Description
‘Just an English Boy who won a Holiday in Waikiki:’ The Culture of English Humour in the Music and Performance of the Kinks’Iain Ellis has noted that whilst British rock and roll was derivative of American forms, it lacked the connection to the particular musical traditions and social conditions that shaped rock and roll in the United States. Nevertheless, British rockers expressed similar outrage and youthful solidarity found in American rock and roll, and their cultural revolution was often coloured by humour – satire, surrealism, and the just plain silly. Unlike the humour found in American rock and roll, where it frequently took the form of novelty acts and gimmicks, the humour found in the output of English acts is more subtle and bedded in more culturally.
The Kinks embody a diverse range of English humour in their music and stage performances; it ranges from satire to whimsy, and from social commentary to self-deprecation. Despite their humour, the Kinks were no mere comedy act: Orwell notes in his essay on Charles Dickens that had Dickens ‘been merely a comic writer, the chances are that no one would remember his name.’ Indeed, the humour found in the output of the Kinks is often thoughtful, sometimes sublime, and frequently what connections them most closely with their fans at home and abroad. The main focus of this paper is on self-depreciative humour, one of the Kinks’ weapons against the absurdities of English cultural institutions. To this end, it will consider examples of Englishness vs Americana (‘Holiday in Waikiki,’ Oklahoma City, USA,’ ‘Village Green’) and the effects of very English ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ (‘Sitting in My Hotel,’ ‘All of My Friends Were There,’ ‘Celluloid Heroes). These examples together will serve to illustrate not only the Kinks’ use of humour throughout their work, but also those particular elements that distinguish it as English humour and its appeal to fans both English and beyond.
| Period | 17 Jun 2021 → 19 Jun 2021 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Plymouth, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |