Observations placeholder
Ray Davies - 1986 A Quiet Life
Identifier
028314
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A brilliant satirical comment on the times.
Absolute Beginners is a novel by Colin MacInnes, written and set in 1958 London, England. It was published in 1959. The novel is the second of MacInnes' London Trilogy, coming after City of Spades (1958) and before Mr. Love and Justice (1960). These novels are each self-contained, with no shared characters
The novel is written from the first-person perspective of a teenage freelance photographer, who lives in a rundown yet vibrant part of West London he calls Napoli. The area is home to a large number of Caribbean immigrants, as well as English people on the margins of society, such as homosexuals and drug addicts.
The themes of the novel are the narrator's opinions on the newly formed youth culture and its fixation on clothes and jazz music, his love for his ex-girlfriend Crêpe Suzette, the illness of his father, and simmering racial tensions in the summer of the Notting Hill race riots.
A description of the experience
Ray Davies - Quiet Life
In 1986 Davies contributed the track Quiet Life to the soundtrack of the Julien Temple film Absolute Beginners that is a musical film adapted from Colin MacInnes' book of the same name about life in late 1950s London. The song was released as a single. Davies appeared in the film, in which he also sang Quiet Life,
Something's happenin' but I'm just gonna turn a blind eye.
If I see no evil, ask no questions, and I hear no lies.
Can't communicate with minds that are small,
With some people it's like talkin' to the wall
And a fellow who walks away,
Lives to battle another day.
And I've really got no appetite
For a fight,
Not tonight.
All I want is a quiet life.
Anything for a quiet life.
No ambition to rock the boat
When I can just stay afloat.
Be content with a quiet life
All I want is a quiet life.
Anything for a quiet life.
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil at all.
Confidentially, between these walls,
I'm on top of it all.
I'd rather have 'em think I'm deaf, dumb, and blind
Than aggravation every time I speak my mind
Keep at a quiet life.
Anything for a quiet life.
I could easily blow my top,
Start a row,
But why start now?
Give your daddy a quiet life.
Give your mother a quiet life.
Anything for a quiet life.
Give your daddy a quiet life.
Give your mother a quiet life.
Anything for a quiet life.
Confidentially, between these walls,
I'm on top of it all.
Songwriters: Raymond Davies