Ray Davies, “Thanksgiving Day”

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When it comes to analyzing and dissecting a particular aspect of a culture, it sometimes takes an outsider to do it best. When that outsider is an immensely talented songwriter like Ray Davies, the end product can elucidate something that’s the citizens of that culture might have overlooked or taken for granted.

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“Thanksgiving Day” is a song released by Davies on a 2005 EP and eventually included on his 2006 solo album Other People’s Lives. The former Kinks frontman decides to inspect the holiday from the inside out, eschewing any concerns about turkey or cranberry sauce and concentrating on its impact on the lives of the Americans celebrating it.

In an interview with VH1 around the time of the song’s release, Davies spoke about what he perceived as a peculiarly powerful attachment between Americans and the holiday. “I think it’s the one time where I’ve seen the Americans genuinely emotional,” he said. And Davies captures those emotions with all the tenderness and insight that he brought to the tale of Terry and Julie and their “Waterloo Sunset” way back when.

“Thanksgiving Day” features a very American musical setting, as some bouncy horns and a jaunty rhythm conjures the classic Muscle Shoals style. After asking the listener if he or she is headed to a Thanksgiving celebration, Davies tells three distinct tales with amazing economy of how others approach the day. In just a few lines, he sketches out a grieving widower, a lonely spinster, and a man at a truck stop wracked with regret.

Yet even with the heartbreak and anguish that these characters are clearly suffering, a glimmer of hope runs through the song. Even though the holiday brings stinging memories to the widower, he gets excited for the rest of his family’s arrival. And the spinster, longing for romance that may never come, doesn’t simply give in to her grief, but instead boards a Greyhound to make it back to her friends.

Through these simple snapshots, Davies manages to create a larger tableau that reveals a lot about the American character as a whole. Even as these folks are knocked to their knees, they display impressive resilience and never lose hope. And it says it all that the last impression the song gives us is one of welcoming celebration: “Come on over, it’s Thanksgiving Day.”

So when you look around the table this Thanksgiving, chances are you’ll see a lot of those similar traits on display at your particular table even if the stories aren’t quite the same. Leave it to Ray Davies, a Muswell Hillbilly, to give us Americans a proper “Thanksgiving Day.”

 

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Jonathan Rice