The Kinks’ 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One is one that I grew very fond of right from the initial listen. Don’t know what it was about the band from 1968 – 70. Some may argue that the run started some years prior/ended some years after. But the three albums (Village Green, Arthur, and Lola) released one after the other in three consecutive years is where, in my view, Ray Davies and company properly peaked. The first of those is my personal favourite. May have mentioned in other posts concerning songs from it. But while Arthur is usually regarded to be the other top, top classic of the band’s, it’s Lola that has always trumped it for me. The songs are fantastic, and Ray Davies is singing in his normal voice in comparison to that American-soulful inflection thing he has going on throughout Arthur. I’ve never been able to accustom myself to that choice.

Lola Versus Powerman is a bit of a concept album, almost, sort of. It was meant to be the first part of a story that ran for two records, hence the ‘Part One’ of the title, but was ultimately scrapped. A theme running throughout is the disillusionment and a shaking of fists to the music industry and those who sit at the top counting the money while the artists/bands do all the work. This is no better made clearer than in the album’s penultimate track, and I guess the third title track on there, in which Ray and Dave Davies on co-lead vocals sing about ‘Powerman’. Though this Powerman is set up as one character, I think it’s fair to say that it’s also an amalgamation of all the similar types of fat cat/cigar smoking boss-manager type people who were common to find in the record label office back in those days. Davies takes on the point of view of a person who works under ‘Powerman’, telling the listener how, after starting from nothing, the titular character obtained hunger for that sweet, sweet power, climbed that ladder and now laughs at everyone below him as he makes his way to the bank. People can make fun of him, but they’re irrelevant as far as he’s concerned. The narrator has his music and his girlfriend to keep him fulfilled and sane through the whole ordeal, but will always have the looming presence of Powerman behind their shoulder.

This is a great guitar song. The acoustic one that opens it up has this great presence about it, the electric guitar that joins it with that clonking introduction adds another spark. But it’s when then track builds up its pace not soon after and the rhythm section joins in that consistent head-bopping occurs for the rest of the entire track. Sometimes I’m not even singing along to the Davies brothers’ vocals and will just hum/”ner-ner-ner” my way along to the riffs that the guitars are doing through the verses and the choruses. Also, I think the bass guitar and those electric guitars are playing the same notes throughout almost the whole song. Hearing those elements in unison, I don’t know, they just make everything occurring seem so locked together and in-sync. Gives the track a bit of an overbearing presence, almost like a wall of some kind. And if you’re not trying to hear those guitars, then it’s always a plus to hear the Davies brothers harmonising as well as they do here. They might not have got along all that well, but when it came to the music they were always able to make up some magic.