Such a warm and inviting song to what he thought would be the good life – filled with nostalgia and optimism. This opening title track of the album sets the scene beautifully for the experiences that would follow. He recalls during the song how he grew up dreaming of "my baby brother and me, in the land of the free." But when Ray and younger brother Dave eventually made it to the States after the Kinks hit it big with their early hit singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All Of The Night," their illusions were shattered from the moment an immigration official mockingly asked Davies if he was a boy or a girl!
"That was just the beginning," he recalled to The London Times. "I remember people with guns coming backstage, trying to intimidate us. It was the same thing with the Sex Pistols ten years later. I did a gig in Atlanta where the promoter told me, 'We've got the Sex Pistols coming and we're gonna kick their asses.' And that ended up with Sid Vicious dying. There is an element of America that accepts foreign invaders, but they can only deal with so many. The fear of the outsider has always been there."
Such a warm and inviting song to what he thought would be the good life – filled with nostalgia and optimism. This opening title track of the album sets the scene beautifully for the experiences that would follow. He recalls during the song how he grew up dreaming of "my baby brother and me, in the land of the free." But when Ray and younger brother Dave eventually made it to the States after the Kinks hit it big with their early hit singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All Of The Night," their illusions were shattered from the moment an immigration official mockingly asked Davies if he was a boy or a girl!
"That was just the beginning," he recalled to The London Times. "I remember people with guns coming backstage, trying to intimidate us. It was the same thing with the Sex Pistols ten years later. I did a gig in Atlanta where the promoter told me, 'We've got the Sex Pistols coming and we're gonna kick their asses.' And that ended up with Sid Vicious dying. There is an element of America that accepts foreign invaders, but they can only deal with so many. The fear of the outsider has always been there."