X-Ray: The Unauthorized Autobiography

by Ray Davies

"Like his songs, Davies's book is alternately poignant, funny, and bawdy . . . indispensable for Kinks fans and recommended for anyone interested in 1960s pop music." —Library Journal
This subversively brilliant, one-of-a-kind rock autobiography is ingeniously styled as a biography, written by a nameless, faceless writer hired by an Orwellian entity called "the Corporation" to capture the essence of Ray Davies, lead singer and songwriter of the Kinks and one of the greatest rock and rollers of all time. The Kinks frontman reveals his life and times to the young writer, often seemingly passing his stories directly into the writer's consciousness. Carnaby Street, Top of the Pops, the Cavern Club, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and other fixtures of the times fade in and out of this compelling narrative. Part autobiography, part social history, part psychological thriller, this elusive and daring book exposes rock stardom as the heaven, hell, and purgatory it is.
"In an age when everybody's in show business and writes a lousy book about it, Ray Davies is to be honored for not doing the usual thing. We would expect no less of him." —Rolling Stone
"A major addition to pop-culture literature." —Booklist

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Memoir, Music Biography, Rock N Roll

429 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kinks : after two duds the hits started. They had 13 UK top ten hits between 1964 and 1970 including 3 No 1s and 3 No 2s. A much loved band. (In America, not so much – 4 top ten hits, no number ones.) I revere the great singles acts and in the 60s The Kinks were the number three group after Beatles and Stones. (Number four was The Who, the competition was fierce in those days.) Not only were the hits almost all great, the flipsides often were too. Here is the roll call

You Really Got Me (proto-metal, definitely)
All Day and all of the Night
Tired of Waiting for You
Everybody’s Gonna be Happy
Set me Free
See my Friend (Indian drones consciously used, mid-1965)
Til the End of the Day
Dedicated Follower of Fashion (complete change of style and an extraordinarily camp vocal, George Formby crossed with Quentin Crisp)
Sunny Afternoon (skewering the rich)
Dead End Street (lamenting the poor)
Waterloo Sunset (often turns up as Britain’s favourite ever single, and I can see why, it is nearly mine)
Death of a Clown (Dave Davies solo single but written by Ray and a Kinks single in all but name – I love this one – actually, I love all of these)
Autumn Almanac (celebrating the opposite of rock and roll, the ordinary)
Wonderboy
Days
Victoria
Lola (all together now : "boys will be girls and girls will be boys, it's a mixed up muddled up shook up world")

Plus these delicious flips :

Sittin’ on my Sofa
I’m not like everybody else
Big Black Smoke
Act Nice and Gentle
Mister Pleasant
Pretty Polly

The internet is awash with music fans who yell out inappropriately “The Kinks were better than the Beatles – yah!” and then dash from the room, wagging their bare bottoms at you as they speed by. Well, that’s just crazy talk, the Kinks couldn’t put a great album together if their lives depended on it, and when they tried they came up with painful cringemaking titles like “Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround” ooh, ouch, such trenchant satire. The album did Ray Davies a disservice by exposing him as a writer who could not get out from under his thin and uninteresting obsessions. But that’s as may be. Fans like to argue. I know I do.

This book is a peculiar cup of tea. I was interested in it because a) I want to hear the story of the above glory years and all the stuff about making these great records from the horse’s mouth; and b) I heard this horse writes pretty well. So I skipped over the early stuff and looked for You Really Got Me which doesn’t get mentioned until page 140. That’s a lot of pre-fame days to get through. The whole thing is written as if by a journalist interviewing Raymond Douglas, as he is referred to, so it’s very-slightly-fictionalised. And the book does trail away quickly after the 60s, and ends after 1973. So really, we are getting 200 pages of detail about 1964-1970. This is what I wanted! Great! Not so fast. It turns out that Raymond Douglas had a pretty miserable time of it. His story parallels John Lennon – both got married and had a kid just when their fame and success was exploding. Both knew after a couple of years that the marriage might have been a bit hasty. Both were pulled between the soporific pleasures of domesticity

Ray Davies : But I am so lazy, don’t want to wander, I stay at home at night

John Lennon : Keeping an eye on the world going by my window, lying there and staring at the ceiling

And the life of the wild young rocking dissidents they thought they either really were or should be

Ray Davies : And I don't want to live my life like everybody else,
And I won’t say that I feel fine like everybody else,
Cause I’m not like everybody else,

John Lennon : Living is easy with eyes closed misunderstanding all you see

Both ended up in suburbia with big houses, wife, kid, the whole bit, while their main partners in the band (Dave Davies, McCartney) lived the life they thought they should be living. RD’s story is kind of a long long downer, filled not with the joys of the particoloured 60s counterculture but with page after page of managers, promoters, court cases, accountants, pressure from within, pressure from without, all circulating round the one central question : where’s my money? He does not tell me about the stuff I was interested in – the dynamics of a successful band, working with your wild & crazy younger brother (Dave Davies, who rates a handful of anecdotes and that’s it), what happened in the 70s – indeed, what happens when the hits go away, like they did for a few 60s songwriters – John Sebastian, John Phillips, Roy Orbison, Bob Gaudio - what he thought of his contemporaries, and so on. It’s a real navel-gazer of a book. But it does have a wry, laddish verbal felicity at times – as for instance here :

On the outskirts of Manchester was a private boarding house run by a raunchy widow who must have been in her late forties. I remember her always being somewhat scantily clad, in a see-through dressing-gown under which were equally revealing undies. She must have been a trim craft in her day, and although there were lumps where there shouldn’t have been on her body, and her legs displayed a few broken blood vessels at the back, her breasts were delightfully plump and bounced about freely above her paunch.

Rock and roll ungallantly meets the saucy seaside postcard from the 1930s (who still uses the word “undies”?!)

I don’t know what to rate this book, I'm not that sure I liked it so much, so I’m copping out with a 3.

The singles get 10 stars.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be the unhappiest rock memoir I've ever read.

First, a confession: I love the Kinks. The Beatles will always come first, but the Kinks will likely always be closer to my heart. The Beatles are a miracle, rising to perfection; the Kinks are a goddamned gift, that sometimes wearying companion who, nonetheless, is The One, capable of reaching you in ways that go deep into your soul. Or perhaps I should say in "Days" that go deep into your soul?

Anyway, so here's Raymond Douglas Davies c. 1997. He is a character in his own memoir, a wizened, curmudgeonly coot spinning tales and anecdotes for a young visitor from The Corporation who's been assigned to write his life story. Ray doesn't trust The Corporation. The Corporation, whether in the form of managers or producers or headmasters or the hand of fate, has sucked him dry. (It's not for nothing that most of the chapter titles are taken from "Muswell Hillbillies," perhaps the Kinks' most middle-fingered album.)

The deliberate distance -- the glibness -- made me frustrated, the same way hearing "Destroyer" frustrates me, because I know you're better than that, Ray. And yet it's refreshing to read a rock memoir that isn't all about being grateful for the fans and the women and the money.

Ray lost a sister when he was young; you get the feeling that he'd give back the whole career to have her back. He also watched his sister Rosie, as in "Rosie Won't You Please Come Home," move to Australia with her husband Arthur, an event that also unmoored him.

He was all of 19 when the Kinks were signed by two toffs hoping to become the next Brian Epstein, had just turned 20 when "You Really Got Me" hit the charts, was touring America before he was 21. And the Kinks weren't the Beatles -- there was barely any woodshedding for these guys, so they weren't very good and hadn't established the kinds of bonds John, Paul, George and Ringo had.

Meanwhile, Ray is being taken advantage of by song publishers, his band is banned from America for four years (some of the band's peak years), he gets married too young and knows it and he tends towards depression. He has a nervous breakdown in 1966. He fights lawsuits.

Out of this comes one of the grandest runs in pop music history: "Face to Face," "Something Else," "Village Green Preservation Society," "Arthur." "Lola" and "Muswell" would follow.(He barely even mentions writing "Lola," which took the band back to the Top 10 in 1970; for Ray, that just brought on a new set of problems.) They were defiantly English, deliberately minimalist, sometimes rickety. (Shel Talmy did them no favors, and even after Ray took over himself, only the "Arthur" album has production on a high level equal to its songs -- which is not to say that the production of, say, "Days" wasn't somehow appropriately scruffy.)

Listen: I spent every day of October 1981, a typically rollercoaster teenage time, listening to "Something Else." It made me smile; it gave me hope. I felt Ray understood. So when I say that I wish "X-Ray" had been richer, cleaner, more detailed, I'm asking for something that's just not possible. So four stars says I wish it were less imperfect. It also says I loved it despite its flaws.

This book IS Raymond Douglas Davies. God save him.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a book that turned out to be every bit as good as I hoped it would be. This is the story of one fascinating and complex man, Raymond Douglas Davies: rebel, oddball, head case, and perhaps a pop music genius as well. He begins by introducing a technique that is simultaneously distancing and revealing - the story is not being told by Davies, but by a young writer hired by "The Corporation" to do a biography of him. Davies gets to play with the idea of himself viewing himself, of Ray Davies the pop star, who is, in fact, a memory, a creation. He then tells his story thru a series of mock interviews, in which he by turns intimidates, toys with, and bares his heart to the imaginary biographer.

The focus here is on the 1960s and The Kinks's rise to stardom. The story flows pretty much chronologically. Davies grew up in a large, working class family in Muswell Hill, North London. One of the many interesting ironies about R.D. is the fact that he, one of the more cosmopolitan and cynical songwriters of his time, was very closely tied to his old neighborhood and his clan for much of his life. As a kid, he was both a competitive athlete and a creative type. At first The Kinks were mostly unknown, but things began to change for them when Davies began to discover his songwriting talent.

The book is full of marvelous anecdotes of life on the road and encounters with other pop musicians, but this life did take a toll on the author. He frankly describes having some sort of depressive breakdown in the middle of their most successful period. R.D. is a remarkably complex guy. He married young and fathered a child, but the marriage did not last. He probably was/is bisexual, yet he dances around the issue. He seems to view himself as a morose, solitary artistic type. Surprisingly, he says very little about his playing and singing and writing. Whatever you can say about him, I think he was, and still is, a wonderful writer of songs, and now, of autobiographical prose. He succeeds in portraying himself sincerely as a dramatic character, primarily the star of some cynical comedy, but with touches of tragedy and insight into the human condition. Bravo!

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always get rankled when I hear people (especially "professionals"-whatever that means) Saying that "So-and-So is the greatest writer, or artist, or singer, or Tea-cozy collector, etc. of all time", based solely on their own personal tastes and assumptions, rather than saying logically and correctly that "So-and-So is THEIR PERSONAL FAVORITE Jai-Alai referree, (ad infinitum)".
That being said, Ray Davies, IS THE GREATEST BRITISH SONGWRITER OF ALL TIME. Simple as that. His "unauthorized autobiography", (so called do to its being written in a half-baked Orwellian dystopia style, In the third person) mainly attests to this fact. It illuminates many of the man's greatest achievements (Didja know that "Sunny Afternoon" was written in the middle of a nervous breakdown? Ta!) And also pulls no punches concerning the man's character--He's a musical genius, He's English, and he's (gasp) a total prick. Big surprise. A better title for this book would've been "Tea and Blowjobs", because well, many pages are spent discussing those beloved pastimes.
I'ts flawed, Brilliant and catchy, just like his music.

[Michael J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to share upfront that THE KINKS are my all-time favorite rock band, and RAY DAVIES is my favorite songwriter. His wry observations on English society and human nature caught my attention back in the 1960's and Kinks songs has been a big part of my background music as I moved through life. That may help explain why I give this a five-star rating compared to some other reviews on Goodreads.
Yes, this is not a tell-all. It also only covers a short period of time (ending in 1973) and doesn't spend enough detail on the reasons the Kinks were so popular - their music and the clever songs. Naturally, being a big fan I've read about that elsewhere so I'm not disturbed by the absence of more details about that in X-RAY. However, it's not as if nothing is written about that here. It's just that Ray's troubles with royalties, family, depression, a failing marriage, self-doubt etc dominate this "unauthorized autobiography". Perhaps Mr. Davies wanted to indicate that the life of a rock star is not all it's cracked up to be.
In any case, this is not your typical rock musician auto-biography. Just like "The Hard Way", one of the classic Kinks songs, Raymond Douglas Davies never takes the easy route. Instead, he chose to write this as a piece of fiction, taking place in an unspecified future where the "gray men" (a recurring theme from PRESERVATION) control the corporate world and/or the government. It's a corporation who assigns a young intern the assignment of interviewing an aged and grumpy old musician about his past life. For what purpose? The intern is the narrator of the book and as he learns from the book of Davies he begins to assimilate and then emulate the attributes of his subject, including his paranoia and mistrust of authority. And, why not? After all, the narrator is Ray through and through.
What I learned from reading this for the second time (25 years later, first read in November 1997) is that not only can Ray Davies compose memorable rock songs - - he's just an inventive and good writer. Now X-RAY goes back on my shelf. I may not wait as long to read it again. Maybe target 2027, the 30th anniversary?

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rating is really 3 1/2 stars, but since Goodreads stubbornly insists on full digits, I can’t select that.

There is certainly a wealth of great info here for fans of Ray and / or The Kinks, as well as some insight into the personality of the author himself. However, the text is set at some nebulous point in the future and narrated in first person by an unnamed (and, obviously, fictitious) person who has been assigned to put together a biographical report on Ray Davies. The actual autobiography is thus staged as a series of interviews with Ray, who is presented as a somewhat unreliable narrator who is by turns more or less cooperative as well as prone to cut off or change subjects abruptly. This affectation allows the core narrative to wander, and for the author to comment on his own story, often in a critical manner. An interesting notion, but one that also forces the reader to wonder how much of what we are being told might be partially or even entirely inaccurate. While that seems to be the point of the affectation, it does not make for an entirely satisfying read.

A lesser but still notable issue is that some things that would seem to be significant (“Lola”, lift of US touring ban, etc.) are barely mentioned, and the entire narrative ends rather abruptly without any mention of events beyond the early 70’s. To me this felt less like any attempt at privacy or discretion and much more like Ray had gotten bored with reminiscing, so he stopped where he was.

So, to recap, there’s a lot of good material here, but it feels somewhat incomplete and in places oddly distant, particularly for an autobiography. And, like the subject himself, it revels in its contradictions.

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was perhaps the most unusual autobiography I have ever read, not that I should have expected anything else from Kinks frontman Ray Davies, who has in the past couple months mesmerized me with his lyrics.

After my yearly trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in June, I became obsessed with the Kinks (which may actually be explained by Ray Davies's fashion choices in the early 1970s). The lyrics captivated me, and I wanted to learn everything I could about this oh-so-British songwriter. When my mother wanted to order a book online and said she'd get me something just to get free shipping, I knew what I wanted.

X-Ray tells the story of a nameless man who is assigned by the Corporation to research the life of Ray Davies, as they are compiling an anthology of sorts on music of the '60s. Davies is a character in the book, just as Terry and Julie are in "Waterloo Sunset." In some ways, this makes his tales rather unreliable, yet never uninteresting. Even the book's researcher does not know if Davies is telling the truth, but he can't help coming back for more.

While the book gets a bit annoying by becoming a sort of frame narrative, I couldn't be too bothered because it was just so entertaining. I wasn't even annoyed when Davies wrote this piece of genius: "You know, breasts. Threepenny bits, Bristols, jugs, knockers, mammaries, bosoms. You know - tits." Was this necessary? No, but I still found it funny.

I cannot wait to read Ray Davies's other book, Americana, and his brother Dave's autobiography.

If it's possible, I appreciate Ray Davies, the Kinks, and their music even more than before.

[Paul Jellinek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of the Kinks and have been since I bought their first album back in 1964, and then a few years later the classic "Face to Face," "Something Else," "Village Green," and "Arthur"--albums that for my money are among the greatest rock records of all time (and that sound even better now in the recently released and remastered "deluxe" editions). Sadly but not surprisingly, this autobiography by Ray Davies--the genius who led the band and wrote and sang all of its greatest songs--is not on a par with those records. If it were, it would be up there with James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" or Flaubert's "Sentimental Education." But Davies' medium is rock 'n' roll, not literature, and so I would no more expect him to produce a great book than I would expect Joyce to produce a rock classic like "All Day and All of the Night" (interesting thought...) Still, despite a clumsy narrative gimmick that wears thin after the first few pages, there is some interesting inside stuff in the book--about Davies' family, his marriage, and the heady early days of the "British Invasion"--so it is by no means a complete bust. But neither is it "Waterloo Sunset" or "All Day and All of the Night."

[Erin Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

"R.D. was not one of the last independents. He was one of the last innocents"

One could feel overwhelmed reading X-Ray, and I think that’s part of the point. Ray puts the reader in the position he was once in-young, naïve, surrounded by older, worldlier people spouting forth with all sorts of truth and nonsense. You have someone who at heart is a largely innocent person, who still believes in simple, good things, and he is thrown into a debauched world that for the most part whirls around as he stands still, staring. He deliberately misremembers things because it’s his life, and at the end of the day it doesn’t belong to anyone else. There are moments of complete beauty that make your heartbreak, and then it’s bawdy, funny, but it makes you think. What did we really give any of these people? Their youth is frightening, little kids at the forefront of the world-expected to behave by a certain set of rules. But how could they?

[Max Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the most inventive autobiography I’ve ever read - a close second place unfortunately going to Morrissey.

Would have been drawn to this nonetheless with Ray being such a hero of mine but the alter ego protagonist and the continual unknowingness of whether what you’re reading is fictional or not kept me hooked all the way through - clearly a genius wordsmith and storyteller, whatever the medium.

Somehow The Kinks still remain THE most underrated band OAT despite reaching the heights they did and I will die on that hill.

[Isaiah Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this 4.5/5 if I could. While it is far from a perfect book, it is perfect for me. Ray Davies is one of my favorite artists of all time (and The Kinks are my second favorite band), I just love his obsessions, his sardonically witty sense of humor, and his voice as a songwriter and all around storyteller. I think he’s the only songwriter of his generation who could really compete with— and sometimes even beat— Lennon and McCartney. This was an incredibly creative— albeit sometimes jumbled— format for a memoir that truly feels one of a kind, and in a strange way provides greater insight than a straightforward rock biography ever could. The imagery, world building, and character work are surprisingly good, his artistic voice and obsessions are just as present and poignant as his songwriting (though much darker), and it still does have the musical anecdotes that a fan of The Kinks would want— although one may crave more information about the recording of Village Green, Arthur, Lola, and Muswell Hillbillies— though I think that is sort of the point, much like the unnamed narrator, we are never granted full access to the story, only fragmented bits and pieces of Davies’ psyche, life, and dreams, which actually give us an incredibly complex portrait of him as a man.

“Sometimes I wish that things could be different. But if they were, then they would not be the same.”

For context, this “memoir” written in the ‘90s takes place decades later, and is narrated by an unnamed 19 year old writer and journalist who is employed by “the corporation,” a company which now controls every society on earth, as he is assigned to track down Ray Davies and chronicle his life. Davies, now elderly and perhaps a bit demented, does not trust the corporation, and so our narrator must figure out how much of what he is told is actually true, all as he begins to realize the horrible truths of the society that has raised him.

[Wesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be difficult to read and mostly boring. The first 20-30 pages set up a pointless "frame story" around the actual "biography." The fictional wrapper adds nothing to Mr. Davies' life story. The interesting bits - the actual anecdotes and stories - are much more enjoyable to read. He doesn't delve into the music much, which is frustrating. He'll make a comment along the lines of "a while back we had recorded [insert name of classic Kinks record that shouldn't be an afterthought]." Many songs are mentioned in passing but that's about it. Most of the book is about dealing with lawyers and managers. Frankly, I couldn't keep their names straight. There is also a good bit about Ray's personal/family life, all of which is just mildly interesting. I can't recommend this book to anyone. Stick to his records.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray Davies is one of the great songwriters of his generation. No. I should say one of the great songrwriters of the 60's. The fact he is not really part of the 60's scene, although he was... Well now it gets complicated.

On the other hand this is a very interesting memoir/work of fiction from Mr. Davies. What's fascinating is you can see his mind at work. No way was he going to write a straight ahead memoir. Not his style. And surprise, it's a really good book.

And let me re-phrase my opinion of Ray Davies. He's one of the great songwriters of any period.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite enjoyable romp through the mind of Ray Davies. In trying to understand the confusion and dreams of the actors in the 1960s this is a good non-sugary portrayal of the times in a semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical story. While not high art (what of the Kinks was) it has a kind of Werner Herzog ecstatic truth to it which is also true of the Kinks music. Even though I didn't finish it, I appreciated reading it...

[minnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read This when it came out years ago, written in a strange style but interesting nonetheless, Ray Davies was definitely a bit money obsessed!

[Slagle Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been a Kinks fan from way back but never really studied the group closely. I suppose the unauthorized autobiography of Ray Davies gave me new insights into the band’s history but probably not as much as another title would have done. For one thing, this books is mostly concerned with the group’s formative years and first years of mega-stardom, roughly 1963 to 1973. It gives some insight into a few of their biggest hits and a few albums but most of the Kinks music I experienced, say from around 1977 to 1984, is really not discussed. We do get a rather dark psychological portrait of Ray Davies, who in the set-up to the book, is telling his story to an alter-ego of sorts named R.D. from a mysterious corporation. The narrative features a split-personality, so to speak, and I think Davies pulls it off pretty well though a few passages were confusing, especially at the beginning of the book. Davies comes off as a rather moody, prickly and stand-offish fellow in this version of the band’s rise to fame. It almost seems like he hates every minute of stardom and being an artist. His paranoia about “the corporation” stealing and profiting on his ideas is probably more relevant now than when he was writing the book in the mid-1990s, when we consider the mass pirating undertaken by tech companies in the digital era. Still, I had trouble digesting his boo-hoos over being snubbed for this or that industry award back in the 1960s, a subject to which he devotes a fair amount of ink. Davies does offer a rather subjective study of his family life but still it seems a lot is left out. I would have appreciated learning more about his relationship with Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders but she is not mentioned in the book. There’s not a whole lot about his relationship to his brother Ray Davies in this book either. There is a fair amount of space devoted to bad contracts, legal battles and questionable management but, again, much of that is through the narrative’s highly-subjective filter, so I didn’t really takeaway a strong understanding of those legalities.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure where to start on my review after having just finished X-Ray. Perhaps the less said the better. I just noticed another bio of Ray Davies titled A Complicated Life. After completing X-Ray, that fact is clear. Davies is a complicated person and X-Ray is a complicated book. Ultimately, the book just doesn't work, in my opinion. It's kind of a mess. You will learn a lot about Ray's psyche.. his idiosyncrasies, insecurities, neurosis. That's ok. We all have those, even the best among us, and Ray is among the best. But the fiction/non fiction mix is muddled, the narrator who works for 'The Corporation' comes in and out of murky focus and adds to the confusion and disengagement, and we are dragged through the infamous Money Go Round that Ray and the Kinks thrashed through in the late 60's and early 70's way too long and haphazardly. The names and lawyers and litigation are so lengthy and confusing that the reader ends up dizzy and numbed and not caring all that much, despite it clearly being a major problem and focus for Ray for years. A major miss for the book is also that we learn virtually zero about the relationship between Ray and Dave Davies. Ultimately, a disappointing read from a fascinating person and brilliant icon of rock and roll.

[Gracie · Rating 4 out of 5]

in lieu of writing an actual review i'm just gonna say i highly recommend, even if you're not necessarily a super-fan of the kinks, just because it's got such a good insight into the midsight of a songwriter, but i'm also gonna take the opportunity to rant about how much i love ray davies:

i love a lot of famous people, especially songwriters, and have connected deeply with them as people and the songs they create. and yet, i haven't really connected with any of them on as deep a level as ray davies.

i've never wanted to talk to someone so badly in my life. the way he sees things and writes about people just communicates an incredible amount of affection and empathy, and there's a gentleness and curiosity and loneliness about him that i feel personally involved with ? i mean, i know people say that about all their favorite famous people but i just genuinely feel so emotionally drawn to him and i feel like i connect with him so much?? all the phrases i'm using seem so trite but like. the depth of feeling is immense !

anway, i have no idea, i just know if he ever needs a kidney i am HERE

[Frank Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray Davies is a great song writer and his first serious attempt at prose is certainly ambitious. Instead of cranking out the usual list of women he slept with and settling scores with old managers, he tried a pretty inventive literary device and focused on themes more than a straight narrative.

This artifice is frustrating at times. I adore the Kinks and think they get slightly overlooked when talking about the great bands of the 60s. I read this book to learn more about them. But I should probably find a more objective source and a more straight-forward format for that. This is one man's his grudges, disappointments and nostalgia are quite specific.


Ray's writing is best when discussing the writing of his songs. He tells just enough to enhance the enjoyment of the books without spoiling the magic of what they "really" mean. One great thing about reading music histories and biographies is that Spotify now lets you listen just about every piece of music as it is discussed. That probably pushed this experience up form 3 stars to 4.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my memory as a reader, not many authors have written memoirs that end with their own death; this “unauthorized autobiography” is somewhat out of the common run of musicians accounts of their lives. It must be said that Raymond Douglas’ story of his own life has no credited co-author: instead, Davies has created a fictional ghostwriter. The trope of distancing becomes quite distracting, but the story itself is very compelling. I think it’s safe to say that, outside of maybe Kurt Cobain, no great musician has been more disenchanted with their own success. More than anything else, this book has made me regret ditching my vinyl collection when I moved five years ago; I had amassed a very respectable run of Kinks records over the decades.

[Bill O'driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

You were expecting a "normal" autobio from the guy who wrote "Lola"? It's a kind of meta-fiction, told mostly in the voice of a young writer in a vaguely dystopian future society assigned to write a book about a reclusive old rock star. I'm taking it on faith that the stuff about Davies' life and music career, which incorporates real names, dates and song titles, is accurate as he recalls them. The meta-fiction part provides an insight into just how odd Davies thinks he himself is, not to mention the music industry. The book was published in 1994 but the narrative in it stops at least two decades earlier, right after "Arthur" or so. Fairly embittered, but pretty entertaining.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a good autobiography in here once the reader got through the annoying and unnecessary "author" of the book. Ray Davies has a vaulted opinion of himself and it shows in his conceit of intertwining this distracting character throughout the pages. If one is an avid Kinks fan there is some good information contained herein, but searching for it is like sloshing through mud to find a diamond.

[Chris C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when it was first published. I do appreciate that it wasn't just a straightforward autobiography but I really just read autobiographies for the anecdotes and the history they delve into, I don't really need them to include a fictional element like this one does. This has some good stories and covers Ray's 1960s period pretty well. If you like the Kinks I'd definitely read it and if you like the music of the 60s you might like to give it a go.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a long time ago - before I was on Goodreads, apparently. I think it was decent, but I wasn't keen on the way Davies chose to write it - a little too glib and gimmicky. Sometimes straightforward, and sometimes less so. I like the Kinks, but I've never been a huge fan - never had a studio album, just a few greatest hits collections. It filled in some blanks for me, but since I only know the highlights, I can't appreciate a lot of the journey except in the broadest terms.

[Sharon Plenty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly interesting albeit confusing at first. Davies is the master of slipping into other character perspectives and skins, so it all somehow makes sense. He's a really great creative natural writer. Not too sure many other pop stars could have pulled this off. Made me go back and listen to his music.

[Stephen Hero · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this thing twice now, both times in a temperate zone.

Ray, himself, has taught me sardonic.

And I, too, fear the "corporation" and will do everything that I can to ensure that I do not conform. I wonder if spending each and every day resisting said "corporation" has a cost associated to it.

But then I look in the mirror and say "No."

So... win/win.

[Barbara Gottlock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Ray Davies and the Kinks. However, this book, written in such an introspective manner, failed to excite me. I was hoping to read more of the sex, drugs, and rock n roll of the band's heyday but it was not to be. For a more nitty gritty book on the band, I preferred Kink by brother Dave Davies.

[Harry Burnside · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been better, the story ends with Village Green. He must have forgotten that it was the Ray Davies Story and not just the Kinks.
Having a sub plot of some hack novice interviewing him just didn't work.
There was however many juicy stories about the Kinks that made it worth reading.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

As long as you go into this without expecting a regular linear biography I think any Kinks fan will enjoy it. Some real interesting insight from Ray during the Kinks timeline of the 60s and seventies. Wish the book hadn't stopped at around 1974.

[Carol Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

This is unlike any autobiography l have ever read; fascinating, absorbing, and brilliantly unique. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.