Many of us are experiencing isolation these days, and many of us don’t like it. Human beings are social creatures, and we seem to do better when we’re connecting with others.
That goes for musicians. There’s a recurring but counterintuitive narrative in popular music that solitude is a necessary component of creative genius. We think of Justin Vernon sequestering himself in a cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin and producing a touchstone album for the millennial generation. Or Bruce Springsteen, holing up with a four-track recorder in his New Jersey home to write and record the sparse but brilliant “Nebraska.” Or Don Henley, presented with the musical arrangement to “Hotel California” by his Eagles bandmates, disappearing for several days to compose its memorable lyrics.
But these are exceptions rather than rules. Vernon has collaborated with Kanye West and a number of other artists. Springsteen thrived as the leader of a large ensemble, the E Street Band, to produce his most beloved tracks. And Henley is best known as one half of one of rock’s most legendary and enduring partnerships, behind perhaps only Lennon-McCartney. Everyone needs an occasional break from each other, but going it alone is not what most successful recording artists do.
What happens when an entire band finds itself isolated from the larger musical community? That’s a question I’ve pondered in looking at the catalog of the Kinks, along with successive artists’ attempts to cover their material. For reasons that have never been clear to me (or frontman Ray Davies, at least in his memoir “Americana”), the Kinks found themselves banished from touring the United States for a period of about five years in the late 1960s. This during a time when fellow British invaders the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Who hit the stratosphere by tapping into the American market. Meanwhile, the Kinks, who’d introduced the world to the power chord with breakthrough smashes “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night,” retreated to British confines, where Davies carved out a home-grown niche for the band. His masterful storytelling featured acerbic observations of English society with songs like “Well Respected Man,” “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” and “Sunny Afternoon.” They spoke directly to English audiences, who innately understood Davies’ criticisms and witticisms, complete with a Cockney accent that he refused to hide. It’s not that American listeners wouldn’t get it, but with the band unable to tour here, aiming music at the U.S. market didn’t make sense. Whatever the circumstances, the Kinks produced arguably their finest music during this period.
But something was missing. You won’t hear it in their recordings. It’s only when the next generation of musicians began to tap into the Kinks’ vast catalog that limitations in the band’s ability to interpret Davies’ compositions become apparent. Some of this can be attributed to improvements in studio production. Yet, the Beatles and the Stones, working with the same technology of the ’60s, have seen their original recordings stand up as definitive takes against would-be re-interpreters. So why were ’70s and ’80s acts, three in particular, able to outshine the Kinks with Davies’ own material? It had nothing to with musicianship — the Kinks were as tight as any band out there. Instead, I’d argue their period of banishment excluded them from the rich lexicon of rock music’s homeland — the U.S. — and left them with a depleted toolkit to lay down tracks worthy of Davies’ songwriting. Three in particular stand out to me:
“Where Have All the Good Times Gone”
This wasn’t Van Halen’s first crack at the Kinks. Their debut album famously featured a scorching take on “You Really Got Me,” although I’d argue the Kinks won that round. That’s not the case with Davies’ spot-on sendup of growing up, growing old and wallowing in nostalgia. From the opening guitar blast and David Lee Roth howl, Van Halen stakes its claim to the song. It’s a raucous rocker, established as such by an earlier David Bowie cover and something the Kinks never seemed to grasp. The announcement of “All my life I’ve never stopped to worry about a thing/Opened up and shouted out and never tried to sing” is tailor-made for Roth’s party animal persona, and it’s hard to understand how the bratty, smirking but essentially prim Davies saw himself in that role. The payoff line “Ah but then let’s face it, things are easier today” is a textbook Davies turn, but again it’s Roth who pulls off the grinning shrug.
“David Watts”
Given the Jam’s working-class punk roots, this cover was a no-brainer. Interestingly, the Kinks’ take seems less interested in class politics, with sad-sack Davies narrating a woe-is-me tale of obsessive envy for the high school team captain. The Jam infuses the grievance and desperation that lines like “all of the girls in the neighborhood try to go out with David Watts” demand, indicating it might be more than David Watts’ athletic prowess and good looks that’s holding back the “dull and simple lad.” Indeed, in the hands of the Jam, Davies’ acceptance of his rival’s “pure and noble breed” takes on an air of simmering class resentment — complete with soccer hooligan chant “oy!” — a theme they would revisit with their not-so-subtle “Mr. Clean.”
“Stop Your Sobbing”
This surprisingly complex ode to the limits of consoling someone out of depression is about as emotional as Davies’ songcraft gets, yet he sings it with the pathos of someone clipping their toenails. It’s a song about crying, Ray. It literally has “sobbing” in the title. Enter Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders, who make it the soul track it was meant to be, replacing the Kinks’ plodding, disinterested tempo with a driving, determined rhythm that endows the song with purpose. Hynde lays it on thick with an oversized vibrato worthy of Ronnie Spector, bringing urgency and compassion to lines like “it is time for you to laugh/so keep on trying,” while standing resolutely firm with “there’s one thing you gotta do/to make me still want you/you gotta stop sobbing.”
To be fair, the above selections were inspired choices by the bands that covered them. They found ample room within Davies’ compositions to accommodate their own stylistic strengths. They and other challengers would be well-advised to avoid quintessentially Kinks songs like “Waterloo Sunset” or “Shangri-La,” which are indelibly stamped with the style and sound of the band that created them. But the more I listen to the Kinks, the greater potential I see for liberal interpretation of their music, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Kinks themselves got into the act with their early-’80s hit “Paranoia,” borrowing the bass line from “All Day and All of the Night” while Davies sprinkled in a winking reference to his “girl named Lola.” And their 1994 live version of “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” is a dark triumph, with Davies issuing his menacing growl while brother Dave’s thick lead guitar drips off the track like syrup.
There’s a reason such a musically diverse mix of talented acts has kept turning to the Kinks’ catalog. Their reverse exile in Britain, while temporarily crippling cross-Atlantic connections, gave their music an unfinished quality, opening it up to the unlimited potential of cross-generational collaboration and proving that no band is an island.
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