Xmastime Konexxxons du Jour

“It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.” - George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

The Beatles may have been the Charles Dickens of celebrity, but there is no close second place when it comes to Ray Davies being the Charles Dickens of rock 'n roll; just like Dickens he relentlessly shone a light on the despair at the bottom of the British class system. One of my favorite Kinks songs, Dead End Street, paints an ugly picture of grim hopelessness with a numbness that can be seen as both reflecting that hopelessness and ironically acting as a release from having to hope for anything better:

There's a crack up in the ceiling,
And the kitchen sink is leaking.
Out of work and got no money,
A Sunday joint of bread and honey.

What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No money coming in,
The rent collector's knocking, trying to get in.

We are strictly second class,
We don't understand,
Why we should be on dead end street.
People are living on dead end street.
Gonna die on dead end street.

Also like Dickens, Davies usually injected a bit of humor in his songs, but Dead End Street remains far too bleak for him to even try. But a few years later, in this brilliant All in the Family scene we see that same hopelessness dealt with by the characters with a heartbreaking humor borne from a life that, like the characters in Dead End Street, offers no real hope for anything better.

Orwell -->Dickens --> Davies --> Norman Lear, pretty impressive!