Dead End Street

"Dead End Street" is a song by the British band the Kinks from 1966, written by main songwriter Ray Davies. Like many other songs written by Davies, it is to some degree influenced by British Music Hall. The bass playing was partly inspired by the "twangy" sound of Duane Eddy's guitar. It was originally released as a non-album single, but has since been included as one of several bonus tracks from the Face to Face CD. The song, like many others by the group, deals with the poverty and misery found in the lower classes of English society. Background According to Ray Davies, the lyrics are about a couple that want to emigrate to Australia under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme but when that fell through they could not get a job. Describing the song in his 1996 autobiography, Kink, Dave Davies said: "'Dead End Street' was the epitome, to me, of what the Kinks were all about. A song full of character, pathos, yet containing an underlying sense of hope. Reflecting a fondness for the past but at the same time expressing a determination and yearning for change. Anguished voices calling to a heartless world. A world where the plight of the ordinary person mattered little. It was interesting to note that more than ten years later, the Clash did a song called 'London Calling' that seemed to be inspired by 'Dead End Street'." Ray Davies said of the song: "It was written very quickly and it was written for the winter. It was that thing of living in England and having had a great summer and now the light was closing in and the mood just shifts. The music had that little jazz backbeat, but there were these dark edges. I thought I was writing a trad jazz vamp about hard times that were coming. My father had lived through the depression and he had talked about it, so the song had that 20s/30s feel to it – those stomping chords, the march of destiny coming to grab you. It was a very visual backdrop to the song."