Tag Archives: lola versus powerman and the moneygoround part one

#1291: The Kinks – Strangers

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And it looks like this will be the last track you’ll be seeing from this album too. A shame, really, ’cause I quite like The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. My personal second favourite by the group. If things had been different, you would have at least seen a post for ‘Apeman’ and ‘Denmark Street’ on here. My old laptop contains the original date that I downloaded the record, but the monitor doesn’t turn on and I have to plug an HDMI cable from it to the TV in order to see what I’m doing. I have a good feeling it was sometime in 2015, ’cause I have a good memory of listening to ‘Powerman’ while walking to the place I was working at the time. I’ll get back to you on this matter. It doesn’t seem right to leave things vague like this.*

Among the songs discussing an infatuation to a cross-dresser, moving to the jungle to get out of the smoggy city centre, and generally being screwed over in the music business – all of which are written by main songwriter Ray Davies – are two other numbers written and sung by his little brother and lead guitarist, Dave. ‘Rats’ is a raucous number, I think about a general distrust in people. But it’s ‘Strangers’, the second song on Lola…, that we’re all here for. After the punchy, optimistic opener of ‘The Contenders’, ‘Strangers’ slows things down a peg or two. Adding layers of elements to the proceedings as time goes on – Davies plays acoustic alongside John Gosling’s piano initially which are then followed by drums on the second verse, and bass guitar and organ on the third – the song gains a hymn-like quality towards its end. Very appropriate with the whole unity theme that the song is going for.

It’s no secret that Ray and Dave Davies don’t get along all that well. And it’s been an long-standing, ongoing interpretation that ‘Strangers’ was about the relationship between the two. They might not get along, but at the end of the day, they are brothers. ‘Strangers’ was the sign that Dave at least cared. But really, the songs’s about a close friend of Dave’s who died of an overdose, and something of a list of the things Dave wished he could have done with them, had they not passed away so suddenly. It might not be the interpretation people want, but the sentiment is still oh-so sincere. Davies’s vocal performance here is a powerful one. When he blurts out a line like “All the things I own, I will share with you,” the way he does, just tugs at your heart strings a little. The organ and bass guitar introduced for the final verse add an emphatic sense of warmth to the production. And I like how the recording levels are raised for the pounding tom-tom pattern that closes the track out. It’s beautiful stuff. Seems right it’s the last Lola… song I cover on here.

*The folder containing the album says it was created on 8th July 2015, 15:55. So, there you go.

#1057: The Kinks – Powerman

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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.