‘Prince of the Punks’: the vicious novelty song The Kinks used to throw insults
It’s not often that you can write a throwaway novelty song and also have it double up as an attack on another musician. Diss tracks are usually meant to be taken incredibly seriously and are either written in such an indirect manner that the song’s subject has to figure out it’s about them or are full-scale character assassinations where one artist takes every receipt they have on a person and broadcasts it for the world to see. It’s not often they’re delivered in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, as that can soften the message an artist wants to send, but when The Kinks chose to write one about their mortal enemy, they did so in a lampooning fashion.
The Kinks were known for flitting between genres on several occasions during their career. They shifted from garage rock and proto-punk in their earliest years to psychedelic pop in the late 1960s and full-blown stadium rock in the subsequent decade. They may well have been critical of following trends on their 1966 hit ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, but the band could definitely have been accused of doing this themselves.
Tom Robinson, on the other hand, was largely known for having been in the punk and new wave scene during the 1970s and stuck relatively rigidly to this line of work throughout his recording career. The musician, who had hits with the Tom Robinson Band with songs such as ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’ and ‘Glad to Be Gay’, has since carved out a career in broadcasting, having hosted shows on multiple BBC radio stations since 1986. However, this seemingly steadfast commitment didn’t absolve him from being criticised by Ray Davies in the form of ‘Prince of the Punks’.
The Kinks’ tirade against Robinson arrived as a B-side to their 1977 Christmas song, ‘Father Christmas’, but it’s worth noting that Davies and Robinson already had history by this point. Davies had discovered Robinson in the early ‘70s when he was performing in the folk-punk act Café Society and even went as far as producing and releasing their sole album via his record label, Konk. However, there’s a reason why it was their only album: poor record sales and reception caused the band to split before they had the opportunity to write a second album.
However, Davies maintained the rights to publish Robinson’s music for a considerable amount of time afterwards, which led to a rather public feud between the two parties. This spat led to the creation of ‘Prince of the Punks’, and Davies certainly didn’t hold back from making his true feelings about Robinson clear despite not mentioning the singer by name during the song. Opening with the line “a well-known groover, rock ‘n’ roll user, wanted to be a star, but he failed the blues, and he’s back to loser playing folk in a country bar,” things only get more cutting from the intro onwards.
Taking swipes at Robinson’s bisexuality, political views and money-chasing exploits, Davies truly hammers the nail into Robinson’s coffin on the track, but the level of savagery on display also doesn’t exactly frame the Kinks’ frontman in the best of ways either, showing him to be nothing more than a bully. However, it’s hard to see Davies having any regrets about displaying this amount of bitterness, accusing him of putting on a working-class front and having a dated style on top of all of his other perceived ‘crimes’.
Robinson wouldn’t go down without a fight, however, although there wasn’t nearly as much vitriol packed into his retort. ‘Don’t Take No For An Answer’ was released early in 1978 in response to the vicious attack that The Kinks had written about him, and while nobody can really be said to have had the last laugh in this situation, with the heat dying down after this one-two exchange of blows, ‘Prince of the Punks’ definitely goes down as the more brutal offering in this bitter rivalry.
