It was one of the many times that Ray Davies and I were sitting by ourselves in a studio, listening to the latest songs Ray had written. Ray would alternate demonstrating the new songs on his guitar or on the piano. This was one of the occasions he played piano.
As I’ve said many times, Ray is one of the most prolific songwriters I’d ever had the good fortune to work with, and on this particular day, Ray had played me about five new songs. Please note, that anything Ray wrote was worth listening to, and typically, we thought three of the five were ready to be recorded in our next sessions and the other two, while very good, could be improved before recording.
Then he played ‘Sunny Afternoon’. I heard those opening bars of the descending bass riff, and a couple of lines into the verse I am pretty sure I shouted “Stop, that’s our next number one!”—and it was!
Pye Records of course wasn’t paying attention, as they sent me the test pressing pictured below with LOL the wrong title!
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