The Kinks' "Afternoon Tea"

Last night I listened to Something Else by the Kinks, and I think I found a couple allusions in "Afternoon Tea."

The first two lines are "Tea time won't be the same without my Donna / At night I lie awake and dream of Donna."  I hadn't realized this before, but I think these lines' mentioning an absent Donna is an allusion to Ritchie Valens' "Donna."  The first verse of Valens' "Donna" starts with the lines "I had a girl; Donna was her name / Since she left me, I never been the same."  While one song describes the effect on the speaker/singer and one describes the effect on tea time, neither is "the same" because Donna is gone.

The next two lines in "Afternoon Tea" are "I think about that small café / That’s where we used to meet each day," and I think this alludes to Buddy Holly's "That's My Desire," specifically the second verse:

To meet where gypsies play
Down in some small café
And dance 'til break of day
That's my desire

Both have a "small café" that's rhymed with "day."  The next line in "That's My Desire" (which is the first line of the bridge) is "We'll sip a little glass of wine," so there's drinking involved there too, except it's wine instead of tea.

Both "Donna" and "That's My Desire" pre-date "Afternoon Tea" by about a decade, so these allusions are possible from a chronological point of view, but I don't know enough about Ray Davies' influences to be certain that these are intentional references.

The Kinks' Low Budget

This morning I listened to the Kinks' Low Budget (I think for only the second time), and I noticed some things.

"Catch Me Now I'm Falling"

In order to musically represent the falling, there are some "down"s and "falling"s sung with descending melismatic phrases.

There's also a lyrical mirroring in the song's structure.  Twice, after the line "you've gone out of town," there's a guitar solo instead of more lyrics right away, which helps to demonstrate that absence and lack of communication.

"Public Health"

Instead being pronounced with the single syllable, the "strain" in the line "Cos' it [exercise] relieves the strain" is sung to four (with the notes B, A, F#, E).  There's a looseness with which it's sung (as opposed to spoken), which recalls and emphasizes the earlier lines "Loosen up your muscles / And feel the knots in your body untie."

"Moving Pictures"

After four measures of drums, there's a guitar figure that repeats, lasting nine measures.  After the line "Nothin' in life is a permanent fixture," that figure is raised a whole step (instead of C, G, A, C, it's D, A. C. D).  To some degree, that recurring figure's changing reflects the line it follows.  While it's just a transposition rather than a melodic alteration (so it retains some semblance of what it was), it does also seem to represent the "moving" in "Moving Pictures."

The Kinks' "Where Have All the Good Times Gone"

I'm currently listening to a compilation album of the Kinks (and transcribing some of them), and I noticed something about "Where Have All the Good Times Gone."  The first line in the last verse is "Well, yesterday was such an easy game for you to play."  I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the Beatles' "Yesterday" and its lines "Yesterday / Love was such an easy game to play."

The chronology works out.  The index of release dates in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions lists the release date of the Help! album (with "Yesterday") as 6 August 1965, and the liner notes to the deluxe edition of The Kink Kontroversy list the release date of the "Till the End of the Day" b/w "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" single as 19 November 1965.

The Kinks' "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy"

Yester-day I listened to Come Dancing with the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 and noticed the line "The King is dead; rock is done" in "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy."  I thought that this probably referred to Elvis (since he died in 1977, and the album is subtitled 1977-1986), but I wanted to do some research before writing about it.

According to the Wikipedia page, "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy" is from 1978.  An equally-dubious site is referenced claiming that the line is indeed about Elvis.  Normally, I wouldn't put that much faith in the accuracy of such sites, but it does confirm what I'd already been thinking.