Ray Davies’ favourite Motown song: “We didn’t know it was going to be political”
From the 1960s until the present day, Ray Davies has always been regarded as an icon of British pop music for his work as a member of The Kinks, and as an inspiration towards future generations of songwriters from the UK. While their level of commercial acclaim tended to fluctuate at the time, the Kinks helped define an entire era of British music, and in essence they laid the foundations for the Britpop movement while the likes of Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker were still in school.
However, at the same time that Davies and his band were making quintessentially representative music of their own tiny island nation, the US was experiencing a huge cultural shift through the Civil Rights movement, and the rise of Motown Records in Detroit that celebrated the music of black soul artists with plenty to say about the state of the nation was arguably the most accurate portrayal of life in America at the same time.
From Marvin Gaye to Diana Ross, Motown’s star-studded roster produced some of the greatest pop music of the 1960s and ‘70s, and Davies, despite living in England, would have been acutely aware of its importance to the ever-shifting musical landscape. Motown had a massive impact in the UK, gaining just as much chart success across the Atlantic as they did on home soil, and while there wasn’t a great deal of overlap between the sounds of the label and what the Kinks were doing, you can imagine that there would have been a decent amount of respect shown by Davies towards the artistry.
Back in 2023, Davies made an appearance on the BBC Radio 6 Music show, 6 Music Stories, where he spoke to Jools Holland about his career and some of the songs that have inspired him over the years. While making nods to the likes of Otis Redding and Dizzy Gillespie among his other selections, the Motown track that made the biggest impression on the songwriter was The Temptations’ ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)’.
Written at the start of the 1970s by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the track is a psychedelic soul song that touches on the turmoil that the US found itself in at the turn of the decade, with the looming threat of nuclear war and the conflict in Vietnam hanging over the heads of Americans. While Motown artists often used their platform to make reference to social issues, ‘Ball of Confusion’ is one of very few protest records that the label put out, making it stand out among the rest of the their catalogue.
With an undeniably funky groove and heaps of passion, there are nods to Sly & the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix that can be felt in the style of the song, and it certainly sticks out as one of the Temptations’ finest moments. While the Kinks were clearly taking a different approach to crafting their own psychedelic pop and rock music, the sheer power of this song was enough to grab the attention of Davies, who cited it as one of his favourite records of all time.
However, Bob Babbitt, who played bass on the track, had no idea that the song would have the political impact that it did until he heard it on the radio, because all he was ever asked to do was perform the rhythm track. “Putting it together was simple,” he explained. “We just did that one song in the three-hour session and we had enough time left over to eat some BLT sandwiches. We didn’t know it was going to be political, because the lyrics weren’t written when the rhythm track was recorded.”
