Dead End Street

Dead End Street was a non-album single, released in the UK on Pye as 7N 17222 on November 18, 1966, with Big Black Smoke on the B-side. Ray Davies wrote it. The A-side runs 3:20 and it reached number 5 in the UK, number 5 in Germany and the Netherlands, number 4 in Sweden and New Zealand, number 6 in Norway, and number 73 on the US Hot 100 in January 1967. In the US it came out on Reprise 0540; it was later a bonus track on the Face to Face CD reissue and is on the 1972 compilation The Kink Kronikles.

Davies's account is that a couple wanted to emigrate to Australia under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, it fell through, and they could not get work. He has also said that he was living in an old house that needed restoring, and that a ceiling crack from a bathroom leak gave him the imagery. He wrote it quickly as winter came, as a jazz vamp about hard times, with his father's memories of the Depression giving it a 1920s and 30s feel. Far Out's piece on the song says it delivers its bad news jovially, like a smiling TV newsreader, and that audiences shout the words dead end at it live. Little Green Street as its starting point is a rumor, not confirmed.

Two recordings in a day

The Kinks recorded it at Pye Studios in London on October 21, 1966; a search summary and the B-side's page give October 21 and 22, and the sources differ. There were two versions. The first, with producer Shel Talmy, a jazz pianist and French horn and organ, left Davies feeling it had no warmth in it at all. The band then recorded their own version after Talmy had gone, with piano and trombone, and Talmy later approved it without realizing it was theirs.

Luna Kafe says the trombone came from a brass player recruited from a nearby pub, in one take, and that Davies wanted it a bit dour, a bit earthy and a bit working class; two basses were used, John Dalton's and Davies's. Doug Hinman's credits, as given on Wikipedia, are Ray Davies lead vocal and piano, Dave Davies backing vocal, acoustic guitar and bass, John Dalton backing vocal and bass, Mick Avory on drums, Stan Whitley backing vocal and John Matthews on trombone. Shel Talmy is credited as producer. The sheet music names Pete Quaife among the composers' line, but Dalton played bass on the record.

The film and the reception

The upload on hypersongs is the official channel's black-and-white promotional film, mimed and made in late 1966, about 3:15 long. It was shot on Little Green Street, an eighteenth-century lane off Highgate Road in Kentish Town, with the band as undertakers and other characters; Dave Davies has said the BBC disliked it as bad taste. Melody Maker on November 26, 1966 praised the strength of the lyrics and a nostalgic, 1920s touch, Billboard on December 17 called it an exceptional off-beat item, and Cash Box called it terribly infectious. In a 1976 NME poll it came in at number 72 among singles of all time.

The Jam covered it, Oasis's 2005 song The Importance of Being Idle was influenced by it, and Ray Davies recorded a duet of it with Amy Macdonald in 2010 for See My Friends. Setlist.fm counts 76 performances.