Ray’s “unauthorized autobiograph,” X-Ray, and gradual-rn1 cxoh’cd into a well-honed one-man show. (Two-man, if yourninclude Rav’s accompanist, guitarist Pete Mathison.) It includesrnsongs, of course—some old hits, some unjustly neglectedrnalbum tracks, some other artists’ tunes (at one point, Daviesrncroons his wa through “J hat Old Black Magic”), and somernnew pieces written specifically for the program. And betweenrnthe songs, there arc stories, about Davies’ childhood and adolescencernand the band’s earl’ days. Listening to Dasics, it’srnclear that Muswell Hill isn’t just the bureaucratic ficfdom ofrnMuswell Uillbillies, but a unique place with a particular culturernafter all—a culture centered, from young Ray’s point of view, inrnthe front room of his parents’ home, “where everything importantrnhappened.”rn”An evening with . . . ” usually signifies a hgurc at the end ofrnhis career, mining his name for some easy and undeserved dollars:rnone thinks of the final scene of Raging Bull, or the pointlessrnl”.veinng -with Groueho album that oceasionalK creeps intornone’s local used-record pile. The Storyteller rises above that, espeeialKrnwhen taken together with X-Rav and the newest Kinksrnalbum. To the Bone, with its reinterpretations of older Kinksrnsongs. Da les isn’t living in his past. 1 Ic’s returning to his roots,rnand finding, to crossbreed cliches, that those eari’ creative wellsrnlia’e not vet run dry.rnNor have those eady concerns. If it’s wrong to wipe a housernor a ncighborliood from the map, imagine all the homes andrnneighborhoods that would be lost if an entire nation werernerased. In 197^, the Kinks were invited to play a special “Fanfarernfor Europe” concert honoring the Lhiitcd Kingdom’s entryrninto the Common Market. And since Ray, as he put it in ‘ThernStoryteller, “could give a toss for the Common iXlarket,” thernMARCH 1997/19rnrnrn