Apeman

To note the recent death of Paul Ehrlich, it seemed appropriate to reference Apeman, a song from The Kinks 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Money Go Round, Part One (for my ridiculously compulsive exploration of a little known period in The Kinks discography read Kinkdom).  It was the lyrics in the first two verses that made me think of Ehrlich and gave me an excuse to show the band playing the entire song.

I think I'm sophisticated
'Cause I'm living my life
Like a good homo sapiens
But all around me
Everybody's multiplying
And they're walking round like flies, man
So I'm no better than the animals
Sitting in the cages in the zoo, man
'Cause compared to the flowers
And the birds and the trees
I am an apeman

 

I think I'm so educated
And I'm so civilized
'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian
And with the over population
And inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore
And make like an apeman

 

The Population Bomb, Ehrlich's enormous best seller, was published in 1968, a book in which he predicted mass famine by the end of the 1970s and global environmental deterioration.  He had a distinguished academic career at Stanford University and received countless awards and recognition over the decades for his work.

 

The problem is that Ehrlich was wrong, incredibly wrong, but it never seemed to impair his academic credibility.  I read The Population Bomb during my freshman year of college (1969-70) and, in my naivete, was impressed with his thesis, though even at the time, found some of his language overwrought.  By the end of the 70s it was clear to me Ehrlich was wrong and became baffled by the continuing respect accorded him and those who adopted his views.

 

The most dramatic evidence of Ehrlich's wrongness was his 1980 bet with economist Julian Simon, summarized by Wikipedia:

The economist Julian Simon argued in 1980 that overpopulation is not a problem as such and that humanity will adapt to changing conditions. Simon argued that eventually human creativity will improve living standards, and that most resources were replaceable.^[50] Simon stated that over hundreds of years, the prices of virtually all commodities had decreased significantly and persistently.^[51] Ehrlich termed Simon the proponent of a "space-age cargo cult" of economists convinced that human creativity and ingenuity would create substitutes for scarce resources and reasserted the idea that population growth was outstripping the Earth's supplies of food, fresh water and minerals.^[8]

This exchange resulted in the Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet about the trend of prices for resources during a ten-year period that was made with Simon in 1980.^[8] Ehrlich was allowed to choose ten commodities that he predicted would become scarce and thus increase in price. Ehrlich chose mostly metals, and lost the bet, as their average price decreased by about 30% in the next 10 years.

Ehrlich's prognostication failings reminds me of the quote attributed to Nobel Prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli after reviewing the paper of a young physicist, "That is not only not right, it is not even wrong". 

I never met Ehrlich but did have the opportunity to sit with one of his acolytes (they'd co-authored papers and was involved in setting up the Ehrlich-Simon bet), Paul Holdren, at a small dinner in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2008.  Like his mentor, Holdren has had a distinguished academic career with positions at Harvard and Berkeley and receiving a MacArthur Foundation "genius" Fellowship.  In 2009, President Obama appointed Holdren as his chief science advisor and director of the White House's Office of Science & Technology, a role he served in both of Obama's administrations.

While I don't remember most of the details of the dinner discussion, my overall impression was Holdren fit the pattern found in Harvard academics in encounters during my twelve years working in Cambridge and, for a decade after, being a frequent visitor; they tended to be close-minded, provincial, and intolerant of dissenting opinions, not something I would have predicted when I began working in the city in 1980. Most found it incomprehensible that anyone would disagree with their political opinions or general thoughts on the world out of anything other than ignorance and/or bigotry, and automatically devalued the views of anyone lacking the "right" credentials.  

In the wake of Ehrlich's death I came across a tweet he'd sent on January 3, 2023 after a 60 Minutes appearance, which explains how he and Holdren maintained their academic reputations. It is quite an indictment of academia:

"60 Minutes extinction story has brought the usual right-wing out in force. If I'm always wrong so is science, since my work is always peer-reviewed, including the POPULATION BOMB and I've gotten virtually every scientific honor." 

Notice one of the tactics he, and many other academics, employs is to call any criticism "right-wing" thus casting those criticizing him into the outer darkness where the substance of the criticism can be completely disregarded.  The funny thing is I came across the quote in a tweet from Roger Pielke Jr, a traditional liberal and critic of Ehrlich.  Pielke wrote a longer piece, Gravediggers of Science, on Ehrlich in his substack, relating his encounter with Ehrlich in 2010, in which Ehrlich and the scurrilous climate scientist Michael Mann engaged in their favorite smearing tactic and making completely false allegations.

Ehrlich and others employ these tactics because in the circles they swim in it works.  There is no price to pay for being wrong or for trying to destroy others with false innuendo and worse.  In fact, they are rewarded for doing so. 

Rereading The Population Bomb and some of Ehrlich's other work one is struck by what a miserable and misanthropic view of humanity he holds.(1)  It probably explains his desire of widespread sterilization and a powerful world government to enforce his views.

I'll give the last word to this summary from The Free Press.  They are unfortunately correct that his worldview has infected society:

Imagine getting almost everything wrong and still transforming the world with your ideas. That, more or less, is what happened to economist and professional eco-pessimist Paul Ehrlich, who died this week at 93. Ehrlich shot to fame in 1968 with his bestseller The Population Bomb. It predicted an explosion in humankind, draining the planet’s resources and triggering a near apocalypse.

Thankfully, Ehrlich would be proven wrong—stunningly wrong—by events. But even if Ehrlich lost the argument, his Malthusian mindset still won him award after award and, in many ways, became conventional wisdom.

Today, we’re bringing you two pieces on Ehrlich’s ideas and why they matter.

Up first, the British science writer Matt Ridley details the callous policy proposals Ehrlich’s thinking led him to support—including forced sterilization programs that Ehrlich called “coercion in a good cause”—and the policymakers who listened to him.

Up next, Larissa Phillips. She was born to parents beholden to Ehrlich’s theories. In fact, she says, she almost wasn’t born because of them: Her parents were trying to model their own family planning on his prescription for zero population growth. Thankfully, they didn’t quite get it right. Ehrlich’s death caused Larissa to contemplate not just the impact of his ideas on her family but also where the line falls—where idealism becomes pretentious, or pessimistic, or harmful.

----------------------------------------------------

(1)  In that regard, Ehrlich reminds me of the leaders of the AI crowd.  Though Ehrlich preached scarcity and the AI dudes abundance, at heart they are all anti-humanists.  If AI can perform better than humans, of what use are people?  The AI leaders have clearly said this and don't care about the implications.  In February 2025 I summarized Elon Musk's worldview but it can be said for all of the AI proponents:

Musk and a small group of "creatives" run society, with robots operating our factories, and AI, using Musk-designed algorithms, running everything else.  Enough wealth is created to fund a Universal Basic Income for the rest of Americans, who live in a ketamine and cannabis induced haze. 

Better Things

 A friend recently reminded me of this one from The Kinks.  Good time for it.

Here's wishing you the bluest sky
And hoping something better comes tomorrow
Hoping all the verses rhyme
And the very best of choruses, too
Follow all the doubt and sadness
I know that better things are on the way

Here's hoping all the days ahead
Won't be as bitter as the ones behind you
Be an optimist instead
And somehow happiness will find you

 
Forget what happened yesterday
I know that better things are on the way

It's really good to see you rocking out
And having fun
Living like you've just begun
Accept your life and what it brings
I hope tomorrow you'll find better things
I know tomorrow you'll find better things

 

Here's wishing you the bluest sky
And hoping something better comes tomorrow
Hoping all the verses rhyme
And the very best of choruses, too
Follow all the doubt and sadness
I know that better things are on the way

 

I know you've got a lot of good things happening up ahead
The past is gone, it's all been said
So here's to what the future brings
I know tomorrow you'll find better things

Everybody's Got The Rain

 The reckoning is beckoning

Rainy Day In June from 1966 by The Kinks

Too Much On My Mind

From The Kinks classic 1966 album Face To Face.  A song for our times.

Rockin' The 70s

1970s that is.  A continuation of my post on concerts I attended during the 1970s.  I'm certain I'm forgetting some from this decade.

May 23, 1970
Jefferson Airplane
U of Wisconsin Field House
Madison WI

From the date, this is probably the last thing I did in Madison before leaving.  I spent my freshman year of college (1969-70) at the University of Wisconsin and then decided to drop out.

We sat in the bleachers in the field house for an afternoon show.  The school year had been disrupted by demonstrations, strikes, and violence, and then collapsed in the wake of the Cambodia invasion and Kent State, so it was appropriate that it ended with the Jefferson Airplane in its peak craziness phase playing songs from the overwrought Volunteers album.  

October 13, 1970

Chicago

Capitol Theatre

Port Chester, NY 

Back when the band was hard rocking.  Good show.

1970 or 71
The Kinks
Wesleyan University
Middletown CT

As readers know I am a yuuge Kinks fan.  My dim recollection is this was a typically shambolic Kinks show - they were probably drunk - in a gym where we sat in the floor. That's all I got for you.

June 26, 1971
Allman Brother Band
J Geils Band
Albert King
Fillmore East
East Village
Manhattan NY

Last night of the Fillmore East.  Amazing show.  Went to hear J Geils and Albert King (who were wonderful) but came out a fan of the Allman Brothers who were astonishing - they hit the trifecta with Hot 'Lanta, Whipping Post, and most of all, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed.  Here's my full recollection. As I left the first show that night I walked past the future Mrs THC who was in line for the second show.

July 1971

Jethro Tull

Capitol Theatre

Port Chester, NY 

The Aqualung tour.  Great show.  Ian Anderson whirling and hopping around.  Will always remember Martin Barre's sizzling guitar on Aqualung.

1971 or 72
Chick Correa
Clark University
Worcester MA

Held in a lounge area on campus.  Was not familiar with the pianist at the time but really enjoyed it.  

1971 or 72
Jesse Colin Young
Clark University
Worcester MA

One of the most underrated bands of the 60s was The Youngbloods, founded by Jesse Colin Young, who did one of the best, and least known, songs of the 60s - Darkness, Darkness. By the early 70s, Jesse embarked on a solo career.  The man had a gorgeous voice.

1972 or 73
John Lee Hooker
Sir Morgan's Cove
Worcester MA

The legendary king of the one chord boogie (for more read this THC post).  Great show.  The man was an intimidating presence.

The venue was a small club in Worcester, where acts usually played for 4 or 5 nights in a row.  In another incarnation, after Sir Morgan's moved down the street and changed its name, it was where The Rolling Stones launched their 1981 US tour with a surprise tune up.

(Yep, this is the place)

July 1972
The Rolling Stones
Stevie Wonder
Madison Square Garden
Manhattan NY

The Exile On Main St tour.  In the balcony for this sold-out show.  At the time I liked Stevie Wonder but was not a true fan.  Today, I am and have a lot of his music in my iTunes library.  The Stones were good, not great.  Towards the end of the show they turned the lights on in the Garden and the crowd went nuts for the rest of the concert.

August 1972
The Kinks
Dr Hook & The Medicine Show
Berkeley Community Theater
Berkeley CA

Another Kinks show I don't remember well except they did a lot of material from their fine Muswell Hillbillies record.  Dr Hook & The Medicine Show were best known for On The Cover Of Rolling Stone and the execrable Sylvia's Mother.

1972 or 1973
James Cotton Blues Band
Sir Morgan's Cove
Worcester MA

I also saw at least one other, perhaps two shows at the Cove; pretty certain one was Les McCann, and the other may have been Muddy Waters.

Cotton, who passed in 2017, was one of the finest harmonica players, and a talented singer and songwriter.  Here he is.

UPDATE:  It wasn't exactly a rock concert but I recently vaguely remembered attending a Marlene Dietrich concert with my mother, who loved Dietrich, in the early 1970s that was held in the Danbury, CT area.  A little research revealed Dietrich played a week of shows at the Candlewood Playhouse in New Fairfield, CT in July 1974.  I was left with the impression of watching a fading diva (Marlene was 73 at the time) do her thing for an adoring audience.  Dietrich retired from performing the following year.

Fall 1974
Al Stewart
Orpheum Theater
Boston MA

Stewart performed the historical songs from his Past, Present, and Future album.  The emotional highlight was Road To Moscow, his epic song of the Eastern Front in World War Two (and the subject of one of THC longest posts, The Annotated Roads To Moscow), backed by a three part screen spanning most of the stage showing scenes from that conflict, capped by projecting a photo across all the screens of Alexander Solzhenitysn as former soldier, imprisoned in the Gulag; a climax given added poignancy with the publishing of The Gulag Archipelago in December 1973 and Solzhenitsyn's expulsion from the Soviet Union the following February.

The Orpheum was the big rock concert hall in Boston, where established acts came to perform.

December 9, 1974
Genesis
Orpheum Theater
Boston MA

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour, the last before Peter Gabriel left, leading eventually to the band's superb prog rock drummer, Phil Collins, becoming its front man for the recharged and more pop oriented Genesis of the 1980s.  I was a fan of early Genesis except did not care for the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.  Bizarre show with Gabriel wearing his odd costumes; the highlight came at the end - The Musical Box from the 1971 Nursery Cryme album - watch and behold the glory and absurdity of peak prog rock!  Here ya go, and don't miss the last three minutes.

1975-78
Jonathan Edwards
Multiple venues in Boston area

From 1975 to 1978 I lived in Maynard, MA and two of my roommates were full time musicians.  One had just started as pianist and arranger for Jonathan Edwards.  Edwards had one big hit, Sunshine, in 1971, but remained a popular live act, particularly in New England.  I saw Jonathan and the band play several times and they put on a great show.  Unfortunately, I can't find any video from this time period.  Kenny White was, and is, an incredibly talented pianist.  He went on to a two decade career arranging and producing commercials, many of which you will remember, and for the last 15 years has pursued a solo career and is currently opening for Stephen Stills and Judy Collins on their tour. Jonathan is also the link connecting me with Elvis Costello (for more see below).

Sometime between 1975 and 1978
BB King
Worcester MA

What a pleasure listening to that man play and sing.  There were better guitarists but no one ever had a sweeter tone.

February 20, 1975
Roxy Music
Orpheum Theater
Boston MA

One of my favorite 70s band.  Wild and loopy stuff.  By the end of the decade their shtick became boring.  To sample the work of Bryan Ferry and the gang try Do The Strand, A Song For Europe, and In Every Dream Home A Heartache. 

1976 or 1977
NRBQ
Cambridge MA

The New Rhythm and Blues Quartet.  A regional Northeast favorite for many years, featuring Al Anderson on lead guitar.   Raucous and fun.  This was the best I could find on YouTube but doesn't really capture their full power.

December 9 or 10, 1977
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
ParadiseClub
Boston MA

You can read how I learned about Elvis, and that first show here.  He was electrifying.

Just came across this audio of the December 9 show.  This is not exactly the playlist we heard so I think we were there on the 10th.  He played every song listed but at least one other, (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea.  To understand what it was like, listen to the last two songs, Lipstick Vogue and Watching The Detectives, starting at 31:40, though the audio understates how loud The Attractions were that night.

The Paradise Club opened on September 22, 1977 and was up Commonwealth Avenue, just beyond Boston U.  Seating a few hundred (my recollection is less than 500) it was where bands on their first US tours often played.

May 4, 1978

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Mink DeVille

Nick Lowe & Rockpile

Orpheum Theater

Boston MA

On the heels of This Year's Model, Elvis and the band were quickly back in Boston playing a much bigger venue.  Another show filled with tension and excitement.  Elvis was beginning to master how to control large audiences.  Nick Lowe was good.  Mink DeVille was not.

June 18, 1978
The Jam
Lyceum Ballroom
London UK

There were two other forgettable bands on the bill for this show headlined by The Jam, who I already knew from In The City.  Concert was sold out.  We stood at back for entire show.

I had arrived in Europe in late May, not returning until the end of September, and spending time in France, UK, Italy, and Greece.  The future Mrs THC was in Paris.  Had a friend living in London and went to see him and another U.S. friend who came over and the three of us went to the Lyceum.

Summer 1978
Doc Watson
Paris France

I fell in love with Doc's voice and guitar playing a few years before listening to Will The Circle Be Unbroken.  His warm voice enveloped the listener.  Seeing him live was a similar experience.   His son, Merle, played with him.  Can't find information on the location.  We ended up seated next to some French guys my age who were learning to play baseball under the tutelage of an American coach.  A few days later I met up with them at the Bois de Boulogne to play some ball.

February 23, 1979
Dire Straits
Paradise Club
Boston MA

In the fall of 1978 I heard songs by two new bands that immediately captured me.  The first, Roxanne by The Police, the second, Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits.  When Mark Knopfler's band came to Boston for the first show on its first US tour I had to see them.

March 29, 1979
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Squeeze
Orpheum Theater
Boston MA

The acoustics were lousy for this concert,  so it's the only of the eight times seeing Elvis I left disappointed.  Too bad, because Squeeze were on the bill and did not impress me since could not hear them well, though I later became a fan.  Elvis would totally redeem himself with a masterful performance upon returning to the Orpheum in 1981. 

[ADDED: I mixed this up.  Squeeze opened the 1981 show.  Elvis was good but did not meet the high expectations set by his first two shows.]

Summer/Fall 1979 (?)
Boomtown Rats
Paradise Club
Boston MA

Uncertain about the time here, could have been in '80.  An Irish Band, fronted by Bob Geldorf.  Their only hit in the US was I Don't Like Mondays, but I preferred Rat Trap, their attempt at a Bruce Springsteen anthem.

1973-79
The Boston Bands

During this period I saw a lot of fine local acts in Cambridge and Boston bars, like the Pousette Dart Band and Zamcheck, but remember most The Estes Boys, a popular country rock band, because my other roommate musician, Eli Nelson, played pedal steel in the group.  Went to many of their gigs, many of them at Jonathan Swift's, a bar in Harvard Square, at one of which I sat with Red Sox pitcher, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, who was very funny, and very hammered.  This is what the Estes Boys sounded like.  Eli went on to play pedal steel on tour with Mickey Gilley's Urban Cowboy Band.

Get Back In The Line

For anyone who's ever been beholden to a boss.

Will I go to work today or shall I bide my time
'Cos when I see that union man walking down the street
He's the man who decides if I live or I die, if I starve, or I eat
Then he walks up to me and the sun begins to shine
Then he walks right past and I know that I've got to get back in the line

Now I think of what my mamma told me
She always said that it would never ever work out
But all I want to do is make some money
And bring you home some wine
For I don't ever want you to see me
Standing in that line

From The Kinks; composed by Ray Davies and recorded in 1970.

Death Of A Clown

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus will do its last show on May 21 at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, ending a 150 year tradition of traveling circuses.  Ringling resulted from the combination of three 19th century circus shows.  Cooper & Bailey was founded in the 1860s and merged with PT Barnum's show in 1881.  In 1884 the five Ringling brothers founded their circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin and eventually, in 1907 purchased Barnum & Bailey.

From the early 20th century to the beginning of World War Two was the heyday of the circus.  In those days, the circus would roll into town for a one night stand,  Hundreds of workers would erect the tent city, which they would disassemble after the show and move on to the next town.

In honor on its demise, let's listen to Death of a Clown, composed by Dave Davies of The Kinks.

My makeup is dry and it cracks 'round my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whisky and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions they won't bite and the tigers won't roar

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
So let's all drink to the death of a clown
Won't someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor
Nobody needs fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
And frantically looking for runaway fleas

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

And if you are yearning for the circus, visit the Ringling Brothers museum in Sarasota, Florida, something we've done twice.  The property, formerly owned by John Ringling, contains a fascinating museum recounting the history of the circus in America as well as an elegant museum featuring 14th-17th century European art collected by Ringling and his wife.

The museum highlight is the 3,800 square foot, 44,000 piece Howard Brothers Circus, a recreation of the Ringling Brothers show from 1919-1938.  It is the creation of 80 year old Howard Tibbals of Ohio, who began work on it in the 1960s, and continues to add to it today. 

Waterloo: Bonny Meets The Duke & Terry Meets Julie

With the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo coming up tomorrow, THC thought he'd steal a march, just as Napoleon Bonaparte tried to steal a march on the Duke of Wellington (he was actually successful in that strategy causing Wellington to remark "Napoleon has humbugged me, by God!"; unfortunately his tactical execution once he encountered Wellington was not), and publish something a day earlier.

THC will keep it simple.  Napoleon lost though it was a "close run thing" as Wellington later said.

Which reminds him of a perhaps apocryphal remark by Margaret Thatcher (which he nonetheless attributes to Ms Thatcher in accordance with The Official Policy Of This Blog) in which she commented on the difference between the American and French revolutions:

"America ended up with George Washington and the Constitution.  France ended up with a tyrant and a pile of corpses."

Let's wrap up two Waterloo tunes; the first a tribute to all those who fought and suffered on that bloody field - and the winner of the 1974 Eurovision song contest, held on April 6 of that year, just two months short of the 159th anniversary of the battle, perhaps explaining why France did not compete that year:

The second, the glorious single from 1967 by The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset, after the classic 19th century London train station named in celebration of England's triumph over the dreaded Bonaparte.

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night

This Is My Street And I'm Never Gonna Leave It

This is my street
And I'm never gonna leave it
And I'm always gonna stay
Until I live to be 99
Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away
Because it's calling me
Come on home

- Autumn Almanac, The Kinks (1968)

And how right The Kinks were in their analysis of the habits of their fellow citizens.  Today's Telegraph (UK) reports that genetic studies show that modern Britons live in the same general areas they did in 600 AD!

Roman rule collapsed in Britain in the early fifth century and within a couple of decades the country fragmented politically.  At some point from the mid-fifth century onwards Angles, Saxons and Jutes from what are now Holland, Germany and Denmark began migrating across the North Sea and establishing their own small kingdoms in eastern Britain.  The divisions established at that time can still be traced genetically as shown in these maps from The Telegraph which tell a tale of remarkable stability the most striking of which is the boundary between Cornwall and Devon in England's southwest corner.

An Empire On The Edge

On January 24, 1774 the British Colonial Office asked James Scott, captain of the Hayley, to come brief them on reports circulating in recent days of shocking events in Boston. The Hayley had arrived at Dover on January 19 carrying barrels of tar sent by a Boston merchant, John Hancock.  The very next day, the stock of the British East India Company (which we last encountered in Dr Brydon Reaches Jalalabad) began to fall and by January 21 the London papers were claiming that the company's tea had been dumped into Boston harbor.

The next day Hayley appeared and recounted the events of December 16, 1773 being careful not to implicate Hancock.  It is that event, known to us as the Boston Tea Party, that in the analysis of Nick Bunker, author of a new book, An Empire On The Edge, made the American revolution inevitable.

As Americans we are used to seeing the origins of the revolution through the eyes of our patriot leaders like Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Otis and Patrick Henry while we have our own well-known path to revolt; The Proclamation of 1763, The Stamp Act, The Townsend Act, The Boston Massacre, The Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts.  Bunker tells the story from the other side, through British eyes, particularly those of the key government actors and he does it with an emphasis on finance and economics perhaps befitting given his background as an investment banker and then as a journalist for the Financial Times.  And it certainly looks different from that perspective.  For an American everything that happened leading to the revolution was important at the time it occurred but for the British, the North American colonies were mostly a backwater receiving little attention (the American colonies are not mentioned at all during the entire year of correspondence between Lord North and George III in 1773).

Bunker starts his story in late 1771, more than a year after the Boston Massacre telling two tales in parallel, the efforts of British officials to stop the massive about of smuggling contraband into the colonies in defiance of Britain's mercantile restriction and, a world away, of how the China tea trade and its boom and bust cycle led the East India Company into a financial crisis that threatened the stability of Britain and eventually to the shipping of surplus tea to Boston - along with explaining the cultural and economic importance of tea to Britain and all its colonies.  And two centuries on tea is still a big deal in England as The Kinks remind us: The first tale culminates with the burning of the British naval schooner Gaspe which had been hunting smugglers in the Providence River in the summer of 1792 and the inability of the government to prosecute anyone.  Bunker points out that even by that time Rhode Island and Connecticut were virtually independent under their colonial charters and with little or no Royal presence.

The tale of venality and speculation that led to the East India Company to the brink and the poor decision making by Lord North's government that resulted in the Tea Party while convoluted is told in a clear and very understandable way.  While the American colonists thought the East India Company and the government were in cahoots, Bunker says the reality was much different:

"George III disliked the company intensely.  A monarch of simple tastes . . . the king believed that the best parts of the nation were the farmers.  In his eyes, speculators like Colebrooke [Chairman of the East India Company] could never speak for an England with honest agriculture at its heart. . . . the king used the word 'rapine' to describe the misconduct that brought the East India Company to its knees.  Although Lord North expressed himself more diplomatically, he viewed the directors with the same distaste."

In fact, Lord North used the company's financial crisis to wring concessions from it that allowed more government control, including over its profitable India provinces.

All of this goes to the rather ramshackle way Britain acquired and managed its 18th century empire; which was much different from the empire of Queen Victoria from the mid-19 century.  It was above all a mercantile empire which was created by adventurers under charters granted by an England which lacked the funds to do it on its own.  The result was a sprawling company in Asia which had carved out first a commercial and then an actual land empire.  In North America and the West Indies there were more than 25 colonies most with their own charts and legislative assemblies and, particularly in North America, very little presence of British officials.

Bunker draws vivid portraits of the main government players, Lord North who remained Prime Minister through 1781, Lords Hillsborough and Dartmouth who ran the Colonial Office and a hot of other characters including Charles  Jenkinson, the aide at Treasury who authored the January 1773 plan to force Americans to buy the tea and pay the threepenny tax and who was described by biographer as "a born bureaucrat of restricted sympathies".

All of them shared a mindset that made it impossible for them to understand the concerns of the colonists.

For the British, the purpose of British North America was purely business.  As Lord Hillsborough put it in a memorandum of April 1772 the sole purpose of the colonies was "to improve and extend commerce, navigation and manufactures of this kingdom, upon which its strength and security depends".  He then lists the four reasons that justified their existence:

1) fisheries 
2) raw materials - timber, tar, hemp for the navy fleet
3) a captive market for goods manufactured in Great Britain
4) America's role in supplying food and lumber to the sugar plantations in the West Indies, which were of much more value to Britain than all the colonies on the mainland combined.

To control and maintain the colonies for this purpose Hillsborough concluded that they needed to remain coastal communities and their expansion to the west strictly limited which became a major grievance for colonists, particularly in the middle and southern colonies.
(Lord North)
This inability to understand America in anything other than commercial terms (the government insisted that smugglers were the only troublesome colonists) and the way that American development had diverged from the Britain they knew had devastating consequences when they implemented policies such as the Tea Act in 1774.  In Bunker's words:

"It was a short term expedient intended to prop up the company, undercut the smugglers, and reassert the doctrine that Britain had the right to levy taxes in America.  It did not occur to North and his colleagues that while for them tea was just an object of trade, in the colonies it would acquire a new meaning [as a symbol of tyranny]."

". . . the British scarcely saw the colonies at all as anything more than a bundle of economic resources or a destination for convicts"

Even the mercantile speculators aspired to a life of the landed gentry in Britain.  A gentleman's rank and status was everything. 

"From North's perspective, a planter from Virginia might just qualify as the equal of an English landlord.  But even there he had his doubts, and the artisans and laborers of Massachusetts did not count at all.  In November and December 1773, when the people of Boston threw open their meetings to everyone, including the landless and the unemployed, they not only broke the law.  They violated every principle of government to which North and his colleagues adhered." 

Bunker writes that Hancock was particularly incomprehensible to North who viewed the merchant as duty-bound to defend the status quo.  He didn't realize that while in America "the wealthy expected to lord it over their neighbors, they had to ask their permission first" something simply unthinkable to North.

What also strikes the reader is the small size of the colonial bureaucracy and the difficulties of timely communication in a day of sailing ships.  The Colonial Office in London, which oversaw all the colonies, was staffed by less than ten people.  The government appointees on the ground in North America, other than the governors, were few and far between and mostly confined to the coastal port regions.  Even with the governors the quality and frequency of their official correspondence with the Colonial Office was extremely erratic and unreliable.  For this reason, until the verge of fighting in 1775 the officials in London thought the problem was mostly confined to Massachusetts while in reality their were major organized resistance groups forming throughout New England, New York, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina, the latter of which was in peaceful revolt for a year prior to Lexington and Concord.

Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virgina, the largest and most prosperous colony, was particularly derelict.  In March 1773 the Virginia assembly selected its own Committee of Correspondence (including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson) to coordinate with the similar committee established in Massachusetts by Sam Adams, a momentous step which should have indicated how serious and widespread a problem Britain was facing.  Yet in the six official letters Dunmore sent to the Colonial Office in the first half of 1773, none mentioned this committee and then the governor sent no further letters for nine months!

The Colonial Office's lack of information is astonishing.  It was only in 1774 that it sent a survey to all of the governors asking for the most basic information including population and simple economic data.

It was no better on the military side.  General Gage, the British Commander in Chief since 1765, was based in Manhattan and had no knowledge of New England or the southern colonies.  Nonetheless he felt confident enough when on leave back in England in early 1774 to advise George III that if Britain was firm the rebels would back down and show themselves "very meek".  When, later that year, Gage went to Boston to oversee the closing of the port and the buildup of the army garrison he realized how poor his advice had been.
(Lord Dartmouth)
Finally, in late January 1775 Lord Dartmouth sent instructions to Gage to suppress the rebellion by force of arms and to arrest its leaders for treason.  Due to the vagaries of winter weather in the North Atlantic, Gage didn't receive the instructions until April 14.  Five days later the Redcoats marched out of Boston to seize reported rebel arms in Concord and into history.

A fitting epitaph was later written by William Knox, second undersecretary of the Colonial Office) whose recommendations for reform of the colonial system had been ignored:

"It was with no small degree of astonishment that I perceived a total want of plan or system in the British government" calling the history of British North America a sad chronicle of "neglect, Ignorance, bad Law and worse Policy".

I'm Not Like Everybody Else

A great, great rock song from the B side of the 1966 single Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks, their last US hit until Lola in 1970 (which, with the lyric "I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man, and so is Lola" raised the eternal question; was Lola glad or a man?).  For more on what happened to The Kinks during those four years see Kinkdom.

For the youngsters out there 45 rpm records used to come out with an A side (with the hope that the disc jockeys would play it and make it a hit) and a B side, usually a throwaway tune because you had to have something on the other side of the 45 and often not included in the followup album if the A side became a hit.  The only exception in the 60s were The Beatles who often had both sides become hits (see Beatles/Stones Face Off).

THC remembers buying Sunny Afternoon, taking it home and listening to it a few times and then turning it over to see what the B side sounded like.   From the first 30 seconds he was hooked and played it repeatedly.  The song became unexpectedly popular with fans of The Kinks (admittedly a pretty small group at the time) and over the years became a highlight of the band's stage shows.  It's been covered by many other artists over years and was even played over the closing credits in an episode of The Sopranos.

At the meta level it is also interesting to think about how The Kinks (and Dave and Ray Davies in their solo careers) have made the song a singalong in their concerts.  It is a little unnerving to see hundreds or thousands of people chanting in unison "I'm not like everybody else"; who are they referring to?

The British Invasion: Breakout

Part two of the series:
 
The second half of 1964 saw the breakout from the bridgehead established by The Beatles and the first wave of British artists.  The music also gets more interesting as it quickly evolves.

Once again, it starts with The Beatles.  On July 6, the movie and the song, A Hard Day's Night, premiered and by August 1 it was #1 in the U.S.  With its unusual opening chord and sharper guitar sound it was a step forward for the band.  Here's the song over the opening credits of the movie.

The next big British song was really different, The House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals which hit #1 in early September in the United States and was a global smash becoming one of the top five selling records worldwide for the entire year.  A reworking of an old American folk song (click here to hear the first recorded version from 1933), there were several unusual aspects of the record:

• The length of over four minutes at a time when a three minute song was considered long.  Many AM stations played an edited version that was less than three minutes.

• The subject matter, considered very racy for the time.

• The raw vocal by Eric Burden.  There may have been singing like this on some of the Chicago blues records of the 50s but those were not being played on mainstream AM radio and no white singer had sounded this way.

• The swirling, relentless organ arrangement by Alan Price which added to the feverish atmosphere of the recording. 

A great record then and now.  A couple of years later, the bass player, Chas Chandler, discovered a guy named Jimi Hendrix playing in a London club and went on to produce his first three albums.

Replacing The Animals on top of the American charts was a native-born son, Roy Orbison, with Oh, Pretty Woman.  In an interesting twist from August 1963 to December 1964 Roy Orbison was the only American artist to top the British charts and he did it twice.

Meanwhile The Stones were still trying to break through with It's All Over Now.  They didn't.

Next up was one of the great novelty songs of the year, Do Wah Diddy by the band Manfred Mann.  The man, Manfred Mann, was a South African jazz pianist who played keyboards with the band Manfred Mann while the over the top vocal on the song is by Paul Jones who, two years earlier, turned down Keith Richards and Brian Jones when they asked him to be the lead singer in the band they were forming (Paul is currently President of the National Harmonica League of Britain - seriously).  The tune was written by Americans Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich who also composed Da Doo Ron Ron, Be My Baby, River Deep, Mountain High and Leader of the Pack.

The next two big singles were groundbreaking and still sound great decades later.

You Really Got Me by The Kinks (for more than you will ever want to know about the band see Kinkdom) was an out of control rocker built around power chords and considered by some to be the first punk or heavy metal song.  Despite persistent rumors that Jimmy Page played the guitar solo it was Dave Davies, brother of composer and lead singer Ray Davies, who performed the spasmodic, fractured and frantic solo.

Then there was She's Not There by The Zombies.  All of a sudden we have a jazzy electric piano and syncopation.  Where did that come from?  And the breathy vocal.  Very cool song.

Late in the year, The Rolling Stones finally scored their first top 10 in America with Time Is On My Side but their real breakthrough would not be until the release of Satisfaction in May 1965.

The year closed with three notable events.  First was The Kinks followup hit, All Day And All Of The Night, essentially a reworking of You Really Got Me.

Second, the emergence of the third British wave with I'm Into Something Good by Herman's Hermits.  Unfortunately, this third wave was not as innovative and pop definitely triumphed over rock as Herman's Hermits had a string of hits in 1965 and were joined by bands like Freddie & The Dreamers and Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders.

The third was the release of the first Beatles single since A Hard Day's Night, an innovative recording called  I Feel Fine, which starts with guitar feedback (the first hit single to feature it) and then slides into a snappy guitar riff, great harmonies and some good drum work by Ringo in the break.  It reached #1 during the last week of 1964 while the B side, She's A Women also became a top 10 hit.  During 1964 The Beatles had 30 different singles on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. 

Kinkdom

THC knows that many of its dedicated readers have asked themselves at one time or another, "Hey, what were The Kinks up to during the four years between their early success (1964-66) and the 1970 resurgence triggered by the hit single Lola and the album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One?"  Well, here's your answer!

The Kinks, formed by brothers Ray (chief songwriter and vocalist) and Dave (guitarist) Davies, quickly achieved success as part of the British Invasion of 1964.  Their first hit, You Really Got Me, featured simple lyrics, a frenzied, spastic guitar solo and is considered by some to be THE seminal punk rock song.  Later in the year came their second hit, All Day And All Of The Night, essentially a reworked version of You Really Got Me.  In early 1965, they had a third straight hit single, Tired Of Waiting For You, a quieter, more reflective song.  All three singles reached the US Top 10 and two topped the charts in the UK.

After a couple of relatively unsuccessful releases, The Kinks found themselves with another hit in late 1965, A Well Respected Man, marking their move into social commentary followed by a less successful release, Till The End Of The Day (although it remains one of my favorites of the early singles).  The next single, Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, was a hit and a return to the social mode of A Well Respected Man.   Then, in July 1966 came the wonderful Sunny Afternoon, a success in the U.S. and  knocking The Beatles' Paperback Writer off the top of the charts in the U.K.: 

The tax man's taken all my dough,
And left me in my stately home,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
And I can't sail my yacht,
He's taken everything I've got,
All I've got's this sunny afternoon.

My girlfriend's run off with my car,
And gone back to her ma and pa,
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.
Now I'm sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cold beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

What made it even better was the B-side, I'm Not Like Everybody Else (originally written by Ray Davies for The Animals who did not record it), the perfect song for young rebels and a staple of Kinks concerts for years, covered by many other groups and even used over the closing credits of an episode of The Sopranos.

I won't take all that they hand me down,
And make out a smile, though I wear a frown,
And I won't take it all lying down,
'Cause once I get started I go to town.

 But darling, you know that I love you true,
Do anything that you want me to,
Confess all my sins like you want me to,
There's one thing that I will say to you,
I'm not like everybody else,
I'm not like everybody else.

Ray Davies
Then The Kinks disappeared from U.S. radio and touring.  Why?  First, their songwriting became out of touch with the US scene and more rooted in their "Englishness" (for more, see below).  Second, the well-known contrariness of the band, and particularly of the Davies brothers.  They knew what was expected of them if they were to continue to have U.S. hits and they refused to deliver it.   And finally, the band was "banned" from touring in the U.S. during those years.  It's hard to pin down the specific reasons for the ban but the most common story is that the American Federation of Musicians refused to issue the necessary permits due to their rowdy behavior on and off stage (yes, they were indeed very rowdy, including with each other as the Davies brothers engaged in fisticuffs with each other onstage).

We American fans were left to wander in the desert.  While the band could not chart any U.S. singles in those years (and you could rarely hear them even on the newly born FM-radio band), they had a string of chart successes in the UK, including four Top 5 hits and once a year they would release a marvelous album that we could play over and over again.

In the latter part of 1966 came Face To Face which, along with Sunny Afternoon, contained snappy songs like Dandy (which became a hit for Herman's Hermits) and Party Line.  At the same time, The Kinks released Deadend Street, a U.K. smash and a U.S. flop, a catchy pop tune about folks with no prospects and no hope.

1967 saw the release of Something Else, a collection of "little England" songs permeated by a sense of class punctuated with lugubrious dissipation, featuring standouts such as David Watts (about the finest boy in school), Harry Rag (about smoking) and the languid End Of The Season ("I get no kicks walking down Saville Row, there's no chicks left where the green grass grows"; "You're on a yacht near an island in Greece, though you are hot forget me not"), along with three remarkable U.K. hit singles.  The first was the beautiful Waterloo Sunset, the finest song ever done by the band.

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, makes me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don't need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don't want to wander
I stay at home at night
But I don't feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And they don't need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset
They are in paradise

Waterloo sunset's fine

Next up was Dave Davies' solo single, Death Of A Clown, a tale of a disintegrating and chaotic circus:

My makeup is dry and it cakes on my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whisky and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions they won't fight and the tigers won't roar
The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor
Nobody needs fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
And frantically looking for runaway fleas
So let's all drink to the death of a clown.

Dave Davies

The final hit was Autumn Almanac.  Here are some of the lyrics but you can only appreciate the true lunacy of this very funny oddball song by listening to it.

From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar,
When the dawn begins to crack.
It's all part of my autumn almanac.
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow,
So I sweep them in my sack.
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.

I like my football on a Saturday,
Roast beef on Sundays, all right.
I go to Blackpool for my holidays,
Sit in the open sunlight.

This is my street, and I'm never gonna to leave it,
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine,
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away,
Because it's calling me, (come on home)

In 1968 The Kinks became even more of an acquired taste with the release of  The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, with the band boldly stakeing its claim to "the old ways are the best ways".  The title song said it best and with wit:
  

We are the village green preservation society
God save donald duck, vaudeville and variety
We are the Desperate Dan appreciation society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do

We are the draught beer preservation society
God save mrs. mopp and good old mother riley
We are the custard pie appreciation consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the sherlock holmes english speaking vernacular
Help save fu manchu, moriarty and dracula

We are the office block persecution affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
God save the village green.

The record also contained Picture Book, featured in a recent Hewlett Packard commercial.  The album sold very poorly outside the U.K., but over the decades has become the best-selling of all the original Kinks albums, inspiring Ray Davies to call it the "most successful flop of all time".

That year also saw another hit single, the melancholic Days ("Thank you for the days, those endless days, those sacred days you gave me, I'm thinking of the days, I won't forget a single day, believe me")


The final album of this glorious four year run was Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire).
Arthur was written as a concept album for a TV production which never materialized.  It tells the story of a family from the height of the empire (Victoria) through WWI, emigration of family members to Australia, the privations of WWII (the rocking Mr Churchill Says) and of the immediate post-war years (She's Bought A Hat Like Princess Marina).  The highlight is Shangri-La, (the link takes you to a live version of Ray Davies performing the song several years ago), a wistful reflection on these years and the lives settled for.
  

Now that you've found your paradise
This is your Kingdom to command
You can go outside and polish your car
Or sit by the fire in your Shangri-la
Here is your reward for working so hard
Gone are the lavatories in the back yard
Gone are the days when you dreamed of that car
You just want to sit in your Shangri-la

With Lola, The Kinks again found success in the U.S. and continued to have occasional popular hits into the mid-1980s with some terrific songs (Celluloid Heroes, Father Christmas, Come Dancing, Do It Again and others which deserve their own post cause this one is already way too long) and were a good touring draw into the 1990s until Ray and Dave's quarreling finally broke up the band.  Over the course of their career The Kinks turned out more high-quality, melodic pop songs than any other band except The Beatles.  THC was fortunate to attend two of their shambolic concerts in the early 1970s but our favorite period remains the "lost years" of 1966-69.