Ray Davies Quotations

People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to proved that it really existed.

When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog-big as a donkey. ... I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio. ... I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere. ... Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.

Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.

I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.

I don't think England is that gray but India is like a long drone.

I'm susceptible to that sort of thing - to walls and flowers. You can probably get something more from a wall than a person sometimes. It's just put somewhere.

At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.

No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always.

If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done.

I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.

What I try to do probably doesn't come out. What I've worked out what I do - I might not be right - is to do something very personal, and then suddenly I look at it, up in the air. I blow it up and look at it and then I come down again - a better man.

I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.

Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.

When you are making a record and if you spend too much time over it, you have to record it a tone lower or cut the tones lower because you can't reach some of the notes, I find this. But when you go on stage, you have to put the key up and it really changes the whole thing.

I got that idea from being in India. I always like the chanting.

If New Orleans is allowed to die, a crucial part of the world's music heritage will disappear.

Then I got together with my brother and a friend and we decided to play dates. The more we played, the more we wanted to do it. And it got to a stage where we wanted to do it all the time.

Those three chords were part of my life - G, F, Bb - yeh, it is, it is, and I can't help noticing it. But there have been other things nearly as close to it which people haven't noticed, other things we have done.

I'm easy driving, But I'm not a person who loves living pleasantly above all else. I'm not that way at all. I might think I'm that, but I'm not really that.

I still like to keep tapes of the few minutes before the final take, things that happen before the session. Maybe it's superstitious, but I believe if I had done things differently - if I had walked around the studio or gone out - it wouldn't have turned out that way.

She only sang. I didn't have to talk to her. I was quite uncomfortable, but I thought it was a nice moment. Love ends, but songs are for ever. They capture a moment and an emotion. You can have two human beings who should not be in the same house, or possibly even the same country, but the music tells you that it really could have been for ever. In those three minutes, there are no hard feelings.

I have been astonished by the reactions and apparent shame of some of the U.S. television reporters who seemed overwhelmed to discover that there actually is poverty in America, ... They made me want to grab my television and shout 'Hello, dear reporter, yes, America actually does have poor and underprivileged people as well. Hello, yes, the president might well be slow to react but at times like this, that's all that an over-burdened, out-of-touch president can be.

What you are saying too, is that it's not only what other people are doing, it's what I'm doing, what I'm feeling. It's a little bit selfish as well.

Now I'm grown up and playing in a band.

I might even end up a rock and roll god, it might turn into a steady job.

What struck me was that it was more like the family Christmas I enjoyed as a child growing up in London. Thanksgiving is a time for sharing and even though they throw up their eyes as though it were a chore, family members traditionally gather for a reunion at the house of the oldest relative.

('Other People's Lives') is my first attempt to make a studio album that's got original songs on it, and it's a completely new adventure for me.

This is a new, exciting phase for me. I'm really looking forward to playing this stuff.

Don't get depressed when you read the press about world revolution and social unrest. Try not to panic when you switch on the news and see crooked politicians and unemployment queues.

Comfort the weak and feel the poor. What on earth do we need government for?

Life had become a reproduction: it was not the real thing.

All you have to do is relax and feel your history, because it will never go away and there is no future without it.

Everything is reduced to what's physical in the end, because it's the filth inside people's minds that creates all the evil. What is a body, anyway? I suppose you've got to abuse your body to understand it. If you're not prepared to humiliate yourself in order to give somebody else a moment's pleasure, I don't believe that you've actually lived.

Put all the pervs in jail, bring back the birch and cat-o-nine tails.

How was I conceived? Was it love, was I meant, or was I just an accident?

I met her in a club down in North Soho, where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola.

She can't see me staring at her cause I'm always wearing shades.

Come and love me, be my apeman girl, and we will be so happy in my apeman world.

Feelin' guilty, feelin' scared, hidden cameras everywhere.

Great American union rules with a fist, a smile, and a gun. Great American napalm lights up the sky like the sun.

Long ago life was clean, sex was bad and obscene, and the rich were so mean. Stately homes for the Lords, croquet lawns, village greens, Victoria was my queen.

I like surfers. Their imagery, it's great.

Yin and Yang control man's actions, and both extremes are a natural reaction.

There is more in this heaven and earth than what the scientist knows and is revealed in the x-ray.

The day we were born, we were all God's children.

If I told you God was black, what would you think of that?

Silly boy, you got so much to live for, so much to aim for, so much to try for.

The soul needs attention like the body needs to breath.

Paranoia, the destroyer.

Terrorist bombers on the left, fascist plots on the right.

Powerman don't need to fight, powerman don't need guns, powerman got money on his side.

You say your image is new, but it looks well tested.

You make alterations, affecting your pose, a new house, a new car, a new job, a new nose.

In the end you become part of everything you hate, basically.

When I discovered Mose Allison I felt I had discovered the missing link between jazz and blues

Life is so groovy when your record is hot.

If after two weeks you still can't write your middle-eight, the best course of action is to see a psychiatrist

Why stay with him, he uses you just like a human punching bag?

Arty farty, you'll never fool your Aunt, who knew you picked your nose and wet your pants.

Trendy intellectuals always take action for every cause that's been in fashion.

The Christians to the lions sold out every night.

Tell the people what they want and decide what they need.

Revolution used to be cool, but now it's out of fashion.

Newsmen winding up the nation, a little bad news helps circulation, pass on the panic to the population.

My girlfriend's packed her bags and moved out to another town, she couldn't stand the boredom when the video broke down.

I am the image maker, I am the magic maker, I can turn the most ordinary man in the world into a star.

Eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.

Celluloid heroes never feel any pain.

Blow your brains out and do it right, make sure it's on prime time and on Saturday night.

Did ya ever think that we would pay the price for being lazy?

I close my eyes and feel the universe within me.

The only time I feel at ease is swinging up and down in a coconut tree.

Better close your window tight or I might come in for a bite, I'm a sleep walker.

Live life, see it through. Carry on, it's all you can do.

Standing in the middle of nowhere, wondering how to begin. Lost between tomorrow and yesterday, between now and then.

Surviving, that's my plan.

Taken everything I've got, all I've got's this sunny afternoon.

The intellectual controls the spiritual, the animal respects the natural.

To the field we are scattered from the day we are born to grow wild and sleep rough til from the earth we are torn.

Well I'm not dumb, but I can't understand why she walked like a woman, but talked like a man.

The big corporations and the big companies turned musicians into factory workers on an assembly line.

When he feels the world is closing in, he turns his stereo way up high. He just spends his life, living in a rock and roll fantasy.

They filled us full of false illusions and promiscuity, and they led us down that class-less road of mediocrity.

We're out of control on this loony balloon, barely missing the other planets and stars.

Rudolf Valentino looks very much alive and he looks up ladies dresses as they sadly pass him by.

When he puts on that dress, he feels like a princess.

Hate builds up from the childhood when your world was a slum, but you haven't got the right to blow it to kingdom come.

She would be ready, but she would always make him wait.

Drinking helps us to forget what we are, we leave the office and walk straight to the bar.

A restless spirit who can't reach his goal, can't find a home until I've found my soul.

You hate me and I hate you, so at least we understand each other.

Jogging in the park is my excuse to look at all the girls.

If you weren't naggin', honey, you'd be so sweet.

It's never too late to get a new design, and if you wanna compete you gotta visualize.

Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze. I got a big fat mama trying to break me.

He thinks he is a flower to be looked at And when he pulls his frilly nylon pants right up tight He feels a dedicated follower of fashion. When a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress: Never darken my Dior again!

Goods gone bad, but right is wrong, and I don't know which side I'm on lately.

Before you condemn me my friends, I suggest you look deep inside you. For good and evil exists in us all.

Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies, I am an apeman.

I'm sitting in a cage with my eye upon the clock.