Get Back In Line
Today is May Day, the international holiday of the working class, a celebration of our labor unions and our rich history of struggle. I marched, along with 40,000 comrades, past the United Nations, across 42nd street and back up 6th avenue to Central Park for nuclear abolition and an end to the war in Iraq. Back home, spinning a Kinks CD, I am inexplicably drawn to an anti-union song, “Get Back In Line.” Ray Davies, the lead singer and chief songwriter of the Kinks, is a curmudgeon. He’s also one of the greatest songwriters of the rock-n-roll era. He infuses his songs with a dry wit and clever character studies, as well as a supernatural sense of melody, that all his songs are likable, even when he’s bashing socialism or criticizing labor unions. Back in 1964, in the first great wave of the “British Invasion,” the Kinks scored a #1 […]