Five of Ray Davies’ favourite songs of all time
Ray Davies has spent the past 60 years or so on the shortlist of “Greatest Living British Songwriters,” and that British part is relevant here not as a qualifier but as a reflection of his ability to channel and distil something unique about the British condition; if there is such a thing. Many of the Kinks’ best-loved songs—’Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, ‘Autumn Almanac’, ‘Shangri La’—couldn’t really have come from an American act.
This makes it at least a little surprising that Davies, when asked to select some of his own all-time favourite songs (by other artists) during a chat on BBC 6 Music, picked five records not from Blighty but entirely from the good old US of A.
Those selections, which Davies revealed to Jools Holland during the 2018 programme, mostly include songs from his youth, with one from his childhood days and several more by artists that were his own contemporaries in the world of ‘60s pop and R&B. As an added wrinkle, to break up some of the Desert Island Discs sort of mundanity of the whole scenario, Davies introduced his picks with original poetry inspired by each one.
The poem he wrote for his first pick, Otis Redding’s 1965 track ‘Ole Man Trouble’, was particularly beautiful, but not as beguiling as the song itself. Next up was The title track from the 1956 classic jazz LP of The Champ (although actually recorded during sessions from a few years earlier). This song is as much about Art Blakey’s ferocious drumming as Gillespie’s horn, and you can certainly hear an energy that translates into the early high-octane Kinks hits.
A full year before Marvin Gaye released What’s Going On, another staple from the Motown label released a politically minded anthem that captured the chaos and concerns of America coming out of hippie optimism and still stuck in the middle of the Vietnam War. The Temptations hit ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today)’ makes it on to Davies’ list.
‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ from The Righteous Brothers is an especially interesting choice coming from Ray Davies, considering that the Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, which came out the same year, could be seen as a bookend to this song. One represents the obsessive, energised beginnings of love; the other is about what happens when the air goes out of the balloon.
While his life in the 1960s is well documented, remember, Ray Davies also wrote ‘Come Dancing’ (1982) and an entire musical inspired by that song (Come Dancing, 2008), so there’s a baked-in appreciation for dance hall culture in all its varied forms. So picking ‘Vogue’ — a timeless banger and Madonna at the peak of her powers — is perhaps not as strange as you may think.
Ray Davies’ five favourite songs:
- ‘Ole Man Trouble’ – Otis Redding
- ‘The Champ’ – Dizzie Gillespie
- ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today)’ – The Temptations
- ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ – The Righteous Brothers
- ‘Vogue’ – Madonna
