‘Lola’ and ‘Destroyer’: The story of The Kinks song sequel
It’s a creative trajectory few could have anticipated. Starting with the raw, garage-rock stomp of ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night’, The Kinks laid the groundwork for punk while carving out a distinct identity in the 1960s UK charts.
Across albums like Face to Face and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), the north London band eschewed the era’s acid-drenched psychedelia in favour of Anglo-centric pop explorations. Evolving from their gritty R&B roots, they embraced a love for England’s idiosyncrasies, offering biting social commentary with tracks like ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, and capturing tender romanticism in the timeless ‘Waterloo Sunset’.
Yet, The Kinks heralded the 1970s with a turn into theatre. Releasing a string of rock opera LPs with overlapping narratives and characters, singer Ray Davies’ venture into arena showmanship was supported by the addition of a female backing group, a horn section, and numerous costumed actors.
Dreaming up the characters Mr Flash and Mr Black (the latter portrayed by his brother Dave), Davies found the clash between ruthless capitalism and puritanical socialism so compelling that he expanded the story across two albums, Preservation Act 1 and its sequel, even exploring Flash’s backstory on Schoolboys in Disgrace (notorious for having what many consider the worst cover in their catalogue).
There were earlier signs of Davies’ conceptual penchants, however. 1968’s The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society centred around ‘Village Green’s pastoral lament of the declining rural way of life, but 1970s Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, as the title suggested, was intended as a series. A satirical attack on the music industry, Davies further elucidated to Uncut in 2014 its, and the unrealised sequel’s, themes: “Lola Versus Powerman… was good versus evil, obviously, and in Volume Two, I sketched out how you become your worst nightmare, how the good man goes so far he becomes the evil person he always fought against.”
Davies’ most famous characters come from one of The Kinks’ biggest hits, the titular transvestite from their 1970 smash ‘Lola’. Long rumoured to be inspired by Andy Warhol associate and actor Candy Darling, there’s debate as to the song’s exact genesis. Whether inspired by Kinks manager dancing with a crossdresser in his apartment til six in the morning or Carnaby Street publicist Michael McGrath’s keen frequency of London’s drag queen bars, Davies offered some clarity: “It was a real experience in a club. I was asked to dance by somebody who was a fabulous-looking woman. I said ‘no thank you’. And she went in a cab with my manager straight afterwards. It’s based on a personal experience. But not every word.”
Detailing the narrator’s confused infatuation with Soho’s Lola, who “walked like a woman but talked like a man”, Davies’ champagne-swigging hedonist serves as a vehicle to explore passion amid muddled ambiguity, a theme he’d revisit on 1981’s Give the People What They Want, a rebuke against Amercia’s sensationalist culture of media overload that saw Davies reach into his grab bag of characters to explore anxiety and a fraying connection to reality.
Like David Bowie’s resurrection of Major Tom for ‘Ashes to Ashes’, The Kinks brings Lola back on ‘Destroyer’, a sequel to the original 1970 hit that borrows ‘All Day and All of the Night’s riff for the group at one of their most raucous. The protagonist, suffering from paranoia, obsessing over “hidden cameras” and “reds under the bed”, is talked down from his distressed state by Lola after having brought her back to his apartment. A lyrical delve into America’s overstimulated culture both medically and semi-politically, ‘Destroyer’ is miles away from ‘Lola’s chant along pop, cutting one of the most feverish singles in their entire discography.
What shines through Lola’s return is Davies’ affection for the Soho seductress. While depicted originally with allure and a level of sexualisation, ‘Destroyer’ sees her as the only sane actor in Davies’ dramatic scenario, trying to talk sense to the frenzied narrator and seize him out of both his apartment’s and the US of A’s corporatised cesspool.
