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The Kinks : Remembrance Of Kinks Past

David Dalton, Gadfly, March 1999

TAKE A LOOK at that face, the face of Ray Davies, it's the classic Dickensian mug, the face of a silent movie comedian, a vaudevillian, a vagabond philosopher. Everything's a little bit off-kilter here. That ragged, quizzical smile – the very incarnation of wryness, slyness and wistful melancholy. You know what kind of songs it would write, a face like that? Whimsical songs, would you say? Drenched-in-irony songs about gardening, ceramic ducks, Alice-in-Wonderland cats, playing cricket in the rain. And, you might add, great bushels of rock operas about suburban English life.

Total word count of piece: 4255


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