My Favorite Ray Davies & Kinks' Songs

You make me laugh and you make me smile
And after a hard day sorting out the files
You make it all worthwhile.
Ray Davies, singer/song writer, lyrics from the "You Make it All Worth While"

In honor of our going to see Ray Davies here are my favorite songs, which include the Kinks:

1. 20th Century Man – This is my absolute favorite. I recognized the power and meaning of this song in high school

2. “Apeman” – The original is very good, but the version that became a favorite is from the “To The Bone” CD, which is more of a reggae feel to it and it’s a great sing along for kids, including nieces and nephews who you pick up from the airport

3. “Lola” – Simply a fun classic about guys who used to hang around Hollywood Boulevard and other similar places

4. “Celluloid Heroes” – A Kinks classic about strolling down Hollywood Boulevard

5. “Low Budget” – This could have been written today:

Circumstance has forced my hand
To be a cut price person in a low budget land
Times are hard but we'll all survive
I just got to learn to economize
I'm on a low budget
I'm on a low budget
I'm not cheap, you understand

6. “When I Turn Out Living Room Lights” – Many of us had dates when this was probably a good idea

7. “Rush Hour Blues” – Ring any bells:

He gets up early about seven o’clock,
The alarm goes off and then the house starts to rock.
In and out of the bathroom by seven-o-three,
By seven-ten he’s downstairs drinking his tea.
So put a shine on your shoes,
Put on your pin-striped suit.
Can’t lose those early-morning-cant-stop-yawning,
Push and shoving rush hour blues.

8. “Have Another Drink”/“Alcohol” – these are two separate songs but together they are part one and part two

9. “Thanksgiving Day” – This captures the American holiday perfectly

10. “You’re Asking Me” – A song that is my daily refrain

11. “Working Man’s Café” – How the world has changed:

Everything around me seems unreal
Everywhere I go it looks and feels like America
We've really come a long way down this road
Improving our surroundings as we go
Changing our roots and culture
But don't you know
Long ago there was a working man
Don't you know we were all working men
And we'd sit and pass the time of day
At the working man's café

12. "Days" – This is the song that I asked Daughter to play to remember when I am gone:

Days I'll remember all my life,

Days when you can't see wrong from right.
You took my life,
But then I knew that very soon you’d leave me,
But its all right,
Now I'm not frightened of this world, believe me.
Days.
Thank you for the days,
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.
I’m thinking of the days,
I won’t forget a single day, believe me.

I don’t want to go through the entire Ray Davies and Kinks' catalog this will have to do, but there are many great ones not included in this short list.