When Elvis Presley died, it sent shockwaves across the world. A seemingly immortal cultural icon was suddenly gone. Although his star had faded and his hits had dried up, impacting his relevance, he was still Elvis. Despite his best years being behind him, he possessed an unmatched aura and a
Upon his passing, it felt like the end of an era and marked a cultural impasse for many, including The Kinks frontman Ray Davies. It didn’t matter if somebody was a super fan of Presley or indifferent to his material; his death hit home. He was a larger-than-life figure that was impossible to avoid, and seemingly, it would stay that way forever until his light unexpectedly went out.
For Davies, Elvis’ death also coincided with his band’s near-collapse, and he amalgamated these two notions in one song about the demise of the rock ‘n’ roll dream. While The Kinks had been his everything for over a decade, their future was threatened after keyboardist John Gosling and bass player Andy Pyle announced their departure. At this time, The Kinks had recently signed a deal with Arista Records after being let go by RCA, but it felt like they were hanging by a thread. They had bought into the rock ‘n’ roll dream, but it had failed to reciprocate the blood, sweat and tears of the Davies brothers. However, they weren’t prepared to give up without a fight and wrote ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’ as their potential departing gift.
Thankfully, the song became a huge hit for The Kinks in America, returning them to commercial success after years absent from the mainstream. Reflecting on its creation, Dave once said that he and his brother “got together like we had so many times before, playing Chuck Berry records, having a laugh. And two songs came out of it, ‘[A] Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’ and ‘Trust Your Heart,’ which pulled the record together. That could very easily have been the end of [the band]. But there was something not yet resolved.”
Meanwhile, Ray explained the defiant nature of the song to Rolling Stone amid the backdrop of his bandmates’ departure: “The song was almost an homage to them; if you listen to the lyrics, it’s about someone leaving the band because they’ve given up the cause, and the two brothers will find a way through this.”
Ray had already begun writing the song when he heard Elvis had died, triggering thoughts and emotions already plaguing Davies that guided the track to completion. “I started writing that song about my brother and I breaking up the band – and it’s evident in the lyric. And the next day the television comes on and Elvis Presley’s died,” he explained. “It was like having a film or a story with no ending and that provided the ending and the impetus for us to keep going.”
The vocalist was staying in New York when he wrote ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’, which gave him a front-row seat for America’s mourning of Elvis. The song features the line, “The King is dead, rock is done,” and also features the fictional character Dan the Fan. The latter was inspired by Davies looking out of his room to see a sole apartment lit up across the street, which he envisaged to be the home of a diehard Elvis fan.
Speaking about his songwriting process for ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’, Davies described it as “a method acting songwriting job” due to the subject matter. It was a song he’d lived first-hand, noting, “I use personal things to get something else out of me… Elvis Presley died last week and it all just added up.”
Although ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy’ was mainly about the end of The Kinks rather than Presley, the two went hand-in-hand for Davies. Not only was he grieving the potential loss of the band he’d given everything for, but Presley’s death was further proof that rock ‘n’ roll is an unforgiving business. Despite the adulation Presley once received, his passing proved to Davies that life can cruelly mean that one moment you’re the cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.