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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Traflaga Releasing \/ Helge \u00d8ver\u00e5s \/ Jean-Luc<\/p>\n
Sun 18 October 2026 16:00, UK <\/p>\n
Rock and roll is a young man\u2019s game, and that makes the inevitable ageing process a rather tricky situation to navigate, particularly for songwriters like The Kinks songwriter, Ray Davies<\/a>, who once typified the spirit of youth rock rebellion.\u00a0<\/p>\n With only their third single, The Kinks perfected rock and roll back in 1964, with \u2018You Really Got Me\u2019<\/a> beautifully capturing the amphetamine-fuelled rebellion of Britain\u2019s post-war youth, predicting the sounds of punk rock the following decade, and earning the group a number-one pop hit to boot. <\/p>\n However, there could only be so many times that Davies could repackage that same energy before moving on to more mature climbs, which he did with expected grace on legendary tracks like \u2018Waterloo Sunset\u2019 and masterpiece albums like The Village Green Preservation Society<\/a>. <\/p>\n Ultimately, though, by the time the mid-1970s rolled around, The Kinks were on a downward trajectory in both relevance and songwriting quality. While there were still commendable moments of brilliance throughout those years, Davies struggled to reckon with the changing landscape of rock, along with the changed personalities of his fellow 1960s rockers who had grown up and moved on to less rebellious climbs. <\/p>\n By 1978, many of the young upstarts who had soundtracked the 1960s had, inevitably, come to define the upper echelons of rockstardom, and that was something that didn\u2019t sit right with Ray Davies, who penned \u2018Misfits\u2019 as a kind of response. <\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to leave the continent,\u201d the songwriter revealed in an interview, per Rock and Roll Globe<\/a>. Seemingly, the Kinks frontman was feeling rather disenfranchised after over a decade immersed in the epicentre of British rock. <\/p>\n He added bitterly, \u201cI didn\u2019t fit in with anything. That\u2019s why I wrote \u2018Misfits\u2019. I hated my contemporaries, I hated the lifestyle of Paul McCartney; I didn\u2019t want to be like Elton John or Rod Stewart, most of all Rod Stewart, who I grew up with.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Rod Stewart had certainly gone through a transformation from his younger years. By the time \u2018Misfits\u2019 hit the airwaves, he had gone from a fast-living young mod on London\u2019s swinging scene to representing the pinnacle of mainstream rock, and all of the excess that comes along with it. Punk rock, for instance, often cited Stewart as a mark of why anarchic DIY rock was so essential during that period.<\/p>\n On paper, Ray Davies was right there with him; The Kinks had amassed enough success, acclaim, and age by that point to consider themselves at the top of the rock pyramid, too. Perhaps given his own appreciation for punk\u2019s explosion<\/a>, though, the songwriter didn\u2019t seem to feel comfortable embracing that rich rockstar lifestyle, having built his early career on the spirit of working-class rebellion.<\/p>\n In the end, \u2018Misfits\u2019 and its ode to outsiders wasn\u2019t enough to reintroduce The Kinks into the pop charts, nor could it be considered a particular highlight of their discography. It does, however, exemplify Ray Davies\u2019 willingness to adapt his songwriting to the changing times and sounds of rock music, without losing his core identity. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n