Songfacts®:

• In the July 2011 documentary Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come, Davies said this song resulted from him sitting at the piano and feeling unhappy with his life, that there should be something else. It was about disillusion, even though at the time he had fame, fortune, drugs and beautiful girls, there was something missing. He drew the analogy with a clown who makes everyone laugh but is really crying.
• "Death Of A Clown" runs to 3 minutes 4 seconds, and is the second track on the Something Else album. Dave released it as a solo single on the Pye label in July 1967 backed by "Love Me Till the Sun Shines". Rasa Davies, who was then married to brother Ray, sang on the chorus.
• By coincidence, one of the most famous clowns in history, Joseph Grimaldi, was born December 18, 1778 a few miles from where the Davies brothers grew up. Clowns celebrate his life with the Funeral of Grimaldi the first Sunday in February at All Saints Church, London. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for all above
• By 1967 Dave Davies had found the shine had begun to come off his late night carousing. "This song touches on that disillusionment," he told Q Magazine. "Am I just a party pleaser for everybody's amusement?"