The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
TRACK LIST
01. The Village Green Preservation Society
02. Do You Remember Walter?
03. Picture Book
04. Johnny Thunder
05. Last of the Steam-Powered Trains
06. Big Sky
07. Sitting by the Riverside
08. Animal Farm
09. Village Green
10. Starstruck
11. Phenomenal Cat
12. All of My Friends Were There
13. Wicked Annabella
14. Monica
15. People Take Pictures of Each Other
I have always felt that the Kinks were deserving of the same lavish praise that's been heaped upon the other stalwarts of the British Invasion era (i.e. The Beatles, The Stones& The Who). Sadly, this is not the case. Has England produced a true songwriter better than Ray Davies? I think not. To make the case that The Kinks should rightfully be ranked alongside The Beatles, let me put forth a hot platter that is as strikingly inventive as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Yes, friends, I speak of (fanfare please) The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society!
Released in 1968, this concept album paid tribute to the simpler days of English small-town life and all of its daily minutiae. It is a collection of songs about friends, childhood memories and family. While some of these themes had been artfully explored on the Sgt. Peppers album, Ray Davies ability to communicate a certain sense of British sensibility was a bit more striking than what Lennon & McCartney had created on Sgt. Peppers. As Chuck Berry's songs were uniquely American, The Kinks, with the release of this hot platter (and their opus "Waterloo Sunset"), had become the true ambassadors of the English perspective, both old and new.
Ray Davies
Songwriter and band leader Ray Davies crafted the concept album as a gentle homage to English hamlet life and, by extension, to the innocence and idealization of past times and people. The songs were assembled from material recorded over a two-year period prior to the album's release, as Davies moved away from producing commercial hit singles and into a more personal, nostalgic style of songwriting. Many of the songs recorded prior to the early summer of 1968 may have originally been intended for a Ray Davies solo album and/or stage show related to the loose 'village green' theme, because Davies was unsure whether they fit the Kinks' musical image and style. But as the concept progressed, and as the Kinks' commercial fortunes declined in 1968, the album was completed as a full-fledged Kinks project. Fearing the band would soon dissolve and that this would be their final project, Davies poured his heart into the album, tinkering with it until the last possible minute. He even halted the production of an early release version to revamp the song selection. The album’s theme came together after the Kinks recorded Village Green; the track was inspired by the Kinks' performances near rustic Devon, England in November 1966. Davies has also stated that Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood was an indirect inspiration for the concept. The song Village Green neatly sums up the album's broad theme: 'I miss the village green, and all the simple people...' In addition to nostalgia, the album's songs touch on a wide range of emotions and experiences, from lost friends ('Do You Remember Walter'), memories ('People Take Pictures of Each Other', 'Picture Book'), bucolic escape ('Animal Farm'), social marginalization ('Johnny Thunder', 'Wicked Annabella'), public embarrassment ('All of My Friends Were There'), childlike fantasy ('Phenomenal Cat'), straying from home ('Starstruck') and stoical acceptance of life ('Big Sky', 'Sitting By the Riverside'). Davies did not compose many of the songs to fit the predetermined theme of the album, rather their commonality developed naturally from his nostalgic songwriting interests at the time. The title track, one of the last written and recorded (in August 1968), effectively unifies the songs through an appeal to preserve a litany of sentimental objects, experiences, and fictional characters from progress and modern indifference: 'God save little shops, china cups, and virginity'. This last lyric inspired the slogan, 'God save the Kinks' which was used in the US promotion for the album, and was associated with the band through the 1970s.
"In summer 1966, while all around was experimentation with tape loops, phasing, backwards guitars — the atmospheric interference of the gathering psychedelic storm — Davies was concentrating on songwriting craft. Sunny Afternoon was the first manifestation of a new signature Kinks style that would culminate two years later in The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society… The Kinks’ new album willfully disregarded anything fashionable in British rock or pop at the time. There were no long guitar solos, no extended freeform jams, no lyrics based on the Tibetan Book Of The Dead or The Communist Manifesto. Instead, The Kinks were singing songs about lost friends, draught beer, motorbike riders, wicked witches and flying cats…He drew on a well of personal and traditional sources to create an album which, although nominally concerned with the characters that live around a village green, goes deep into territory rarely explored in pop: memory, regret, failure, growing old. The record sounds very English, but its Englishness is a sideshow, a metaphor for the universal problem Davies was wrestling with — the problem of being alive. For two years, Ray Davies worked on the album as a potential stage presentation, then a solo project, then as a new Kinks record. The group stockpiled enough wonderful music for two albums…As the pop climate shifted around him and The Kinks’ fortunes waned, he persevered. The LP’s line-up went from twelve tracks to twenty to fifteen. And when Davies’ pet project was finally released it flopped. Worse, it was ignored. The group’s profile on the pop scene was minimal and The Kinks’ label, Pye Records, was a singles-based outfit that had yet to adapt to the switch to albums that had occurred in the wake of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. So, in late 1968, no one knew Ray Davies had just painted his masterpiece — small wonder he regards its belated elevation to cult status with skepticism… In the time it took to make this classic album, The Kinks dropped off the pop radar. They were yesterday’s men, an identity the ever-contrary Ray Davies seemed to embrace on his instantly out-of-date new album… The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is not just the best album The Kinks ever made, but as the years have passed since its release, it stands revealed as the only album of the pop era to look beyond the 1960s and consider what might happen next. This is the story of how, by conspicuously failing to set a trend, The Kinks created something enduring and unsurpassed, not just the most perfect manifestation of Ray Davies’ inimitable wit, sadness, quiet anger and charm, but also a timeless reminder that every party, however fabulous, has to come to an end.” (Andy Miller, Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society / 33 1/3 book series)
Ray & Dave Davies in the studio circa 1968
"The Kinks first recorded the song Village Green during the sessions for their Something Else LP, in late November 1966. However, instead of including the song in the album it was originally meant for, leader and main songwriter Ray Davies decided to store the song for a future project he had envisioned, where it would be its' centerpiece. At first, it would be a solo project by Davies, centered around the village green and nostalgia concepts, based on his childhood memories and experiences in England, scheduled for release sometime in late '67. However, with the others becoming interested in the concept, he decided to scrap such plans and turn the then-titled Village Green album into a band effort. So, recording for this new project started soon after they released the Something Else album, in September of 1967. They tracked three new songs, one of them being released as a non-album single (Autumn Almanac, which managed to hit #3 in the UK charts), and the other two being reserved for the new record, Village Green. Recording followed, with sessions happening throughout 1968, until August, when they finished a 12-track master.
Scheduled for release on September 27th, this 12 song Village Green album was soon canceled under Ray's wishes. He had asked Pye, their record label, to have some additional time to track new songs, and perhaps even expand it into a 20-track double LP. The label reluctantly agreed, and so in September, they recorded an additional two songs for the record, them being Big Sky and Last of the Steam Powered Trains, and started to mix the new double LP. However, Pye weren't that confident in the band back then. The failure of their latest single, Wonderboy, which barely made the top 30 in England, had left a bad taste in their mouths, and a double LP by them would be a big bet. They decided to nix the idea, much to Davies' anger and insisted on it being a single album. As a compromise, however, they decided to allow the album to feature fifteen tracks, instead of the original twelve. That meant two tracks would be removed, them being Days and Mr. Songbird, and the two newly recorded songs and three outtakes would be added. That gave Sitting By the Riverside, Animal Farm, and All My Friends Were There the spots they now have in the LP." (The Reconstructor Blog)
"Some call the Village Green album Ray Davies’ Sgt. Pepper moment, though the only song that reflected this statement stylistically was Phenomenal Cat. The album takes the listener on a different kind of journey, one where childhood nostalgia and the simplicity of the English countryside are paths to peace and freedom. Leading up to the album, The Kinks had hit a few rough patches both personally and in their career. After celebrating hit singles You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night, the group ventured on a successful U.S. tour, only to be banned from returning the country for 4 years. A neglected payment of dues to the American Federation of Television and Recording Artists resulted in a blacklist by the organization. Ray Davies later told Uncut , 'I felt we’d had a raw deal, the band were being punished unjustly'. The result was a missed opportunity to for American fans to see the band at what may have been their best years. The popularity of the act slowly declined in the states, though The Kinks remained successful in the UK and Europe. Pressure from the industry to write hits and the headache from tour and legal troubles led Ray Davies to have a nervous breakdown. Bass player Pete Quaife was involved in a car wreck and temporarily left the band in ’66. It is easy to imagine the yearning for lyricist Ray to find a place of comfort after the difficulties the band had faced." (psychrock.com)
"Devoid of any obvious singles, or any fancy production techniques like those on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the album is a true pleasure from beginning to end, arguably running circles around the competition in both songwriting and cohesiveness, and 45 years later is more influential than ever. But in 1968, released the same day as the Beatles' self-titled White Album, Village Green disappeared without a trace." (esquire.com)
Dave Davies
"It was obscure the week it came out...We put those songs together in our front room, and we drew really heavily on our environment and our family, who had supported us, and I think that's why it has such a distinctive English flavor and why the songs are so intimate in a way...The song Picture Book is like sitting in the front room looking at old photographs with your mum. I've always felt that the way we used humor to approach serious topics really set us apart, and I think Village Green has some of our best examples of that and the way the humor was mixed with pathos was essential and very different, especially at that time. I don't think we should take life so seriously, and I've always believed that over the years people have responded to that and that's what's set the album apart." (Dave Davies)
Looking back to the year 1968, I can recall the total indifference that greeted this masterwork by the Kinks. The teenage sang-froid of 1968 was defined by the lengthy musical diatribes of bands like Cream and, as a result, the Village Green album sank into obscurity. While the album did not appeal to the tie-dyed Woodstock brethren of the time, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society went on to gain a cult following of listeners and continues to stand as one of the most vital slices of rock/pop music from this era.
"The story of Village Green album is one of passionate commitment to an artistic vision. Sometimes an artist simply must do what must be done. Sure, Ray Davies wanted the album to sell, but he never compromised his commitment to the thing he wanted to create. Like all great artists doomed to suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous public, he naively believed his vision would carry the day, and both sales and validation would follow.
Ray Davies has always loved to work against the trend, and while Village Green was not a trend-defying smash, in the end, he was right to stick to his vision. Village Green is a timeless work of art that suffered the misfortune of birth during a period when people wanted to break free of the chains of the past, and as is often the case in revolutions, the participants went way overboard in denigrating what had come before. The hipsters of the time only paid attention to the past when they found art that the old establishment had buried; hence, there was a Folk Revival and a Blues Revival. But music celebrating “Donald Duck and Vaudeville?” Seriously uncool.
Whether the cause for the public’s indifference was idealism gone rancid or the various substances they were smoking, the failure to acknowledge Village Green at the time of its release is simply astonishing. From a purely melodic perspective, Ray Davies was never better. Each song is like a little oasis where you can spend a few brief moments immersed in a story, a character, or a perceptive observation of human nature while listening to melodies and harmonies that provide delicious stimulation. It had been years since I’d listened to the album in full, and by the time I arrived at “Animal Farm,” I felt myself starting to tear up. Village Green is so beautiful, so human." (altrockchick,com)
"Somewhat overlooked upon its release in November 1968, ‘The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society’ is now regarded as one of the best British albums ever recorded. Created in difficult circumstances by a band on the verge of disintegration and who refused to follow fashion, it is an album of timeless, perfectly crafted songs about growing up and growing old, and the decline of national culture and traditional ways. Enduring and unsurpassed, with its wit, sadness, quiet anger, regret and charm, it is generally considered the high point of The Kinks’ outstanding career and Ray Davies’ masterpiece." (glidemagazine.com)
The Anniversary Edition of The Village Green Preservation Society (BMG) was released in 2018. The deluxe box set includes extensive sleeve notes, interviews, photography and specially created online & press content “telling the story” of the album’s production, release and cultural impact. Also included are two essays on the album written by Pete Townshend and renowned journalist Kate Mossman. Included in this anniversary edition are many previously unreleased tracks and versions, including the previously unreleased track Time Song.
Time Song
one of the unreleased songs
from the Village Green Project
Ray Davies has the final word
"“I think The Village Green Preservation Society is about the ending of a time personally for me in my life. In my imaginary village. It’s the end of our innocence, our youth. Some people are quite old but in the Village Green, you’re never allowed to grow up. I feel the project itself as part of a life cycle.”
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