Morning Commute Soundtrack: The Kinks

Before I switched over to The Civil Wars’ Barton Hollow, which I felt was more conducive to easing into the workday, I set my iPod on shuffle songs and the first that played was The Kinks’ ‘(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman’. There’s no doubt that Ray Davies’ whimsical character songs from the 1960s and early 1970s was the peak of his songwriting with the Kinks, and that once punk and New Wave came along in the mid-1970s, he had to find a way to adapt. Since then, every Kinks album was indistinguishable from the other, and a lot of Low Budget is exceptional, but bathed in the heavy metal sturm und drang that was the band’s tactic to maintain relevancy. (It worked, for the most part, up until 1984, but every album afterwards was all the same.)

Anyway. ‘Superman’ is the only time the Kinks would stray into that horrid excursion called disco, something that every relevant band of the day would do, but what’s surprising is how well the foray works. With its thumping, four-to-the-floor beat and a pulsating bass, the song features some electrifying guitar work from Dave Davies, and an especially humorous story of a “nine-stone weakling with knobbly knees” trying to impress the ladies with his concave chest. But its humor – typically British and wry – masks a deeper meaning, which was the Winter of Discontent that affected the nation in 1978, just as Margaret Thatcher came into power as Prime Minister. The lines “There was a gas strike, oil strike, lorry strike, bread strike / Gotta be a Superman to survive” hint at the ridiculousness of all the strikes, but are poignant in its sympathy with the working masses. Over 30 years later, and very little has changed.

Below is the “extended disco mix”, which I find to be superior to the album version, as it contains some additional guitar work at the end that’s just wonderful.