20th Century Man

Album: Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
Charted: 106
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Songfacts®:

  • Kinks lead singer Ray Davies wrote this song in character as a guy staunchly set in his ways and suffering from a touch of paranoia. The song is the first track on the Muswell Hillbillies album, which refers to the Muswell Hill neighborhood in London where he grew up. "I imagined this man demolishing a row of houses," Davies told Rolling Stone. "This 20th-century man shuts himself in with dynamite, locks his doors and is not going to give up to anybody."

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