Lyrics Ray Davies – It’s Alright (Havana Version – The Kinks Name Dialogue)

And Larry always smokes his long Havana cigar
He always had one lit
And he always referred to me as cock
No no
Cock is a London expression for mate, chum
«Hello cock
How are you cock? How’s your cock, cock, all right?»
But Larry was crucial
Larry was very important
Because he knew people in the music industry
Robert and Grenville had failed to get us a recording contract
But Larry knew a man who knew a man
Larry said «Now we gotta be opportunistic
We gotta find you a name»
One evening we were having a drink in pub with Larry and somebody commented on the fake leather caps that Dave and Pete were wearing
Someone else said that we were wearing kinky boots
A few days later Larry showed us the mock-up of the artwork for the advertisement
And there we were
We were called: The Kinks
And I hated it
But Larry’s eyes were glowing with excitement
«Kinks, cock, Kinks
«Kinks, cock, Kinks
It’s short, five letters
You’ll be bottom of the bill, but you need something that will stand out and Kinks will stand out
I can see it

The curiousity value will be incredible
That’s a gimmic, me old cocker
We’ll all dress in leather with whips and riding boots, very kinky
We’ll put the pictures in the trades, they’ll love it
Maybe we got to get a new stage gear, my boys, lots of buckles and leather strips»
I hated the name Kinks, but what did I know
But Larry knew a man who knew a man, and this man got us a three single deal with Pye Records
The first record was a cover of Little Richard’s Long tall Sally, but it died a death
The follow-up was significant in that it was the first song I had composed for The Kinks, a very naive optimistic song called You still want me
Unfortunately nobody did
The third record had to be hit, otherwise we’d get kicked off the label