THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,451) The Kinks — “Big Black Smoke”
Kinks Kronikles
The B-side to the Kinks’ (see #100, 381, 417, 450, 508, 529, 606, 623, 753, 865, 978, 1,043, 1,108, 1,302, 1,330) #5 UK hit “Dead End Street” is “[a] two-minute study in character, Dickens updated to British Beat”/“my favorite Kinks song”(Marianne Spellman, https://www.popthomology.com/2010/04/kinks-kharacters-big-black-smoke.html), with a “Dickensian vibe . . . killer melody [and] master craftsman lyrics”. (Alanrowland6971, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyFAqXBAFSw)
Marianne Spellman gives a spellbinding account of the song:
I’ve thought about this girl all my life. Some characters live in your head like that. For me, the runaway dollybird . . . still wanders the mod, pop-mad streets of mid-‘60s London, sometimes dozing, exhausted and pilled-out, in the back booth of a dark café, all stick-thin limbs, long shiny blonde hair, kohl-rimmed eyes with false eyelashes askew. Her cheap plastic boots are pulling apart at the soles, her coat dirty from the bus and the Tube and clubs and curbs. She might look 20 or 12, depending on the light, her skin still perfect and pale. She clutches her purse to her stomach unconsciously like some kind of shield, as her doe-eyes hazily blink over and across the crowds of the city, and no one looks back to her. She smokes her cigarettes nervously, in a mannered way, trying to look like she’s been a sophisticated city girl all her life, but chatters too much, gives too much away in the provincial accent that is always revealed. When I was a little girl, I worried with her Ma and Pa, and hoped that they would find her and bring her home safely. When I was a teenager, I understand why she left her little town and wanted to follow her on the train and never look back. When I was an adult, I was able to see both the compassion and contempt for her in Ray Davies lyrics. She was kind of girl he would see flocking to London at that time hoping to get in on the Youthquake, and more often ending up briefly admired then thrown away like pretty tissue paper in a box, lining a present you didn’t really want in the first place. She would end up on a train back home, humbled, or get a job sweeping up at a pub or she might get pregnant or with great luck get work in a shop and share a flat with other girls like her. What was sure, in Ray Davies’ keen observation, is that she would not come out of it the same as she was, and her parents would have to take off their blinders to what she was to begin with. The sound of the song, low-fi, booming descending bass line cleverly bringing the listener down down down with our dollybird, the church bells clanging for redemption of her country girl soul…so so smart. It chugs along like a jittery dirty train, with the plaintive pseudo-Slavic-folky vocals over the top, almost sarcastic harmonies far beneath. As the song ends, you hear Dave Davies’ scratchy high voice calling out over and over “Oyez,” the traditional call to order in a court of law.* It adds a deliciously dark and ominous ending to the song, and we wonder…what happened to her. I’m still wondering, and I can still see her in my mind, still walking the rainy dark streets, alone, foolish, and beautiful.
https://www.popthomology.com/2010/04/kinks-kharacters-big-black-smoke.html
Mike’s perspective is:
“Big Black Smoke” sets the scene as some small village naif breaks away from her provincial world only to find degradation in the industrial scum of some unnamed British metropolis. She fritters away her money on drugs and some scamming boy named Joe, the songs fades with clanging church bells and Dave Davies wailing “aw-kay”, and the poor girl’s fate swirls indeterminant into oblivion. Yeesh. . . . the song[ is] phenomenally good fun. Especially if you think girls are dumb.
https://rockoclock.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/big-black-smoke-polly/
* Carspiv says that:
It’s what “town criers” used to shout when they were attempting to make an announcement while walking through the streets WELL before any form of mass electronic communication. Along with the cascading church bells, it was probably an attempt to capture what it sounded like in the streets of London, the “Big Black Smoke” of the song title.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 