Kinks Weeks – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy …jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com

I want to welcome my friend Jim to Kinks Weeks. Jim’s site is https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com . I hope you can check it out. He has music and other subjects and…when I have a question about The Grateful Dead…Jim is the man I go to. He tackles one of my favorite Kinks songs today. He also has Song Lyric Sunday that is fun to participate in…and I have on a few occasions. Take it away Jim…

Still Have a Way to Go

Ray Davies wrote the Kinks song ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’ which was released on their 1978 seventeenth studio album Misfits and the single charted #30 in the US.  The lyrics to this song are written as a one-way conversation till the very end when he finally gets a response, where a musician (let’s assume, this is Ray Davies) is talking to another member in the band and Ray is trying to convince them not to quit, but the other musician lets him know that he doesn’t want a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.  Ray wants the guy to hang in there, because this could just be a bump in the road and if they can get through this period, the sky is the limit.  Ray relates a story to this band member that is thinking about leaving the group about a guy (most likely, Dan the fan) that he knows who lives on his block that lives for rock and plays records all the time.  When this neighbor of his feels the world is closing in, he turns his stereo way up high in order to live the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy on the edge of reality.  Davies tells this wavering musician that he has nothing left to prove, because the King is dead, and even if the undecided musician quits the group, that he will still be playing in it, as he feels like he has just begun since there is plenty of life left in him.  While Ray was writing this song, he learned that Elvis Presley had died, which influenced the “the King is dead” lyrics.  He was in New York at the time, and when he looked out his window late at night, he saw a single light on in one of the buildings.  Davies imagined that light being the apartment of an ardent Elvis fan, which became the character Dan the Fan in the song.

The Kinks were going through a rough period around this time, with their guitarist Dave Davies wanting to quit touring, and their keyboard player (piano, organ, synthesizer) for the past 8 years John Gosling and bass player Andy Pyle leaving after only one album, both decided that Misfits would be their last album with the group.  For a long time, the Kinks were immersed in concept albums and theatrical rock operas where they stopped making hit songs, till their 1977 previous album Sleepwalker.  Davies learned his lesson and although Misfits didn’t have the punch like their earlier songs, it did feature a more rock-oriented style giving the Kinks a commercial rebirth.  The Kinks signed with Arista Records in 1977 and Misfits was the second of 6 albums recorded on this label. 

‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’ was the Kinks best showing on the charts since their hit with ‘Lola’ eight years previously.  

Hello you, hello me
Hello people we used to be
Isn’t it strange, we never changed
We’ve been through it all, yet we’re still the same

And I know, it’s a miracle we still go
For all we know, we might still have a way to go

Hello me, hello you
You say you want out, want to start anew
Throw in your hand, break up the band
Start a new life, be a new man

But for all we know, we might still have a way to go
Before you go, there’s something you ought to know

There’s a guy in my block, he lives for rock
He plays records day and night

And when he feels down he puts some rock ‘n’ roll on
And it makes him feel alright

And when he feels the world is closing in
He turns his stereo way up high

He just spends his life living in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy
He just spends his life living on the edge of reality
He just spends his life in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy

He just spends his life living in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy
He just spends his life living on the edge of reality
He just spends his life in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy

He just spends his life living in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy
Look at me, look at you
You say we’ve got nothing left to prove
The King is dead, rock is done
You might be through, but I’ve just begun

I don’t know, I feel free and I won’t let go
Before you go, there’s something you ought to know

Dan is a fan and he lives for our music
It’s the only thing that gets him by
He’s watched us grow and he’s seen all our shows
He’s seen us low and he’s seen us high

Oh, but you and me keep thinking
That the world’s just passing us by

Don’t want to spend my life living in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy
Don’t want to spend my life living on the edge of reality
Don’t want to waste my life hiding away any more

Don’t want to spend my life living in a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

43 thoughts on “Kinks Weeks – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy …jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com”

  1. Pingback: Kinks Weeks – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy …jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com – MobsterTiger

  5. The dense production fits the song. Dan the Fan sounds familiar. I knew someone who spent his life listening to rock-n-roll, practicing his lettering skills for the poster designs he would never sell, hanging out in record stores until one of them hired him and that’s where he spent the rest of his life.

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  6. Great back story. One thing to lose one member but to lose two those can be tough holes to fill. Nowadays bands tour with no original members or maybe one haha but back in 78 it was a different time.

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  7. Nice writeup Jim, and a good choice. A Kinks song I know pretty well and always quite liked. It should have done a bit better commercially actually

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  9. Another one of those Kink songs that talk to us. The version posted sounds like Spector got a hold of it. Never heard that version before. Different than the album cut (my album anyways) Good choice Jim. I cant loose in this game Max came up with. The album is a fave.

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      6. What surprises me is there are a couple or more songs I never heard before….which makes it all the better. I thought more people woudl turn me down.

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    1. 77+

      I bought this single when I was 12 at a dime store…this introduced this band to me…real time in 1979. This is probably the one I would have picked.

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      2. LOL…I’m at work and a lady I work with brought “Theo” the prairie dog and honest…he walked across my desk and my keyboard…I thought I got rid of everything he typed…I guess not! So….that came from him!

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  11. This is just another of the best of what the Kinks can do; great tune that the lyrics are tied to, clear intonation. It is amazing that at the time this was viewed as a fallow period after their 60’s success. Sure, there were fewer hits but the quality was still way up there. It shows a necessary maturity, something that’s needed when the high times fade a little.

    Oooh, I’m getting a bit over-serious with my comments today. Hey, I like it a lot, that should suffice.

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    1. Nah…go on about it…I always liked this period because this song got me into the real time Kinks…I had their old greatest hits but knew nothing about them then.

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      1. It seems odd to me, having grown up singing along to ‘Dead End Street’ ‘Lola’ and ‘Dedicated Follower Of Fashion’ that you found them after the glory days. But, as we know, the banning of them in the US did impact their influence over there more than seems to outside America.

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      2. Yes…it cut many of their albums out of our reach really until Lola came along. They sure did have different eras like The Beatles. You had the beginning pre-punk, then the great pop songs, the concept albums, and then the arena rock period…then back toward pop with Come Dancing….but keeping an edge through out.

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    2. Well said. The music from this period was solid. I’d already strayed away from commercial radio (ties in with the first Kinks cut of Max’s series) so no idea what the “hits’ were but this stuff hit it with me. Ray was tuned into themes which he kept exploring.

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  12. Hi Max Nothing specifically to do with your blog post this week, but … I’m not long in from a day through in Falkirk and on the beers at the funeral of an old athletics team buddy.

    Just thought it ironic that in this if all weeks, the music that played over a photographic montage of his life was ‘Waterloo Sunset.’

    😃😢

    On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, 12:46 PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of P

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      2. LOL… oh man….I think it’s great (not that it happened of course). I told everyone that I want “All Things Must Pass” at mine….so I get it.

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  13. I haven’t heard this song in so long I couldn’t quite recall it… I gave it a listen and it hit me right in the feelz! I was only 10 or so when this record came out but even back then I was addicted to the radio and this one got a lot of airtime. Hearing this now forced a ‘movie reel’ through my head, my childhood rushed before my eyes! Thank you for bringing this one back to the foreground!!

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    1. Man I bought it at our dime store…and I first thought it was Bad Company’s Rock and Roll Fantasy…but I like this one more…it started my love for the Kinks…Glad you got some good memories from it!

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