"Sunny Afternoon" | ||||
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Single by the Kinks | ||||
from the album Face to Face | ||||
B-side | "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" | |||
Released | 3 June 1966 | |||
Recorded | 13 May 1966[1] | |||
Studio | Pye, London | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 3:36 | |||
Label | ||||
Songwriter(s) | Ray Davies | |||
Producer(s) | Shel Talmy | |||
The Kinks singles chronology | ||||
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"Sunny Afternoon" is a song by the Kinks, written by frontman Ray Davies.[7] 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,[8][9] although it does so through the lens of an unsympathetic aristocrat bemoaning the loss of his vast unearned wealth.[10] 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.[11]
songfacts
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