Of course, Lives is no tribute show. Partially inspired by the spell Davies spent living in pre-Katrina New Orleans, the album is about "falling upwards into the great white blue" (as Davies sings in "After the Fall"), only to locate the resolve required to answer the question posed in "Is There Life After Breakfast?" (The answer: "Yes, there is so don't live in agony.") Few songwriters can deliver this sort of life-lesson homily as distinctively as Davies does here. He's a master of his domain; plenty of younger chaps can tell you so.