“Strangers” by The Kinks

"Strangers" gave Dave Davies his turn in the spotlight on Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, the Kinks album that came out in November 1970 on Pye and brought the world "Lola". He wrote two songs for the record, this one and "Rats", with Ray Davies producing, and by his own account the song is about a friend from his school days who was killed by a drug overdose.

It never came out as a single, but the fans held on to it, and its following only grew after Wes Anderson put it in The Darjeeling Limited in 2007, alongside two more tracks from the same album, "This Time Tomorrow" and "Powerman". Television came calling too, with Ted Lasso and The Last Man on Earth both borrowing pieces of it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.