Ray Davies - Imaginary Man imagine...

This programme contains some strong language

50 years ago, Ray Davies wrote his first song.

He was 15 years old. It was called Tired Of Waiting For You.

Eight years later, in 1965, it was a number-one hit all over the world

and we're still listening to it now.

Not many people have seen this - my chequebook.

Kinks songs are a bit like the NHS -

we rely on them, they remind us who we are.

Ray Davies has a new album out,

where he shares his songs with some of the greatest names in rock'n'roll.

Julian Temple, a lifelong Kinks fan, has made this film about Ray for Imagine.

We've arranged to meet in north London but, for some reason,

Ray's asked me to meet him round the back of Hornsey Town Hall.

Come this way, sir.

It's just come onto the market and I think, if you go for it now, you'll get a good deal.

It's got lovely little artefacts like this, sir.

That's been there, I'd say, since the building was built.

'We played here before we were The Kinks, when I was at school.

'It's close to where we live and it's really the origins of where I came from.'

-Can you remember the date?

-I think it was Valentine's Day, 1963.

There was a beauty contest on for Miss Valentine.

Miss Valentine. And I didn't win!

Were you The Ray Davies Quartet at that particular time?

The way it worked was only three. Pete Quaife, my brother, of course, and me.

And whoever got the gig got the name. I think I acquired this gig.

It became The Ray Davies Quartet. Not a great name.

You released You Really Got Me a year later, didn't you? '64?

'64. The end of '64.

That's when I was born. I was literally born when that was a hit.

-Were you, now?

-Yeah.

If you want my opinion, sir, I wouldn't do too much with it.

THEY LAUGH

I'd leave it as it is.

-You've got wonderful views at the back.

-Yeah.

-Pear tree.

That's a listed pear tree. It can't come down.

-God, look, there are pears ON it!

-Yeah.

-It's the only living thing in this derelict place.

-Other than your songs.

-# Aren't we a pear? #

Isn't it amazing that you still live just a few doors away from here?

-I don't live a few doors... I live a mile or two...

-OK.

Yeah...

I wonder if they'll try to transform it into something else.

I thought it was going to be a holding pen for refugees. That's what I thought.

'I remember the stage. I remember my family -

'my sisters were in the audience somewhere, pushed to one side.

'We were just the fill-in band while the big band took their break.'

# ..picks me up when I am blue

# And brightens up my ordinary world

# When I hear that big band play

# It sounds like optimism

# And it takes me to another place

# So pick me up and take me to the band! #

When I played here, we were just starting out.

We were a little skiffle group, really.

People were dancing to big band music still.

It is decaying, but there's something magnificent about it.

There's something in the walls that will go when it's clean and shiny.

It's amazing, you don't appreciate things until you're...

that PS system on the wall is the worst possible PA you'll ever...

-Yeah.

-My voice probably came through that.

# I wonder if she would come dancing

# Come on, sister Have yourself a ball

# Don't be afraid to come dancing It's only natural... #

Come dancing is about the time when people like me came along with their guitars

and took over places like the Lyceum that had palais bands.

the beat music did kill off the big band era.

# Now I'm grown up and playing in a band

# And there's a car park where the Palais used to stand... #

I'd love to play here.

You have a vision where you want to be and where you want your work to be presented.

And this place probably, subconsciously, has been my ideal since I first came here.

Even though family came from the inner city,

they must have moved because of the devastation of the Blitz.

Just got out of the central city.

Come along!

They didn't want to go to a new town so they got the suburbs of Waltham and...

And to be so close to central London and have a village field is good!

# Got to be free to do what I want

# Walk if I want, talk if I want... #

Knowing it's there's the important thing,

rather than going there every day.

It's the manner where you grew up - where I grew up.

I can't shake it off.

I always get lost when I'm in south London. Find it difficult to move south of Archway.

The great thing is the view from Alexandra Palace - you can see all over London.

The view from Primrose Hill.

Of course, the views were different - we didn't have the Gherkin, we didn't have Canary Wharf.

Everything was more of a miniature.

St Paul's stood out. I think you can see Crystal Palace on a clear day.

Samuel Johnson said that any man who's tired of London is tired of life.

Samuel Johnson never had to park his car, deal with the congestion charge,

get on crowded buses that are too big for the streets you're riding down.

I'm not tired of London, it's just, why do we have to have such big buses? I don't get it.

why can't we have more little buses?

# Champion Charlie's my name Champion Charlie's my name... #

When I grew up, I knew nothing

about the great characters that lived in north London.

I knew nothing about William Blake walking on Hampstead Heath talking to angels.

Maybe it was a good thing.

I'd heard of Dick Turpin but knew nothing about him...

Stand and deliver!

..or Dick Whittington was a well-known London myth. I think it's a myth.

I walked out of the pantomime when I was five years old.

I can't explain what my childhood was like. It was like a dream childhood.

I found it hard to exist in a family that love people living in the house.

In a small house.

Look, eight siblings - seven sisters, one brother.

No disrespect to where I grew up - I love my family - but I was bored by being in the house.

I did all the things like Christmas and birthdays and New Years...

waiting for the Saturday afternoon football reports.

The final score at Carrow Road

was Norwich City 4-1 Arsenal.

-ZAPPING

-Agh! Agh! Agh!

I'm sorry. The final score at Carrow Road was

Norwich City 1-4 Arsenal.

Most people call it lonely, but I was just isolated. I need to get out, learn to find my space,

find my world.

And I went on lots of long walks, went to the West End.

# Winter time is coming

# All the sky is grey... #

And buses - I love riding on buses.

There's a fabulous bus journey that will take you from Muswell Hill right down to Charing Cross.

I think, when I look back, I was just looking at people,

absorbing things to write about.

# From the dew-soaked hedge Creeps a crawling caterpillar

# When the dawn begins to crack

# It's all part of my autumn almanac

# Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow

# So I sweep them in my sack

# Yes, yes, yes

# It's my autumn almanac. #

I've always got a soundtrack in my head.

Sometimes songs come back, depending on the way I feel.

It's called See My Friends, the record.

The friends are, yes, the songs. I also struck up good friendships with nearly everybody on the record.

# Hoping all the verses rhyme

# And the very best of choruses

# To brighten up the doubt and sadness... #

MOBILE RINGS

'Hey, Ray, it's Bruce Springsteen.'

When somebody says Ray Davies, it was going to be art. What's up?

"I like the arrangement, when we going to do it?"

I just need one thing from you. Where did the riff come from?

HE IMITATES RIFF FROM "YOU REALLY GOT ME"

We stood up a few feet from one another and faced each other,

did the vocal - one take.

# I hope that better things are...

# On the way

# Here's hoping all the days ahead

# Won't be as bitter as the ones behind you

# Be an optimist instead And somehow happiness will find you

# Forget what happened... #

Doing this collaborations record is making me stand back and appraise my work.

Try and see it in a slightly different way.

Sometimes the songs tell me more about myself, cos it's more in the subconscious when I'm writing.

Sometimes I surprise me. The songs, anyway. "Did I really think of that? Was that my idea?"

# Tea and toasted buttered currant buns... #

It's autumn now and conkers are off the trees.

This'd make a good con...

I was the conkering champion of my school.

You get them hard. I'm not quite sure how you get things hard any more.

You put a string through it, tie it at the other side.

The other person would hold his thing out like that, dangling,

and you'd hit it and try to break it.

# Yes, yes, yes It's my autumn almanac.... #

Whoever survived was the winner.

The whole story of life, that, isn't it?

Someone's got something other people want to smash.

# Walter, remember when the world was young

# And all the girls knew Walter's name

# Do you remember, Walter

# Playing cricket in the thunder and the rain?

# Do you remember, Walter

# Smoking cigarettes behind the garden gate? #

This could've been the garden gate where we smoked illegally when we were 13.

Now it's best not to smoke at all.

I was trying to write a song about myself, really.

It's always better to use another character.

I'm not Jumpin' Jack Flash. Mick does it very well.

He's always that character, I think.

I'm many characters when I perform

and I'm a different person singing Waterloo Sunset

to the person that sings Low Budget.

One of my sisters got married and moved to Highgate,

which is about a mile or two away and I stayed with her most of my childhood.

I went to a special school just to try and work out my problems.

I think my problems were... I knew what was coming.

School bored me.

I read George Orwell.

Through TV, there was a fantastic production of 1984 with Peter Cushing.

I was not allowed to watch it.

To be not allowed to do things, to me was strange.

So I got the book instead and read the book.

"London was not the beautiful city we know today. It was..."

A lot of the teachers had been in the Army and the services

in the Second World War and I picked up a sense of bitterness

from some of them.

There was one notable teacher who said,

"Yes. I'm wearing my demobilisation suit.

"It's all I can afford on my wages."

I sensed from them that it was not a good world that I was coming into.

I was not fooled by the promise of the late '50s.

I think I was an early realist.

EXPLOSION REVERBERATES

Being English, being British, was a special thing.

We were a great warrior empire.

In fact, the British Empire was vanishing when I was at school.

We used to have maps at school with the British Empire in pink.

They don't dare to do that any more!

I thought the pink meant we were going to be communists.

That was my hope.

A socialist working class, of course you would be a socialist.

But Alf Garnett was a Conservative, wasn't he?

LAUGHTER

There was a sense of loving, where I was from.

But also a sense that I belonged somewhere else.

Ultimately.

# I'm the last of the good old renegades

# And I don't know where I'm going

# Or how I came

# I'm the last of the good old-fashioned

# Steam-powered trains. #

When I was a kid, I used to love the sound of the night trains.

I could hear it from my bedroom.

TRAIN HOOTER BLARES

It's that pulse - ba-dum, ba-dum. Ba-dum, ba-dum.

Ba-dum, ba-dum.

# I'm the last of the good old-fashioned

# Steam-powered trains... #

To me, when I was a kid, it meant adventure,

excitement, escape.

Something better down the line.

This pub, I think, was the first pub I came to when I was old enough

to drink illegally.

When I was about 14, 15, I used to sneak in here.

I was underage and I broke the law.

I think I actually dated the publican's wife.

HE LAUGHS

I could pretend to be somebody else here, which is good.

In fact, I'm still doing that.

BELL RINGS

Time, gentlemen, please.

I had a good day yesterday.

# Oh, when the saints

# Oh, when the saints

# Go marching in

# Glory, glory... #

I used to go to the Highgate Jazz Club,

which was just round the corner.

It was a place where you could meet girls and dance.

Trad music was very popular when I was at school.

When The Saints Go Marching In. That music was party music.

The musical structure of the songs helped motivate me to write songs.

JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

Because I come from this family of older sisters,

they brought those big band songs in the house.

My oldest sister emigrated to Canada.

She married a serviceman in Canada.

She used to send back Elvis Presley records

so we got access to them before they were even on the radio here.

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog... #

Things like Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel.

She said, "This is the new music."

# Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit... #

We were a little bit behind the time in the sense

we had access to songs that were from previous generations

that I shouldn't normally have gained access to.

Also privy to stuff that was coming.

The great thing about rock'n'roll, when it came, it was accessible.

I think that's why I started making music.

"I can do that. I can make a song like Blue Suede Shoes."

There was a wonderful film-maker called John Grierson.

The cinema gave us a doorway to a whole new world full of fun.

Grierson had this wonderful programme on television.

He showed Big Bill Broonzy playing in a club.

# Why d'you treat me like... #

It wasn't what he was playing, it was how he was playing it.

# Lost John standing by the railroad track

# Waiting for the freight train to come back

# Freight train came and never made a stop

# Lost John thought he had to ride the top

# And he's long, long, long gone... #

Yeah.

Broonzy, to me, because of his incredible size

and the way he held the guitar,

was the biggest influence on my early childhood.

Finsbury Park, which was just down the road, had a music hall.

I saw the last,

probably the dying gasp of the music hall

because my Uncle Frankie and Dad were fans of it.

It must have struck a chord with me,

the humour of those people.

# I'm known as the Cheeky Chappie

# The things I say are snappy... #

If I ever had a son, I'd call him Max.

Max Miller was not a sad man.

I think he was an angry man.

He was a very political man.

And didn't care about what he said, which really struck me.

He used to go on dressed in those ridiculous dressing gowns

and the hat.

# Mary from the dairy... #

Through a comedian called Roy Hudd,

I acquired Max Miller's hat.

My eldest sister, who went to Canada, came back to London when she was 30.

She loved dancing. She went to the dance hall

and that was on my birthday.

That was the day she bought me my first guitar.

It was mine.

We played a few songs together.

Then she got the bus down to the West End,

to the Lyceum,

which is where we are.

And she died in the arms of a stranger,

on the dance floor.

It's just poignant that it was on my birthday

and also she bought me my first guitar.

I took that as being a sign.

It has to be a sign from somebody.

# Fa, fa, fa, fa-fa, fa, fa, fa

# Fa, fa, fa, fa-fa... #

This is what is known as Fortismere School.

When I went here when it first opened,

it was called William Grimshaw.

# I am a dull and simple lad

# Cannot tell water from champagne

# And I have never met the Queen... #

I was voted, I have to say, in this very hallway...

The girls got together. All the girls in the school voted me...

..the cutest legs in the school.

It was a secondary modern school when I came here.

There were fewer opportunities to go on to university.

I wasn't a rebel. I was very quiet here.

I went through a period where I was passive

and didn't speak for a few years.

Hardly spoke and I was in quite a difficult situation.

In school, they were concerned about me.

Then I decided, all of a sudden, I had to win everything.

I wanted to be a footballer

or an athlete.

I loved sports. I loved track and field. I was boxing.

I became a leader of things, rather than someone who was passive.

I don't know what changed that.

I just suddenly decided I had to be good at something.

-COMMENTATOR:

-'It's Cooper, winner on points.'

ARROW THUDS

We had assembly here and we also had a guitar club.

THEY PLAY GUITAR

I meet Pete Quaife here,

the original Kinks bass player.

My brother went here as well.

He was in the younger year.

I think we first got together in this hall.

I was 15 when I started writing songs.

The first real song I wrote was an instrumental version

of Tired Of Waiting For You,

which went on to be a hit.

There's a sense that I could do things just as well

not teaching myself but finding my own way through things.

That's gone on into my music career.

# When I lie on my pillow at night

# I dream I can fight like David Watts

# And lead the school team to victory

# And take my exams and pass the lot... #

BOTH LAUGH

It's good to come back.

CAMERAS WHIR

When I went to art college,

I think that changed everything because

then we saw bands playing in the college hall.

I played in clubs in the West End, to supplement my college grant.

That's where music kicked in when I first started playing...properly.

I wanted to be a painter.

I wanted to be an artist.

They were teaching me to paint but afterwards what would I do with it?

I think I was disillusioned with the way I was being pushed towards

a direction that I felt was dated.

I just changed my palette, if you like,

left the drawing board and went to music and wrote songs.

HE PLAYS A TUNE

A bit of the keyboard just fell apart!

To this day, I find it hard to know why I became a songwriter.

HE PLAYS A TUNE

Just to make moods,

express moods through sound.

"That's going somewhere. Where's it going to go?"

I was floundering around trying to find an identity for myself.

I think when I say I was born in 1964,

it's when I thought I had an identity

because I had a number one record with You Really Got Me.

It was almost justifying saying, "I exist. I am here."

HE PLAYS A TUNE

This piano hasn't been tuned up since 1950!

I wrote You Really Got Me on the piano.

I wanted it to be a...

HE PLAYS A BLUESY "YOU REALLY GOT ME"

I wanted it to be more of a jazz groove.

Then I hit a wrong note. I went...

DISCORDANT PIANO PLAYS

I went up a tone.

I made the mistake of going to A.

Opened it up. "What's going to happen now?"

For a brief second, I'd made a new music

for the time.

But by accident.

Suddenly it wasn't a blues song, it wasn't sweet little 16.

It was mine.

It wasn't until my brother came in with his guitar

that we made it more...

HE PLAYS A HEAVIER "YOU REALLY GOT ME"

That sort of thing.

It's almost quite like Stockhausen.

Very punctuated rhythms.

HE PLAYS PUNCTUATED RHYTHMS

My brother brought power, angst, energy.

An incredible right hand.

"YOU REALLY GOT ME" GUITAR INTRO

Like a boxer.

"YOU REALLY GOT ME" GUITAR INTRO

Serious guitar puncher.

"YOU REALLY GOT ME" GUITAR INTRO

No point victory. A knockout.

Two minutes, thirty seconds. Round One.

# Girl, you really got me going

# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing

# Yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# Yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing

# Oh, yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# You really got me You really got me

# You really got me... #

GIRLS SCREAM

# See, don't ever set me free

# I always want to be by your side

# Girl, you really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# Yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing

# Oh, yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# You really got me You really got me

# You really got me... #

'You Really Got Me was different. It was before its time. People were really shocked by it'

and threatened by it. When something different comes along, like punk did,

a lot of people were threatened by punk.

# Oh, yeah, you really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# You really got me You really got me... #

We had two little column speakers playing in front of 20,000 screaming kids, and nobody could hear a note,

and that's probably why we were successful, cos they couldn't hear what we were singing.

And I bought the record in here. This is right up the street from where I live.

It's amazing. What's amazing is the shop's still going.

The biggest thrill I had was coming in here to buy my own record!

I thought, "Why have another hit after that? I've done it once."

And now Metallica are doing it on a new record, it's bizarre to think of that journey

because of that song.

INTRO TO "YOU REALLY GOT ME"

Oh, yeah! # Girl, you really got me going

# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing, yeah!

# Oh, yeah! You really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at ni-i-i-ight

-# Yeah

-You really got me now

# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing, yeah

# Oh, yeah

# You really got me now

# You got me so I can't sleep at night

# You really got me You really got me

-# You really got me

-Yeah!

# Oh, no! #

For me, it's all happened very quickly.

One month I was an art student,

two months later I was driving around with a number-one rock record.

It happened when I was 18 years old, so it's quite a daunting experience.

I found it very difficult to accept that people knew who I was

so I went to great lengths to cover up and I wore disguises.

In fact, for our first TV show, they sent me to the dentist

to have some caps put over my teeth.

When I saw the programme, I looked like Bugs Bunny so I took them off.

I resisted the drill. As soon as the drill started...

ARGH!

I don't care how big the deal is, I don't want to have my teeth touched.

As a result, it made it difficult for us in America, because they're very conscious of cosmetic things.

Mmm, neat!

-Dippity-do!

-No lip, no drip.

Dippity-do?

Dippity-do!

Dippity-do!

We cut our own hair, I think. We just couldn't be bothered.

You notice I'm not a great virtuoso keyboard player -

certainly not on this piano! -

or a great guitar player, but I slot in with the other guys.

That's what makes bands great.

Every particular person's there for a reason.

I was kind of the introspective one, writing songs.

# You've got this strange effect on me

# And I like it... #

'Dave, my brother, was the energy and the fun, the enjoyment of life,

'the up side.'

Pete was like the flamboyant bass player. He was very in tune with the time

and the styles, more so than me, and fashion.

And then you had the man driving the chariot if you like.

Mick Avory on the drums was very down-to-earth.

Looked like Dickens characters.

Ray was Filch, I was Bill Sykes,

Dave was The Artful Dodger and Pete was Pip.

We had little Dickens suits made with kinky caps

and we had this famous photograph done with the whips.

That was banned because it looked perverted and debauched.

They wear Victorian morning coats, hunting neck ties and shoulder-length hair.

No wonder they're known as The Kinks!

INTRO PLAYS

# I'm not content to be with you in the day-time

# Girl, I want to be with you all of the time

# The only time I feel all right is by your side

# Girl, I want to be with you all of the time

# All day and all of the night

# All day and all of the night... #

Oh, come on!

The great thing about All Day And All Of The Night, it makes you play it...

HE PLAYS A FEW NOTES

With You Really Got Me...

HE PLAYS NOTES Yeah!

You compose a bit in between it.

But with All Day And All Of The Night, you've just got to keep motoring.

It's continually moving and that's what gives it a punk image.

No time to take a breath.

# All day and all of the night... #

FANS SCREAM

We were in love when we were 19 years old.

After All Day And All Of The Night, we got married and lived in a bedsit,

and it was all very kitchen-sink.

And when everybody else became successful in other bands,

they moved as far away as they could from where they grew up.

I lived 200 yards down the road from where my parents lived.

I kind of felt comfortable in that world.

And I hate parties, especially when they're in my honour.

He didn't go to clubs, he wasn't a club-goer. He doesn't get drunk and forget everything.

He observes and writes it down and a song comes out of it.

You know, he was writing a lot of the time. He didn't do much else.

I immersed myself in work. I just wrote songs.

After the first couple of hits, I thought, "There's more to this guy than riff songs."

As time went on, I realised he could write about someone eating his dinner if he wanted to.

It was just amazing.

# So tired, tired of waiting

# Tired of waiting for you

# So tired

# Tired of waiting

# Tired of waiting for you

# I was a lonely soul

# I had nobody till I met you

# But you keeping me waiting

# All of the time

# What can I do?

# It's your life

# And you can do what you want... #

Before we went to do the American tour in the '60s,

the band was nearly breaking up.

I'd just had my first child. Nowadays, people get time off work to have children.

I can't believe it. How indulgent the world has become.

I was on tour within a week of my daughter being born

and...I had to go. If I hadn't gone, I would've let everybody down.

So I was in a mixed-up state.

I locked myself in my hotel room for a week,

ordered a crate of beer and just drank.

I just did not want to be there,

and I begrudgingly did the shows,

supported by bands like the Supremes and the Beach Boys!

And I just missed my family, simple as that.

It was a British invasion, but The Kinks were the invaders.

It was like Mars had landed.

It was so unfitting for American popular culture at that time.

# All you got to do is set me free, free, free... #

-How many?

-I'm trying to see four!

# All you got to do is set me free, little girl

# You know you can do it if you try... #

The thing is, The Beatles, Rolling Stones... Bless them, they were great,

but they did play the game because they knew how to play it

and still retain their own individual way of life.

The Kinks did not know how to do it.

We were just complete innocents.

# So if I can't have you to myself

# Set me free

# Set me free... #

They - whoever they are or were or still are - did not think The Kinks were right.

We got a ban and I still don't know to this day what it was for.

The Kinks were the only group in history to be actually banned from America,

and I still don't know why.

One thing that was going on through all this time, I was discovering how to write songs.

I'd never been taught how to do it.

GENTLE PIANO MELODY

And I wrote See My Friends.

# See my friends

# See my friends

# Laying 'cross the river

# See my friends

# See my friends

# Laying 'cross the river

# She is gone

# She is gone and now there's no-one left

# Except my friends

# Laying 'cross the river... #

People have asked me what See My Friends meant.

Keep 'em guessing.

Can a man tell the difference?

Is it about sex, is it about girlfriends?

Maybe it's about lost opportunities.

# Laying across the river... #

"Laying across the river." Maybe the river is laying across the big pond.

# Now she's gone

# Wish that I'd gone with her... #

It's about loss, definitely. It could be for a person, but also loss of career,

because we never thought we'd ever go back to America.

London looks great at this time of the morning.

Yeah, it looks good anytime.

# Baby, I feel good

# From the moment I rise

# I feel good from morning

# Till the end of the day

# Till the end of the day... #

The great thing about being me, I think, is that I can be completely anonymous.

Not everybody recognises me.

Very few people recognise me.

# I get up and I see the sun

# And I feel good cos my life has begun

# You and me, we're free

# We do as we please

# Yeah, from morning till the end of the day

# Till the end of the day. #

Recorded that song with Alex Chilton, Alex Chilton was a friend of mine from New Orleans.

Great singer.

He was the first person to sing on this record.

He died this year, Alex.

# Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane

# Ain't got time to take a fast train

# Lonely days are gone

# I'm a-going home

# My baby just wrote me a letter... #

I really thought You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night were blues songs.

North London Blues.

But I went really against it

with things like A Well Respected Man and Dedicated Follower Of Fashion.

Could have been sung by Max Miller. You know?

# He gets up in the morning

# And he goes to work at nine

# And he comes back home at five-thirty

# Gets the same train every time... #

A Well Respected Man was about the Establishment, as it was then.

And it's probably my fear of becoming like that that made me write that.

So I turned it into a rather comic critique.

It's still rebelling. You can rebel and write a jaunty little song

like Well Respected Man. It can still be a song of rebellion.

# And he goes to the regatta He adores the girl next door

# Cos he's dying to get at her... #

-Hatred.

-Hatred?

-Hatred.

You must take your hat off to that.

# And he's oh, so good And he's oh, so... #

I turned English. I became almost grotesquely English again. Deliberately English.

# They seek him here They seek him there

# His clothes are loud But never square

# It will make or break him So he's got to buy the best

# Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion

# And when he does His little rounds

# Round the boutiques

# Of London Town

# Eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends

# Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion

# Oh, yes, he is Oh, yes, he is

# Oh, yes, he is Oh, yes, he is

# He thinks he is a flower to be looked at

# And when he pulls his frilly nylon panties right up tight

# He feels a dedicated follower of fashion... #

When we came back from America, we realised how much it was changing

in the '60s. But again, we probably should have embraced it all.

# ..and that is flattering... #

We'd gone the way that my wonderful peers went - The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles -

but the one difference was that we were unable to go to America.

Maybe there was an edge to me, writing things that were deliberately chancy.

Probably this is it, I'd write a song that would take a chance, not be a big hit,

knowing I could write another hit.

That was unheard of in those days.

You never came back once you had a miss.

We had several.

They had to be concerned with the commercial success, to some extent,

but he wouldn't make that the be-all and end-all.

He wouldn't follow a trend, either.

He'd go and set a trend, rather than follow one.

# Dandy, dandy

# Where you gonna go now?

# Who you gonna run to?

# All your little life

# You're chasing all the girls

# They can't resist your smile... #

The '60s, for me, were not as fun, politically.

Sometimes style and fashion and pop culture camouflages what's really happening.

The only thing swinging in London were handbags.

The music culture was great, the fashion was great, Carnaby Street was a great, great place.

It was the first time people, young people, particularly,

had money to spend, and could be heard. It was a liberating time, there's no doubt.

But I think it was a facade. It was a cover-up for a lot of nasty things happening in the world.

I was writing all these fun songs,

"They seek him here, they seek him there,"

and I was trying to hide.

Just trying to hide from everything.

He always liked to win a situation.

Be successful.

Quite intensely so.

Other times he could be sort of fragile and mellow and be the victim.

Have a persecution thing and make you feel sorry for him.

Look, front cover of the Radio Times.

I don't think I'm the only artist that's always had problems around them.

But I had a double problem. My art was the world that was also destroying me,

through the legal cases and publishing disputes.

I had to meet with people, the establishment people, who were the law.

I felt very uncomfortable having to deal with that, cos I just wanted to do my work.

And everywhere I turned, it turned into a replay of a nightmare.

It's raining.

It's raining.

The pressure used to get to Ray because he knew the onus was on him to come up with the goods.

We had three managers picking away at him,

so I think that wore him down.

I'll give you some pills later, keep you smiling.

In fact, he had a breakdown fairly early on.

Not any more. Not now.

Yeah.

Compared to the way I feel now, having a nervous breakdown was a jaunt.

I don't think it was a nervous breakdown. I was extremely tired...

I'm mentally too strong to have a nervous breakdown. I can pull myself through.

But when you're so exhausted...

Pressures get to you... It just gets, "Oh, let me go to sleep."

Come on, son, eat it all up.

Also, the crisis I had was a cultural crisis.

I felt betrayed by the industry I was in

and people were expecting me to be a performing animal at the circus. You know?

Like one of those dancing bears.

That's what it felt like.

And, uh...

I didn't want to be me any more.

# And the write was served on the verge of a nervous breakdown

# I decided to fight right to the end

# And if I ever get my money

# I'll be too old and grey to spend it, oh... #

Genius and madness.

They say there's a thin line.

There ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease.

Here's a spy who keeps on following me.

And the woman next door's an undercover for the KGB.

Sometimes it gets a bit strange.

You know. He used to have this jacket that looked like an abstract painting.

And when he'd wear that I think, "Oh, nice, we're in for a crazy time here."

He had a pair of glasses as well, with no lenses in.

Our road manager said, "Are they for long distance or for reading?"

He said, "Both. Saves me buying two pairs."

I mean, overall he's not mad. He has to go up and down.

Put on your slippers and sit by the fire. Everything will be all right.

Rest. Take the medication.

Should have taken more holidays, I think.

I get obsessed by an idea I have and I have to pursue it.

Once I get on the starting block, as soon as that gun goes, I don't stop till it's the finishing time.

That's just he way I am. It's the way I've trained myself to be.

# I won't take all that they hand me down

# And make out I smile though I wear a frown

# And I'm not going to take it all lying down

# Cos once I get started I go to town

# Cos I'm not like everybody else

# I'm not like everybody else

# I'm not like everybody else

# I'm not like everybody else I'm not like everybody else... #

Could have just walked away.

I admired Syd Barrett for walking away.

I was on the verge of doing something like that.

But by this time I had a little family to support,

so I just kept working.

# Like everybody else Like everybody else

# Like everybody else. #

# The taxman's taken all my dough

# And left me in my stately home

# Lazing on a sunny afternoon

# And I can't sail my yacht

# He's taken everything I've got

# All I've got's this sunny afternoon... #

Sunny Afternoon was a more mature song and I was 22 when I wrote it, I think.

When the great pop boom was happening in Great Britain in the '60s,

we were under the screw, financially.

Sunny Afternoon was inspired by the fact that the pound got devalued.

So it's quite a dark song even though it's about something seemingly happy.

More political than most people realise.

# Save me, save me, save me From this squeeze

# I got a big fat mama Tryin' to break me. #

Full of the ominous, descending thoughts.

Then it had that thing, in the summertime.

# In the summertime

# In the summertime

# In the summertime

# In the summertime

# In the summertime...#

The singing atmosphere.

Sunday Afternoon and Dead End Street were a couplet.

Dead End Street went to the root of the cause.

It was about betrayal of the pop era.

There is a crack up in the ceiling.

The kitchen sink is leaking.

# There's a crack up in the ceiling

# And the kitchen sink is leaking

# I don't work and got no money

# A Sunday joint of bread and honey

# What are we living for?

-BOTH:

-# Two roomed apartment On the second floor...#

Hearing someone else sing it, Amy MacDonald,

she was like a kid looking for somewhere to live.

Definitely, the words totally mean something to me, even though it was written long before I was born,

it's gone full circle and it's back to being completely relevant again.

There's so many people in that situation

and so many people scared that they might end up in that situation.

-# Dead end

-People are dying on dead end street

-# Dead end

-Born to die on dead end street

-# Dead end street

-Yeah

-# Dead end street

-Yeah! #

The song written out of genuine concern that people were being impoverished,

it wasn't all flower power in the sixties. I know several DJs resisted playing it.

They band the video because it showed, what was notionally, a dead man in a coffin.

# How's it feel?

# Dead end street...#

The coffin, it could have been the pop culture, in the coffin.

I've carried the values of what I call the Great Generation.

My parents' generation.

Who lived through world wars.

They lived through the Depression.

I wrote for them.

I wrote for what they stood for.

And the beliefs they had.

It's why I don't mind quoting Vaudeville movies and old movies and old songs.

I used to sing songs to my father.

# What are we living for?

# Two roomed apartment On the second floor. #

"Love that, son, that was good."

Be political in songs.

But the songs have got to have good value,

rather than saying, "We hate Thatcher," or "We hate Cameron," "We hate this, that and the other."

It's got to do its job as a song.

I think songs like Stormy Weather had more political...

Write about the storm, equate it with something more interesting

than just hatred of a doctrine.

# Stormy weather...#

I'm working class. I still am.

When I had big hits with The Kinks and I could afford my own house

I moved away to a more manorial house in Hertfordshire.

I said to a friend,

"Do you think I'm betraying my class by living in a big house?"

He said, "Ray, you could live in Buckingham Palace

"and it'd still feel like a terraced house when you waltz in."

# Cos he's got a House in the country...#

I was living in a big house, but I wasn't fooling anybody.

I got really depressed, I missed my roots.

The house I moved from hadn't been sold, so I moved back as soon as I could.

'What if I came up to you and said "That house is mine, don't pull it down." What would you do?'

# I'm a Muswell Hillbilly boy...#

Get back to where you belong.

It wasn't until we had our fifth or sixth hit

that I thought other people understood what I was singing about.

I thought all the songs were really private.

Waterloo Sunset, I thought it was my private song.

I nearly didn't want to put it out.

Some songs just come out of dreams.

It's almost like physics. Two things connect and an idea comes from the past,

and suddenly, I know what I want to write.

I've been carrying this song around since I was a teenager.

But I had a picture in my head.

I was doing a vocal and I wanted to be cushioned by the backing vocals.

And the engineer said, "How do you want it to sound?"

All I could do it was draw him a picture.

It was like atmosphere around a leaf, floating from a tree.

A simple image like that.

That's how I wanted it to sound.

We were mixing it and the engineer said, "Is that OK?" And I said, "No, it doesn't look right yet."

So... That's why I'm difficult to work with.

I will not sing anything as I walk across this bridge.

# Dirty old river Must you keep rolling

# Flowing into the night

# People so busy Make me feel dizzy

# Taxi lights shine so bright

# But I don't

# Need no friends

# As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset

# I am in paradise

# Sha la la

# Every day I look at the world From my window. #

How did you get the idea for Waterloo Sunset?

Everything was right for it.

It's like, if I stopped writing and I went out, I walked past buildings that reminded me of the song.

It was just, everything happened.

I saw rivers and I had to do it.

I wish I'd been a painter, because you can use artistic licence.

But the reality is, you stick a camera up and it looks like rubbish.

This is such a fucked up city, look at it. All this crap around us.

It means lots of different things to me.

Sometimes that's what songwriting is.

Any kind of art. It's not the detail, it's the impression. It's impressionistic.

Like Monet.

Monet. I think I got paid, I'm not sure.

What's fantastic about these songs is that millions of other people can feel the same way about them.

Sometimes when I'm walking, I like to copy the walks of people.

Fascinating. People are great. I love characters.

Without these people, nobody would be able to write anything,

All these people don't realise how important they are.

# Thank you for the days

# Those endless days you gave me

# Thank you for the rain

# The rain is coming down upon me. #

I like the intro the Mumfords do on the new record, it's in the spirit of the original.

They sing it nice a cappella vocal.

# Thank you for the days

# Those endless days Those sacred days you gave me. #

The thing about songwriting,

is you can be so concise, such an abbreviated form.

The music adds, somehow, the other element to subtext.

Again, when I speak the words they sound really naff.

But when you put it together with an emotion, with a melody, with the sound bed,

it has a great meaning to it.

# Thank you for the days

# Those endless days Those sacred days you gave me

# I'm thinking of the days

# I wont forget a single day Believe me

# I bless the light

# I bless the light That shines on you, believe me

# And though you're gone

# You're with me every single day Believe me. #

People ask me what Days is about.

I don't like to put too many meanings on things.

It's best to let the listener come up with their own interpretation.

Thank you for the days, those endless days you gave me.

It's obviously a song about passing, farewell.

I don't like to think about it too much, I just sing it

and let the song do the explaining.

I think that's the best way.

I'm very close to the song.

It means a lot to me.

All my songs mean a lot to me.

It means a lot, this little part of Hampstead.

The last video we did together was shot here, Starstruck.

It was the last time that band was really together, because Pete Quaife left shortly after that.

# Baby, you're running around Like you're crazy

# You go to a party And dance through the night

# And you'll drink till you're tight And then you're out on your feet

-# Cos you're

-Starstruck, baby, starstruck...#

I miss them more than they can possibly know.

There's something about growing up with a unit of people.

Obviously I miss them.

They probably think I don't.

But I think about them a lot.

When you buy these old anthologies of songs,

they have an indication of how folk songs should be played.

There's one, I'll always remember,

called, "to be played intimately, as if among friends".

That's the best way of describing Village Green -

something only your friends will understand.

The success of the record proved how few friends I have!

# All of my friends were there... #

Jimi was the only band when we couldn't tour there

to actually say The Kinks were making great music.

Noel Redding had a great Charles Hawtrey way of talking.

He said, "Oh, it's so great to hear all these songs.

"Americans love it, they love the Village Green Preservation Society,

"they love She Bought A Hat Like Princess Marina."

Will you give me a taste of Princess Marina?

I couldn't remember it if you paid me.

-How much will you pay me to play it?

-A hundred quid.

I'll play it!

# She's bought a hat like Princess Marina

# To wear at all her social affairs

# She wears it when she's cleaning the windows

# She wears it when she's scrubbing the stairs

# But you will never see her at Ascot

# She hasn't got the time or the fare

# But she's bought a hat like Princess Marina

# So she don't care. #

Give me the money!

We know you're tight. You have that reputation, Ray.

Money's scarce There's none to be found

So don't think I'm tight if I don't buy a round.

I'm on a low budget.

# Once all my clothes were made by hand

# Now I'm a cut-price person

# Low budget land

# I'm on a low budget

# I'm on a low budget. #

-Why are you making me do this?

-It's good, it's good.

I'm finding this really hard because there's no special trick...

I don't believe in these people that do these big art programmes

and they have a picture of Van Gogh

and they say, "Van Gogh painted this

"and the rook symbolised death",

and I think he did it just so he could sell it to make some money,

which he never did.

This is why I left art school. I was being taught to analyse things.

People don't need to know what inspired me.

They just either like the song or they don't.

# Back where you started

# Come on, do it again Do it again, do it again... #

When we were allowed back to America,

it was starting again.

The head of a record company said to me, "You can tour, but you've got to have that world hit."

Yeah, you never knew what to expect with Ray

cos he'd always surprised you with something.

We used to get all these weird people that followed us because of our name,

the transsexuals amongst them.

Ray and I, you know, went to a couple of clubs

and a couple of shows that, you know, were all new to us.

We spent a few nights with these people

that had had the operation...

..and out of that came Lola.

HE PLAYS INTRO

# I met her in a club down in old Soho

# Where you drink champagne

# And it tastes just like cherry cola

# C-O-L-A, cola... #

Why did the champagne taste like cola?

I don't know. Cos it rhymed.

PALOMA LAUGHS

# I asked her her name

# And in a dark brown voice she said Lola

# L-O-L-A, Lola

# La-la la-la, Lola... #

I just remember that instant with a drag queen

a few years earlier.

There was a beautiful woman who ended up being a transvestite. A trannie.

I've just recorded this with Paloma Faith.

-I'm going to tell you something about this tie.

-Yeah.

This tie was given to me

by the Morecambe And Wise Appreciation Society.

This was Eric Morecambe's tie.

-Really? Wow!

-And I'm wearing it for you.

'It's radical, the girl singing that song,

'but she pulls it off - she has a great soul in her voice.'

# Well, we drank champagne and danced all night

# Under electric candlelight

# She picked me up and sat me on her knee

# And said, "Dear boy Won't you come home with me?" #

Ray sort of touched on that kind of "is it, isn't it" kind of idea

of, is she a girl or a boy?

It doesn't really matter.

# Well, I'm not the world's most passionate guy

# But when I looked in her eyes Well, I almost fell for my Lola

# La-la-la-la, Lola

# La-la-la-la Lola... #

Of course, you had the Warhol set in New York,

people like Candy Darling, who I dated.

I'm the new girl in town.

Thinking...Candy Darling. But it wasn't.

It was the stubble, you know, gave him away.

'There's something sexy about its ambiguity sexually.'

Sometimes that's the best way to be.

# Well, I'm not the world's most masculine man

# But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man

# And so's Lola

# La-la-la-la, Lola... #

What it did for The Kinks, it gave us an opening.

A lot of drag queens started coming to concerts.

I think it opened the door

to a lot of people who were oppressed,

and I didn't intend it to be a song to come out to,

but it became that and a lot of people have since thanked me

for writing it.

No-one's ever going to know the real story, cos they'll never guess.

DOORBELL RINGS

The real story is too good.

'Hello. Who is that speaking, please?'

The songs will be here when I'm gone.

In a sense, they were here before I came.

I just picked up the ideas

and saw what thousands and millions of other people saw

and it came out the way I interpreted it.

I could be sitting here a hundred years ago

but I could be sitting here in the future,

but I don't ever feel that I existed.

There's a lot of me invested in it

but I've absorbed everything from everywhere else.

# People take pictures of each other

# Just to prove that they really exist... #

-This is for the people back home in Derbyshire.

-Yeah, Derbyshire!

You wouldn't believe he's a Grierson Award-winning director!

-This is for Mozambique.

-For Mozambique?

Shall I take a picture of you two?

Isn't he lovely?

Got it.

Yeah, I should have charged them for that.

As original as you try to be, the ideas have always been there.

Same as this city'll be here.

# In man's evolution he has created

# The city and the motor traffic rumble

# But give me half a chance and I'd be taking off my clothes

# And living in the jungle

# Cos the only time that I feel at ease

# Is swinging up and down in a coconut tree

# Ohm what a life of luxury To be like an apeman

# I'm an apeman, I'm an ape-apeman

# I'm an apeman

# I'm a King Kong man I'm a voodoo man

# Oh, I'm an apeman

# Cos compared to the sun that sits in the sky

# Compared to the clouds as they roll by

# Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies

# I am an ape man... #

Songs get absorbed into the folk culture

and whether we know it or not, we're passing on music in a common collective consciousness.

BIG BEN CHIMES

All these people, where are they going?

I think they're trying to avoid me.

-It's Ray Davies standing on Waterloo Bridge again.

-Every Sunday afternoon.

# Whenever they gaze on Waterloo sunset

# They are in paradise... #

So am I. CHEERING

# Tra-la-la

# Every day I look at the world from my window

# Tra-la-la

# But chilly, chilly is the evening time

# Waterloo sunset's fine

# Millions of people

# Swarming like flies round

# Waterloo Underground... #

People like William Blake who picked up on ideas,

I think he would have understood Waterloo sunset.

Charles Dickens documented the times

and he would have a great time writing now, I think.

We're going through a new Dickensian era.

The workhouses and the things he wrote about in London are all coming to pass again.

DISTANT: # I'm in paradise

People say, you've written maybe thousands of songs, why write more?

I write more because society's changing, people are adapting to change.

I get fired up by something and I have to write about it.

Yeah, I can't see Ray ever giving up writing songs

cos it's too much part of him.

I have my own soundtrack to my life and it's going on as we speak.

# Doo, doodle-oodle-oodle, do-do-do

# Doo, doodle-oodle... # I'm dancing.

I'd say Ray was the William Shakespeare of songwriting.

That's the best way I can describe him.

We might even have a Ray Davies Day.

But it wouldn't be a holiday - it'd be a day where you work harder.

HE LAUGHS

I think that's possibly my epitaph, really.

Rather than WC Fields' saying, "It's better than playing Philadelphia",

mine might be, "Not yet, I've just got a tune in my head."

Mm.

I have a theory, also, the best songs can be played on an out-of-tune piano.

HE PLAYS "IMAGINARY MAN"

FLAT NOTE PLAYS Ooh!

# So this is really it... # HE LAUGHS

# Is this the final station?

# You know, it's really been quite a trip

# It's really been great to watch the sights

# And look at the edited highlights

# And all the outtakes you did not see

# Were only my unreality

# I am, I am Imaginary

# I am, I am Imaginary

# I'm the imaginary man

# Imaginary man

# Imaginary man

# Yes, I am

# Imaginary man

# Imaginary man. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]

Pete Townsend wouldn't let you do that.