Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde's Daughter Prompted New Duet

Posted on Dec 11th 2009 10:00AM by John D. Luerssen
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Ray Davies says his new duet with former lover Chrissie Hynde, 'Postcards From London,' was the work of their 26-year-old daughter, Natalie Ray Hynde. The Kinks frontman says his relationship with the Pretenders singer is still estranged -- they recorded their studio parts and evidently shot their appearances for the song's video separately.

"Chrissie came into the studio and did her bit brilliantly," Davies told the Independent. "I wasn't there at the time, and of course our relationship history adds yet another texture to the song. But it wasn't recorded around a log fire or anything. We weren't toasting marshmallows and cracking nuts."

Despite the fact that Ray left his first wife for Chrissie 30 years ago, they never married. "We were turned down by the registrar," Davies admitted in a separate interview with the London Times. "We were arguing, and he said: 'I can't possibly go through with this ceremony.' We lived together and then we broke up and she married someone else."

Though some might think the song is meant for Christmas, Davies says it's not. The tune was actually inspired by the ongoing structural changes in the city leading up to London's 2012 Olympics. "I feel the culture of the London I used to know is disappearing," he said in The Independent. "I just hope the community around Stratford can afford to live there when the Games are over."

"We don't want a repeat of the ethnic cleansing that went on in Beijing," he added. "The places and things that I mention in the song -- Waterloo Bridge, Carnaby Street, the Charlie Chaplin statue in Leicester Square -- are icons or symbols of the London that I think is under threat." Check out the song below.