Sunny Afternoon

This article is about the song. For the album, see Sunny Afternoon (compilation). For the musical, see Sunny Afternoon (musical).
"Sunny Afternoon"
Single by The Kinks
from the album Face to Face
B-side "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"
Released 3 June 1966 (UK)
July 1966 (US)
Format 7" single (45 RPM)
Recorded 13 May 1966; Pye Studios (No.2), London
Genre Rock
Length 3:36
Label Pye 7N 17125 (UK)[1]
Reprise 0497 (US)
Writer(s) Ray Davies[1]
Producer(s) Shel Talmy[1]
The Kinks singles chronology
"Dedicated Follower of Fashion"
(1966)		 "Sunny Afternoon"
(1966)		 "Dead End Street"
(1966)
---
"Dandy"
(Non-UK, 1966)

"Sunny Afternoon" is a song by The Kinks, written by chief songwriter Ray Davies.[2] The track later featured on the Face to Face album as well as being the title track for their 1967 compilation album. Like its contemporary "Taxman" by The Beatles, the song references the high levels of progressive tax taken by the British Labour government of Harold Wilson.[3][4] Its strong music hall flavour and lyrical focus was part of a stylistic departure for the band (begun with 1965's "A Well Respected Man"), which had risen to fame in 1964–65 with a series of hard-driving, power-chord rock hits.[1]

Background

"Sunny Afternoon" was first written in Ray Davies' house when he was sick.

I'd bought a white upright piano. I hadn't written for a time. I'd been ill. I was living in a very 1960s-decorated house. It had orange walls and green furniture. My one-year-old daughter was crawling on the floor and I wrote the opening riff. I remember it vividly. I was wearing a polo-neck sweater.
— Ray Davies[5]

Davies said of the song's lyrics, "The only way I could interpret how I felt was through a dusty, fallen aristocrat who had come from old money as opposed to the wealth I had created for myself." In order to prevent the listener from sympathizing with the song's protagonist, Davies said, "I turned him into a scoundrel who fought with his girlfriend after a night of drunkenness and cruelty."[5]

The song was recorded quickly, during a session described by Ray Davies as "atmospheric."

Sunny Afternoon was made very quickly, in the morning, it was one of our most atmospheric sessions. 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. The bass player went off and started playing funny little classical things on the bass, more like a lead guitar: and Nicky Hopkins, who was playing piano on that session, was playing "Liza"—we always used to play that song—little things like that helped us get into the feeling of the song.

At the time I wrote Sunny Afternoon I couldn't listen to anything. I was only playing The Greatest Hits of Frank Sinatra and Dylan's Maggie's Farm—I just liked it's whole presence, I was playing the Bringing It All Back Home LP along with my Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller and Bach—it was a strange time. I thought they all helped one another, they went into the chromatic part that's in the back of the song. I once made a drawing of my voice on Sunny Afternoon. It was a leaf with a very thick outline—a big blob in the background—the leaf just cutting through it.

— Ray Davies, Rolling Stone, 10 November 1969[5][6][7]

Release and reception

Released as a single on 3 June 1966, it went to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 7 July 1966, remaining there for two weeks.[8] The track also went to No. 1 in Ireland on 14 July 1966. In America, it peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart early autumn 1966.[9] The promotional video for the single featured the band performing in a cold, snowy environment.

"Sunny Afternoon" was placed at No. 200 on Pitchfork Media's list of The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s.[10] The song is featured in and is the title song of West End musical Sunny Afternoon.

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Chart (1966) Peak
position
Australia 13
Canada RPM 1
Germany 7
Ireland 1
Netherlands 1
New Zealand (Listener)[11] 2
UK [12] 1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [13] 14
U.S. Cash Box Top 100[14] 11

Year-end charts

Chart (1966) Rank
UK [15] 8
U.S. (Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual)[16] 154

Covers

The song has been covered by performers including:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Rice, Jo (1982). The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1st ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. p. 102. ISBN 0-85112-250-7.
  2. ↑ "6 Music - Kinks reunion exclusive". BBC. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  3. ↑ MacDonald 2005, p. 200.
  4. ↑ Everett 2010, p. 48.
  5. 1 2 3 "Sunny Afternoon". Songfacts.
  6. ↑ Jovanovic, Rob. God Save The Kinks: A Biography.
  7. ↑ Hinman, Doug. All Day and All of the Night.
  8. ↑ "Bartley Gorman King of the Gypsies". Maxim. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  9. ↑ "Billboard Hot 100". Billboard. Nielsen Company. 78 (40): 18. 1966. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  10. ↑ "Staff Lists: The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s". Pitchfork. 2006-08-14. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  11. ↑ "flavour of new zealand - search listener". Flavourofnz.co.nz. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  12. ↑ "Top 100 1966". top-source.info. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  13. ↑ [Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2002]
  14. ↑ "Cash Box Top 100 10/01/66". Tropicalglen.com. 1966-10-01. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  15. ↑ "Top 100 1966 - UK Music Charts". Uk-charts.top-source.info. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  16. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1999). Pop Annual. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. ISBN 0-89820-142-X.
  17. ↑ "Drake Bell - Sunny Afternoon & Interview On The Ring Master". YouTube. 2013-11-21. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
Preceded by
"Paperback Writer" by The Beatles		 UK number one single
7 July 1966 for two weeks 		Succeeded by
"Get Away" by Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames
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