“Come Dancing” is a tribute to the Davies brothers’ sister Rene. Living in Canada with her reportedly abusive husband, the 31-year-old Rene was visiting her parental home in Fortis Green at the time of Ray Davies’ thirteenth birthday—21 June 1957—on which she surprised him with a gift of the Spanish guitar he had tried to persuade his parents to buy him. That evening, Rene, who had a weak heart as a result of a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, suffered a fatal heart attack while dancing at the Lyceum ballroom. The dancehall in this song is referred to as the “Palais,” which is French for “Palace.” Many Victorian buildings that were originally theaters but later became dancehalls went by the name of “The (insert name here) Palais,” so in this case, Davies would be referring to his local dance-hall. In many ways, the song is about change, as ballrooms in the big band era gave way to car parks and rock music.

This is the Lyceum Theater in London from that time:

And this was a typical night at a Palais:

“[Rene] had died dancing in a ballroom in London in the arms of a stranger. … Coming back from Canada where she’d emigrated [from the U.K.] to die, really, and again, being a source of inspiration. … She gave me my first guitar, which was quite a great parting gift”.– Ray Davies

Ray later said that the pop song was an attempt to return to the “warmer” style they had prior to their transformation to an arena rock act, explaining, “I wanted to regain some of the warmth I thought we’d lost, doing those stadium tours. ‘Come Dancing’ was an attempt to get back to roots, about my sisters’ memories of dancing in the ’50s.” The song is a nostalgic look back at childhood memories of its writer: the Kinks’ frontman Ray Davies, remembering his older sister going on dates to the local Palais dance hall where big bands would play.

The song became a staple of Kinks live performances, and song Ray Davies really connected with. He said that of all the songs he’s written “Come Dancing” is the lyrics he’s most proud of.

Davies later claimed that the song was about a spiv (the word spiv is slang for a type of petty criminal who deals in illicit, typically black market, goods), saying, “it was about an East End spiv, sung in a London voice. If anybody had lost any faith in us being real people, that record [‘Come Dancing’] would restore it.” Davies also claimed that the song was sung from a “barrow boy’s” point of view, saying, “[‘Come Dancing’] is sung by an East End barrow boy—I think there’s cockney rhyming slang in it!”.

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