A selection of songs by The Kinks that have meaning to me and have stuck with me through the years, appearing frequently on mix tapes and playlists.
David Watts This is from Something Else, released in 1967, and the band had grown immensely in the three years since its debut record. Davies had already written some really great songs, but just as with The Beatles, he wanted to move beyond the British rock quartet sound that he had already mastered. If the previous year’s Face to Face was their Rubber Soul, Something Else was their Revolver. “David Watts” is full of Ray’s usual incisive observations as he enumerates all the reasons he envies his schoolmate, yet admires him and perhaps experiences his victories vicariously through his adulation of David Watts. In any case, it has a nice driving beat and contemporary harmonies, and it was covered well by The Jam on their 1978 album All Mod Cons.
The Village Green Preservation Society This album, which was not successful on its release, has developed its following over the years and now seems very much like the Kinks’ Sgt. Peppers (the Beatles analogy kind of breaks down after this point). The album is characterized by fifteen songs in which Davies sketches out a series of characters based in many cases on people in the Muswell Hill area of London in which Ray and Dave grew up. Looking at many of the tracks on this list one sees a wistful look at the past, even when its clear that Davies sees that there were drawbacks to that past. This title track is a sweet catalog of things worthy of saving–china cups, virginity, strawberry jam. The sound of the group is expanded mightily by Nicky Hopkins’ keyboard work on the album.
Wicked Annabella So many tracks on Village Green stand out as worthy of consideration, but for me this track, driven by a nasty, overdriven guitar riff and wildly careening drums that are far forward in the mix, show that they could easily compete with The Who or The Yardbirds when it came to loud, crashing rock and roll. Then we have Dave Davies’ conspiratorial vocal that soars in the middle section (“I’ve seen her face/look toward mine”). Everyone plays great here and Ray, knowing he’s written a cool song, doesn’t have to feature himself in any way, really.
Days Ray had conceived of Village Green as a double album but his British record company didn’t see it that way and he was forced to cut some songs like “Days” that were every bit as good as the songs that made it onto the album. They did believe in the song enough to release it as a single, where it did pretty well. Dave Davies revealed in a recent interview that he doesn’t like the song because it is clearly a sad song and a song of goodbye. But he concedes that it does have an upbeat instrumental sound and tempo and is celebratory of its subject. The melancholy that comes from the song is mostly due to Ray’s vocal with its plaintive quality, but there is triumph when he notes that ‘though you’re gone’ he’s not ‘frightened of this world, believe me.’
Victoria It’s important to remember that Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) was written for a Granada Television play that was a collaboration between novelist Julian Mitchell and Ray Davies. Unfortunately the play was never produced and the music had to stand on its own, which it does admirably. The record was a critical favorite from its release, but the general public mostly gave it a pass. “Victoria” was a hit single in the U.K. largely on the basis, one suspects, of its incredible energy and bouyancey. But there had to be those in the listening public who bought into the song’s somewhat ironic cheerleading, sounding for all the world like a Beach Boys song celebrating the joy and stability of British Empire. Is there a trace of that jingoistic celebrant within Ray Davies? Perhaps, but he’s smart enough and humane enough to see that it wasn’t a wonderful time for everyone.
20th Century Man From Muswell Hillbillies (1971), named for the North London neighborhood that was the Davies boys’ childhood home. This is another of Ray Davie’s songs about the horrors of modern life, continuing the same theme found in “Apeman” and “Village Green Preservation Society.” He doesn’t need modern writers or artists, just give him the classics. Once again the song looks back at a more traditional, pastoral England: “What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?’ he asks, referencing Blake. It’s a particularly bilious rejection of the modern welfare state, accompanied by Ray’s bluesy guitar and a subdued rhythm section.
Celluloid Heroes For Everybody’s In Showbiz, The Kinks’ eleventh album, the band released one studio album and one live album as part of the two record set. Davies’ songwriting was becoming more dramatic, with the group’s leader playing more characters and evoking a variety of musical styles including British dance hall and vaudeville. This would serve him well in the next phase of The Kinks’ career, when Davies wrote several concept albums in a row, including Preservation and Preservation Act 2, A Soap Opera, and Schoolboys In Disgrace. These albums were full of bold, emotionally compelling music, but they largely went unnoticed or, when they were noticed they were frequently the victims of poor reviews. “Celluloid Heroes” is another of Ray’s sepia-toned reminiscences, this one reminding us that while everyone may be in showbiz, everyone is a person underneath all the glitz and glamour. And, frankly, the glitz and glamour looks less impressive–gaudier and nightmarish–the closer you get to it.
Sleepwalker The Kinks might have floated away, peacefully into that good night of hazy concepts and music that only a handful of fans still listened to, but they were signed to Clive Davis’ Arista label. Arista needed some name artists and many of those they signed got a new lease on life, and that happened with The Kinks. Ray was writing good songs–he wrote many that went unused on Sleepwalker.The group used production techniques that were current and overall sounded like an experienced but still viable rock outfit, which they were.
Misfits The band’s second Arista outing, Misfits was full of Ray Davies’ detailed character studies like the super fan in “Rock and Roll Fantasy” who lives for the music. The song was a frequent play on FM radio, and so was this melancholy title track to people who have just never fit in where they were–“Now you’re lost in the crowd” Ray intoned, “yet still go your own way.” How many listeners heard themselves in these lines is tribute to the beauty and power of Ray Davies’ songwriting. The record earned them the lead review in Rolling Stone, and it seemed like The Kinks had finally settled in a place where they belonged.
Better Things After another studio record and a live double album, Ray and company released Give The People What They Want in 1981. This was when The Pretenders appeared on the scene and Ray began a relationship with lead singer Chrissie Hynde that resulted in a daughter. This song is one of Ray’s best, presenting his lifelong wistful sentimentality coupled with a certain degree of sadness. It seems like leaving someone behind and giving a benediction on the way out–“I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things.”