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All Of My Friends Were There Lyrics
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My big day, it was the biggest day of my life.
It was the summit of my long career,
But I felt so down, and I drank too much beer,
The management said that I shouldn't appear.
I walked out onto the stage and started to speak.
The first night I've missed for a couple of years,
I explained to the crowd and they started to jeer,
And just when I wanted no one to be there,
All of my friends were there.
Not just my friends, but their best friends too.
All of my friends were there to stand and stare,
Say what they may, all of their friends need not stay.
Those who laughed were not friends anyway.
All of my friends were there to stand and stare.
Days went by, I walked around dressed in a disguise.
I wore a mustache and I parted my hair,
And gave the impression that I did not care,
But oh, the embarrassment, oh, the dispair.
Came the day, helped with a few large glasses of gin,
I nervously mounted the stage once again,
Got through my performance and no one complained,
Thank God I can go back to normal again.
I went to that old café,
Where I had been in much happier days,
And all of my friends were there,
And no one cared.
Say what they may, all of my friends were there.
Not just my friends, but their best friends too.
All of my friends were there,
Now I don't care.
It was the summit of my long career,
But I felt so down, and I drank too much beer,
The management said that I shouldn't appear.
I walked out onto the stage and started to speak.
The first night I've missed for a couple of years,
I explained to the crowd and they started to jeer,
And just when I wanted no one to be there,
All of my friends were there.
Not just my friends, but their best friends too.
All of my friends were there to stand and stare,
Say what they may, all of their friends need not stay.
Those who laughed were not friends anyway.
All of my friends were there to stand and stare.
I wore a mustache and I parted my hair,
And gave the impression that I did not care,
But oh, the embarrassment, oh, the dispair.
Came the day, helped with a few large glasses of gin,
I nervously mounted the stage once again,
Got through my performance and no one complained,
Thank God I can go back to normal again.
I went to that old café,
Where I had been in much happier days,
And all of my friends were there,
And no one cared.
Say what they may, all of my friends were there.
Not just my friends, but their best friends too.
All of my friends were there,
Now I don't care.
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Considering Ray Davies record as a lyricist, this song is likely to be ironic, satirising about "rockstar like problems" regarding: 1- alcoholism (the beer, the gin) 2- alienation ("But I felt so down"; "And just when I wanted no one to be there") 3- ego detached from reality (Talking about your drunk thoughts to the audience; the paranoia about what "the others" might think of you) 4- nostalgia from the days before fame (the old cafe from happier days)
All those, problems very far from the ones of the working class, regular folk, and normal englishness that Ray Davies was fond of.
Getting over stagefright?
I really like this song, the way Ray sings it makes me want to listen to it over and over. I guess we can learn not to drink too much beer in the most important days.
Davies is like over-worrying his public appearance but then he sees that you shouldn't worry about what others think about you all the time because its not always about you cause he says in the last verse "no one cared..." and its kinda like a revelation then the song ends lol
Ah the perils of one too many before doing a show. Especially bad if you're the singer and you're too drunk to string a coherent sentence together...."Uhhh yurs a sshhpeshul shlot".
And the inevitable shame spiral that follows. Until you play another show and get out of the mental rut.
Ray sings about the 'friends of friends' problem over 40 years before Facebook's "Friends of Friends" feature started causing problems :)
Some would call Ray a visionary.......
Some would call Ray a visionary.......
So it goes when you make an ass of yourself. As the offense ages people almost never forget, but generally they cease to care.
The more successful politicians know this fact, and rely heavily on it.