Fortis Green

"Mum would shout and scream when dad came home drunk. When she'd ask him where he'd been he'd say up the Clissold Arms chatting up some 'ussy but he didn't mean no harm ..." Dave Davies' Fortis Green defies conventional logic about the Kinks' canon. A beautifully bittersweet story of growing up around the Fortis Green part of north London, the immediate reaction on first hearing it is that it's one of the lost creations by brother Ray from the Village Green period. But it is a work by Dave from over 30 years on, and as good as anything the Kinks created. The Kinks' canon, of course, could provide plenty of works related to their native north London, such as Willesden Green, Holloway Jail, and Muswell Hillbilly. Anyone for a bit of cockney 'n' western? "They're putting us in identical little boxes. No character just uniformity. They're trying to build a computerised community. But they'll never make a zombie out of me. They'll try and make me study elocution. Because they say my accent isn't right. They can clear the slums as part of their solution. But they're never gonna kill my cockney pride ..."