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Young And Innocent Days Lyrics
I look back at the way I used to look at life
Soft, white dreams with sugar coated outside
It was great, so great
Young and innocent days
I wish my eyes could only see
Everything, exactly as it used to be
It’s too late, so late
Young and innocent days
I see the lines across your face
Time has gone and nothing ever can replace
Those great, so great
Young and innocent days
Soft, white dreams with sugar coated outside
It was great, so great
Young and innocent days
Everything, exactly as it used to be
It’s too late, so late
Young and innocent days
Time has gone and nothing ever can replace
Those great, so great
Young and innocent days
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The only song on Arthur without a power chord?...and done wonderfully. This song is the ultimate nostalgic peice from the album, a theme presented in a variety of ways on Arthur, but definetely culminating here. I think the character singing is Arthur's son and that he is longing for innocence again in a world which he believes is vile or brainwashed. The way Ray and Dave perform this song so well together, and with alternating harmonies, always made me think it was like an ode to eachother as brothers. I know I can't help but thinking of my great childhood spent with my siblings when I hear this song. The words "I see the lines that cross your face" make me look at how much older my family and I are now and leaves me with this unsettling, hopeless feeling that "nothing ever can replace".
:'(
Beautiful rumination on time passed and lost, such a wonderful light and airy musical arrangement for these delicate lyrics about lost innocence and the unrelentless passing of time.
I think you're wrong mycology. It definitely is about looking back but it's sung from Arthur's point of view. This is one of the later tracks on the album and Arthur is looking back and and wondering what it's all for (a repeated theme in Ray Davies' music). He wants to go back in time when things were much simpler. Who doesn't? We all want to go back when we have the whole future ahead of us and the world at our feet. A very nostalgic, sad song.
Arthur is much older and wiser now and wishes he could become that naive person with his dreams ahead of him. He eventually comes to terms with it and relishes the good old days of his youth.
I may have mistakenly associated this song with the son because we are in the same age group and I was attempting to relate to the subject matter. Then again, these universal emotions could be appropriately portrayed by any of the characters on this album. This song seems to evade categorization as it manifest itself in all age strata. Thank you for helping me to remember that. The only hold I now have on it is knowing how great it is (which I'm sure we can both agree on)!
I may have mistakenly associated this song with the son because we are in the same age group and I was attempting to relate to the subject matter. Then again, these universal emotions could be appropriately portrayed by any of the characters on this album. This song seems to evade categorization as it manifest itself in all age strata. Thank you for helping me to remember that. The only hold I now have on it is knowing how great it is (which I'm sure we can both agree on)!
I'd have to agree.
I'd have to agree.
I first heard the song 30 years ago when I first started really getting into The Kinks. I was only 15, and I could feel the emotion of the song back then.
I first heard the song 30 years ago when I first started really getting into The Kinks. I was only 15, and I could feel the emotion of the song back then.
I read a little more into the song (and the whole Kinks' collection) now. For instance, Arthur's not just wishing for the old days but he wants his naiveté back. If you look to the first song on the album, "Victoria", Arthur loves England and would do anything for his country, and his Queen. He was a very innocent and believed in his...
I read a little more into the song (and the whole Kinks' collection) now. For instance, Arthur's not just wishing for the old days but he wants his naiveté back. If you look to the first song on the album, "Victoria", Arthur loves England and would do anything for his country, and his Queen. He was a very innocent and believed in his country. Now go later on the album, to this song,"Young And Innocent Days". He is weary and knows that he was taken advantage of. He wants the feeling of that younger Arthur back but, as we all know, once that bell is rung you can't unring it. He's wiser, but not happier.
He says he wishes his eyes could see exactly as things used to be. This has a couple meanings. He wants to feel the way he did in his youth but he also wants England to be the England of his youth. Which may not have been what it actually was, but the way Arthur saw it at the time. His perspective was wrong because he was young and innocent.
Don't judge your youthful perspective of the kinks too harshly. After all, a bit of innocent generalizing is what our protagonist is after. ;)
Don't judge your youthful perspective of the kinks too harshly. After all, a bit of innocent generalizing is what our protagonist is after. ;)
The point you brought up about Arthur wanting his England back is interesting. I think one of the major accomplishments Ray achieved on this album was being able to parallel some of Arthur's desires with those of his children and grandchildren. All of the characters want England back, albeit in vastly different ways. Either with less bureaucracy, more bureucracy, more patriotism, less patriotism, or even some of that superfluous victorian flair. This is a great critique, not...
The point you brought up about Arthur wanting his England back is interesting. I think one of the major accomplishments Ray achieved on this album was being able to parallel some of Arthur's desires with those of his children and grandchildren. All of the characters want England back, albeit in vastly different ways. Either with less bureaucracy, more bureucracy, more patriotism, less patriotism, or even some of that superfluous victorian flair. This is a great critique, not only of your typical family feud, but also of the stages of one man and his everchanging expectations of his country and world as he ages. The song young and innocent days can mean so many things to a man or woman throughout different periods of their life, yet the emotion felt is typically the same. And this point is reiterated with songs such as nothing to say and the eponymous tune arthur. Arthur, the song, seems to acknowledge the fact that we all are reading the same book, we are just on different pages. Maybe this comment belongs under said title, but this album is getting some great dissection right here under young and innocent days.
A tragic song about the dangers of attempting to live in a sentimentalized past that if indulged will lead to crippling despair.
The refrain: " It was great, so great Young and innocent days" is ironic. If you attempt to capture these "soft white dreams, sugar coated outside" and live as if they are reality, you will end up in utter despair.
The music is deeply melancholic and underlines the great danger of becoming drugged and incapacitated by memory. A very beautiful song, that I'm sure arose from the depths of Ray Davies psyche.
I love the atmosphere in this song, it conjures up summer days in suburban London back in the 1970's. Playing in the garden, going to the park, going on bike rides and picnics in the country.