A peculiar thought just occured to me. I can’t remember which came first Lola from The Kinks or Lola from Damn Yankees. Both were products of the Academy Days. I’m certain that I picked this up for the song Lola. I’m not certain where my desire for Lola originated. One For The Road was the only option I had in the Columbia House catalog. Am I Lucky or what?
One For The Road not only has a bunch of great tracks but it is a great sounding live album. Another thing about The Kinks that I find interesting in the context of musical influences is that they have influenced so many other bands that followed. The Kinks formed in 1964 which puts them in the club with all those other British Invasion groups like The Beatles and Rolling Stones. With company like that, I feel that The Kinks may have been somewhat overlooked or forgotten. Not many people here in the midwest seemed too keen on The Kinks when I brought One For The Road with me back to Indiana. Here, it seemed much more Rolling Stones country. I remember telling some Van Halen fans “No, that is a Kinks song. No, that was The Kinks also.”
With One For The Road, I was not only able to acquire Lola but probably the best version of the song. Here is yet another example where if I simply downloaded Lola I never would have given all the rest of amazing songs a chance. Songs like Pressure, National Health and what would become my favorite, Celluloid Heroes.
I would go on to buy a couple more albums by The Kinks but none of them seemed to capture the energy or my imagination like One For The Road.
Catch Me Now I’m Falling
Where Have All The Good Times gone
Lola
Pressure
All Day And All Of The Night
National Health
‘Till The End Of The Day
Celluloid Heroes
You Really Got Me
What is it about Celluloid Heroes that reaches me so deeply? Is it the romantic nostalgia of the 1940’s that it seems to invoke? Is it the notion of the saddness of immortality? That is the great thing about emotion, it makes things highly unpredictable and oftern discards logic altogether.