The Kinks song Ray Davies wrote about the witchy woman who as “sexually out of my league”
If The Kinks frontman Ray Davies were a fictional character in an 18th-century novel, he would no doubt be the brooding, reserved loner type with a brilliant mind. He would haunt the wistful streets of London, admiring his muse from afar without ever approaching her for fear of making a fool out of himself. His trepidation would be misconstrued as mystique, and people would gather in bars trying to figure out if he was real or a mere figure of folklore.
Well, maybe there are some discrepancies to that theory, mainly because Davies isn’t all that enigmatic in the real world. However, the many notes of romantic idealism that permeate The Kinks’ work point to someone who viewed the world through a lens of bittersweet longing, even when his surroundings didn’t best agree with who he was as a person.
In a broader sense, The Kinks’ music often captures the friction that comes with disillusionment and stark reality, with lyrics that lament the aftermath of political and societal upheaval and those who were caught in the crossfire. This tension is often veiled in cynicism, the kind that could only be commented on by a lurking figure observing the downfall of community in the face of modernity.
That said, some songs appear more abstract in execution, drawing from fictional elements to create narratives that mirror some of Davies’ real experiences. For 1968’s The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, the band relied on concept album conventions to compile a series of character-driven stories, resulting in broader, more hard-hitting observations about the dangers of modernisation.
One of these character cases was factored into ‘Wicked Annabella’, a song darker in delivery than many tracks on the rest of the album but compounded by the eery yet endearing allure of whimsical fairytales. Interestingly, Davies created the song the way he did—with overuse of echo and distortions—to make it sound “as horrible as it could,” resulting in what biographer Andy Miller later referred to as a sinister “psychedelic nursery rhyme.”
In the song, Annabella is portrayed as a wicked witch who starkly reminds children that not staying in bed and avoiding the woods at night is immensely dangerous. Aside from the woozy experience of listening to the track and its obvious commentary on the dangers that lurk in society long after sunset, ‘Wicked Annabella’ could be viewed as an allusion to someone real who crossed paths with Davies, but—in his signature, 18th-century recluse fashion—he shied away in the face of her overwhelming energy.
Of course, all of this could also be mere backstories, but it’s interesting to entertain the idea of inspiration striking from a real place nonetheless. As he reflected during an interview with Mojo: “Annabella was too good for me. Sexually she was out of my league. She was very voluptuous and I was a shy kid. She knew how to take virginity and not feel anything.”
He added: “She had a dark side, but also a good side. Her innocence was crushed when she was young. You see, I do a back story on all of them. I’m like a detective.”
During another interview, he described the song as “Dickensian” and claimed Annabella lived with her widowed mother “in a big house,” which was reflected in the “power chords” throughout the song. Although fictional, Annabella is undeniably as real as Davies’ own attitude towards contemporary culture, where—just as he will forever lurk and observe from the sidelines—Annabella represents the forces of insidious power that will always be one step ahead.
