She was sick and tired of country life.
A little country home,
A little country folk,
Made her blood run cold.
Now her mother pines her heart away,
Looking for her child in the big black smoke,
In the big black smoke.
Frailest, purest girl the world has seen,
According to her Ma, according to her Pa,
And everybody said,
That she knew no sin and did no wrong,
Till she walked the streets of the big black smoke,
Of the big black smoke.
Well, she slept in caffs and coffee bars and bowling alleys,
And every penny she had
Was spent on purple hearts and cigarettes.
She took all her pretty coloured clothes,
And ran away from home
And the boy next door,
For a boy named Joe.
And he took her money for the rent
And tried to drag her down in the big black smoke,
In the big black smoke.
In the big black smoke.
In the big black smoke.
I’ve thought about this girl all my life.
Some characters live in your head like that. For me, the runaway dollybird in the Kinks’ “Big Black Smoke” still wanders the mod, pop-mad streets of mid-‘60s London, sometimes dozing, exhausted and pilled-out, in the back booth of a dark café, all stick-thin limbs, long shiny blonde hair, kohl-rimmed eyes with false eyelashes askew. Her cheap plastic boots are pulling apart at the soles, her coat dirty from the bus and the Tube and clubs and curbs. She might look 20 or 12, depending on the light, her skin still perfect and pale. She clutches her purse to her stomach unconsciously like some kind of shield, as her doe-eyes hazily blink over and across the crowds of the city, and no one looks back to her. She smokes her cigarettes nervously, in a mannered way, trying to look like she’s been a sophisticated city girl all her life, but chatters too much, gives too much away in the provincial accent that is always revealed.
When I was a little girl, I worried with her Ma and Pa, and hoped that they would find her and bring her home safely. When I was a teenager, I understand why she left her little town and wanted to follow her on the train and never look back. When I was an adult, I was able to see both the compassion and contempt for her in Ray Davies lyrics. She was kind of girl he would see flocking to London at that time hoping to get in on the Youthquake, and more often ending up briefly admired then thrown away like pretty tissue paper in a box, lining a present you didn’t really want in the first place. She would end up on a train back home, humbled, or get a job sweeping up at a pub or she might get pregnant or with great luck get work in a shop and share a flat with other girls like her. What was sure, in Ray Davies’ keen observation, is that she would not come out of it the same as she was, and her parents would have to take off their blinders to what she was to begin with.
The sound of the song, low-fi, booming descending bass line cleverly bringing the listener down down down with our dollybird, the church bells clanging for redemption of her country girl soul…so so smart. It chugs along like a jittery dirty train, with the plaintive pseudo-Slavic-folky vocals over the top, almost sarcastic harmonies far beneath. As the song ends, you hear Dave Davies' scratchy high voice calling out over and over “Oyez,” the traditional call to order in a court of law. It adds a deliciously dark and ominous ending to the song, and we wonder…what happened to her.
I’m still wondering, and I can still see her in my mind, still walking the rainy dark streets, alone, foolish, and beautiful. A two-minute study in character, Dickens updated to British Beat, from an awfully good songwriter and awfully good band. It’s my favorite Kinks song, you know.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman