The Kinks Trivia

1. On Track five, "You Really Got Me", Ray collaborated with one of the greatest thrash metal bands in the world. Name the band.

From Quiz See My Friends

Answer: Metallica

"You Really Got Me" was the first big hit for the Kinks, topping the UK charts and getting to number seven in the USA. Featuring some great power chords from Ray's brother Dave, it and its follow-up, "All Day And All Of The Night" are regularly quoted as great influences on many heavy metal and punk bands.

From Quiz Kinks Lyrics

Answer: Days

Before becoming the Kinks they started off as the Ravens. The original line-up of the Kinks were Ray Davies (guitar, lead vocals), Dave Davies (lead guitar, vocals), Pete Quaife (bass guitar), and Mick Avory (drums).

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Lola"

Answer: In a club in Soho

The opening line states: "I met her in a club down in old Soho". Oh boy! Was the singer's life about to change or what? When testing this quiz on my daughter, her suggested answer was (verbatim): "In an alley behind an elephant"! In her defence, she had just recently awoken. Just goes to show, no matter how strange the song may have been, there was potential for it to be much stranger!

From Quiz The Most Underrated Band of All Time:The Kinks

Answer: Ray Davies

Ray Davies was the genius behind most of The Kinks material. In the 80's, he and Pretender Chrissie Hynde had a child.

From Quiz The Kinks: Songs and Albums

Answer: Kinda Kinks

Also on the album, the classic hit single 'Tired of Waiting for You,' which, at the time, was the quickest single ever to knock off the Beatles from the top of the Charts. Those Kinky Kinks knocked off the fab four just after a mere two weeks.

From Quiz Kinky Opening Lines

Answer: You Really Got Me

This was their first number one hit in the UK, and it was their third single. According to Ray Davies, just before the fabulous guitar solo played by brother Dave, you can hear the latter telling Ray to...well...beat it (Only his choice of words were a bit on the harsher side)

From Quiz Kinky Kinks Questions

Answer: Ray Davies

His full name is Raymond Douglas Davies

From Quiz The Socially Conscious Kinks

Answer: Transvestism

Knowing that this would be a hit song, they made an entire album around it called "Lola versus Powerman and the Money-go-round" about the recording of the song.

From Quiz Kinks Lyrics A-Z

Answer: Apeman

From the album "Lola Versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round", originally released in 1970.

From Quiz Song by Song: "Waterloo Sunset"

Answer: Ray Davies

Ray Davies composed the song and supplied lead vocals and acoustic guitar. Mick Avory was on drums, while Pete Quaife was on bass. Roger Hodgson is the frontman for Supertramp. "Waterloo Sunset" is considered as belonging to the orchestral pop and psychedelic pop genres.

From Quiz The Kinks are Underrated- Part II: 1970s

Answer: Lola

The good news about the United States ban was that it focused Ray Davies more on his songwriting and studio recording techniques. In reality, it was only some of the American audience who lost touch with the Kinks; the group continued to be internationally viable, producing solid albums as they moved from being mostly hard rockers to a much wider repertoire of songs. Davies was finding his voice as a social commentator. With the mega-hit "Lola," from the 1970 album "Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround," the Kinks were back on the scene in every sense. Ask a Rock & Roll music fan today to name a Kinks song, and this one tends come up first. The smoky tale of an encounter with a transvestite in a bar captures the Kinks' essence and lives up to the "classic" label. The song was controversial for two reasons. The subject matter caused some UK stations to fade out the record before the end supposedly revealed Lola's true identity as a man. Australia eventually banned it in December of 1970 for a brief time because of content. In the UK the song came in for more arcane scrutiny. The rest of the first line is "...where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola." Because of BBC laws concerning product placement, for the single released in the UK the group had to record another version where "cherry cola" was substituted for "Coca-Cola."

From Quiz See My Friends

Answer: Bruce Springsteen

Named as Best Break-up Song by "American Songwriter" in 2011, "Better Things" was released as a single by The Kinks in 1981. Ray and The Boss make a great job of the song, as did The Fountains of Wayne on a tribute album to Ray and The Kinks, "This Is Where I Belong".

From Quiz A Bit Kinky

Answer: You Really Got Me

It has been claimed by Robert Walser, an American musicologist, that 'You Really Got Me' was "the track which invented heavy metal" (Wikipedia reference to Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, p.9.). In 2005 the track was voted as the best British song of 1955-1965 in a poll of BBC listeners. 'Rolling Stone' listed it at number four in their list of '100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time' *Useless Information*: The distinctive guitar sound on this track was created by Dave Davies who slit the cone of his amplifier and poked it with a pin.

From Quiz Kinks Lyrics

Answer: Better Things

This song was from the 1981 album "Give the people what they want". The album reached number 15 in the US but failed to chart in the UK.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Lola"

Answer: Champagne

"Where you drink champagne...". Everything was going along quite nicely at this point!

From Quiz The Kinks: Songs and Albums

Answer: Something Else

This album gave the world one of the most beautiful ballads of all time, 'Waterloo Sunset.'

From Quiz Kinky Opening Lines

Answer: A Well-Respected Man

The single hit UK #13 in February 1966. There's a great line in the song where Ray goes "...he goes the the regatta....cause he's dying to get at her" What a rhyme!

From Quiz Kinky Kinks Questions

Answer: Long Tall Sally

B-side was "I Took My Baby Home", written by Ray Davies

From Quiz Kinks Lyrics A-Z

Answer: Back to Front

From the album "Give the People What They Want", originally released in 1981.

From Quiz Kinks, Those Muswell Hillbillies

Answer: London

The Kinks are real Londoners. Beatles, Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers and others are from Liverpool. Mott the Hoople are (is?) from Birmingham, and I don't know anyone from York.

From Quiz The Kinks Kuiz

Answer: Pete Quaife

Pete Quaife remained with the band off and on until finally quitting in 1969. John Dalton was his replacement. Nash, a member of The Hollies, shared many venues with The Kinks in the early days. Arthur Lee was a member of the American band Love.

From Quiz Song by Song: "Waterloo Sunset"

Answer: The Thames

Songfacts.com quotes Ray Davies: "I was in St Thomas' Hospital there when I was really ill as a child, and I looked out on the Thames. Later I used to go past the [Waterloo] station when I went to art college on the train. And I met my first girlfriend, who became my first wife, along the Embankment at Waterloo."

From Quiz The Kinks are Underrated- Part II: 1970s

Answer: Muswell Hillbillies

The album's title track has Ray proudly and defiantly celebrating his roots as a "Muswell Hillbilly boy." The brothers grew up in the Muswell Hill section of North London, and it was there they formed the band. The album was a commercial disappointment after the success of "Lola," failing to chart in England and reaching only Number 48 position in the USA. However, music critics and hard core fans for the most part loved it. Ray Davies was honing his message. The album effectively and honestly distilled the angst of regular people trying to make a go of life in the increasingly complicated and technological late 20th century ("Here Come the People in Grey" and "20th Century Man'); and at the same time it good-naturedly satirized British society ("Have a Cuppa Tea" and "Skin and Bone"). By the way, the picture on the album cover is the Archway Tavern in Islington, a few kilometers from Muswell Hill. Because of the Kinks connection, the pub and the building became something of an historic landmark in the 1980s. Local district officials would like to see the presently shuttered location, which had a brief recent interlude as a live music venue, reopened as a public house.

From Quiz See My Friends

Answer: Jackson Browne

Released in 1967, "Waterloo Sunset" is one of The Kinks' best-known and best-loved songs. Ray performed it at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. For decades it was believed that Terry and Julie, mentioned in the song, were the actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, who were making "Far From The Madding Crowd" at the time, but in later life Ray denied this.

From Quiz A Bit Kinky

Answer: days

Whilst The Kinks version of 'Days' did not chart on the US Billboard 100 it did reach number 12 in the UK. Coincidentally Kirsty MacColl's version also charted at number twelve in the UK, exactly 21 years later, also without reaching the American charts.

From Quiz Kinks Lyrics

Answer: I'm Not Like Everybody Else

Lead singer Ray Davies was romantically linked with the Pretenders Chrissie Hynde. Though never married they had a daughter together.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Lola"

Answer: Cherry Cola

"Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Cherry Cola". Originally, the lyrics named a different drink, but the BBC refused to play it on the grounds that it constituted free advertising, so The Kinks were forced to re-record the lyrics with a different drink inserted.

From Quiz The Most Underrated Band of All Time:The Kinks

Answer: London

Most of them grew up in Muswell Hill, a suburb of London.

From Quiz The Kinks: Songs and Albums

Answer: The Village Green Preservation Society

This was Ray Davies masterpiece, or at least that's what he wanted it to be. The album sold poorly in the US and broke Ray's heart.

From Quiz Kinky Opening Lines

Answer: Lola

Lola, is it about a transvestite or isn't it? The line at the end of the song goes: "I'm glad I'm a man, and so is Lola" Does this mean that Lola is glad I'm a man, or that Lola is also a man? "Lola" was a UK #2 hit and stayed 14 weeks on the charts. On the single version Ray sings "Cherry Cola" and not "Coca Cola". The BBC wouldn't play any songs that could be an advertisment for a product, so Ray flew from New York to London just to change the lyrics.

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Last Updated Apr 26 2025 5:46 AM

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