The Kinks are one of favorite bands of all time. Singer Ray Davies is a lyrical genius.. The Shakespeare of Lyrics I call him.. every song tells a story.
The lead singer and song writer is Sir Raymond Douglas Davies, CBE. One of the proudest moments of his life was listening to 100,000 people sing this song at Wembley Stadium when Britain won the world cup. He was 21 at the time.
The Kinks were one of the last links to the old Britsh music hall and everything connected with it. Their parents or grandparents would have been the last generation to have been familiar with the music hall. In quite a few Kinks songs there is nostalgia and romanticism with ironic and mordant humour. There is one song, "She bought a hat like Princess Marina's" which is an excellent example.
Despite the title, this is not a breezy, carefree summer song. The guy in the song is a moneyed elite whose mansion has been emptied by the tax man, who even took his yacht! All he has to enjoy himself is the sunny afternoon. The song was written by Kinks frontman Ray Davies, who was going through a very difficult time. The Kinks were in the midst of a sudden rise to stardom, but group tensions, lawsuits, an unrealistic workload and craven management made them miserable. Davies was also dealing with fatherhood, and left the band for a while. While he was recovering, Davies wrote "Sunny Afternoon," putting the music together first and then creating an alter ego to voice his feelings. "The only way I could interpret how I felt was through a dusty, fallen aristocrat who had come from old money as opposed to the wealth I had created for myself," he said. As he feared that listeners might sympathize with this sad, decadent Conservative, "I turned him into a scoundrel who fought with his girlfriend after a night of drunkenness and cruelty." When the song hit #1 in the UK (knocking off "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles), it did bring Davies out of his funk for a while. (Songfacts.com)
I was 14 when this song became a national hit. One of my most cherished memories is walking up the hill from Manhattan Beach, the sun so hot and the cement so cool in the shade with this song blaring out from a corner store. Don't know why. But every time I hear this song, I'm transported back to that location.
At about this time in the UK the upper tax rate was 95%. The Beatles had their protest song to TAX MAN. Many moved their money out of the UK to avoid taxes.
I wonder if you two are in the mood to boogie down with some of the funkiest toe tapping tunes you'll ever hear "KC & The Sunshine Band - That's The Way I Like It 1975" this is a live performance 💃🕺
Hey guys I'm new to the channel I just watched a bunch of reactions love them!! Not sure how to request but I'd love to hear your reactions to Roadhouse blues by the Doors and Moon dance by Van Morrison thank you keep up the fun!!
This single was released a couple of months (June 1966) before the Beatles' REVOLVER (Aug 1966), so this song made a little noise before Harrison's opening track on REVOLVER, TAX MAN. But comparatively speaking, TAX MAN was the Big Splash about the new-rich of Britain's' dislike for their tax-system. People like the Stones moved to France in protest, others formed corporations where their hired lawyers and agents took the money instead the tax-man! While the tax-laws weren't necessarily to punish the new, youthful rich, that's what happened. A lot of people migrated to LA and NYC at this point, as well as Europe. While this song received a good reception, the Beatles' REVOLVER, and their previous release RUBBER SOUL, were the headline records for these two years. It's a shame because Ray Davies - relatively on his own - offered excellent albums, not the oddball single here and there. I always dreamed of a time when Ray and John Lennon would collaborate with their eye-opening, rib-splitting (and poking) commentaries on life. The Kinks were showing brotherly-love cracks and canyons as brother Dave Davies and the other band members seemed to resent Ray's songwriting prowess but had few alternatives to offer as replacements. I remember thinking, "Why are they complaining? Why not write better music themselves, or shut up and play!" Regardless of friction, the band continued to produce strong albums (worthy of study, like Beatles, Moody Blues as Albums were The Most Coveted Art Form) for years to come and the occasional hit single.
