The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks performing for Dutch television in April 1967, two months after re-recording "Village Green".[32]

The Kinks first recorded "Village Green" at the beginning of the sessions for Something Else, on 24–25 November 1966.[33] They later re-recorded the song in February 1967,[34] though Ray withheld it from the album.[35][nb 3] In November 1967, the Kinks shifted to working on a project tentatively titled Village Green, at that time still envisaged as a Ray solo-project.[38] Ray wrote most of Village Green's songs from late 1967 into 1968,[39] though he later suggested that several had been half-finished from years earlier.[40] He generally composed songs with his Fender Malibu acoustic guitar,[41] typically working in his living room at 87 Fortis Green, North London.[42] The band began rehearsing the new songs at the home in late 1967 and may have begun recording songs for the album during this period, including "Monica" and "Phenomenal Cat".[43][nb 4] Ray recalled recording "Mr. Songbird" "a long time before" the rest of the album, leading band researcher Doug Hinman to date it to around November 1967.[2]

Recording for the album began in earnest in March 1968 at Pye Studios.[45] The Kinks recorded most of the album in Pye Studio 2, the smaller of two basement studios at Pye Records's London offices. Recording took place any time the band were able to obtain studio time, generally in the late afternoon or during the night.[46] While Ray produced,[47] Pye's in-house engineers operated the four-track mixing console;[48] the band's longtime engineer Alan "Mac" MacKenzie[nb 5] worked on the album until departing from Pye in early 1968.[49] Brian Humphries engineered from May onward,[49] beginning with the recording of "Days".[50][nb 6] The band's initial March 1968 sessions produced numerous recordings, only some of which ended up on the final album, including "Animal Farm" and "Johnny Thunder".[52] Other tracks like "Berkeley Mews", "Did You See His Name" and "Rosemary Rose" went unreleased for years.[53][nb 7] The band also recorded two songs for Dave Davies' next solo single, "Lincoln County" backed with "There Is No Life Without Love". Pye planned to issue Dave's single in the second week of April at the same time as the Kinks', but the band negotiated with the label to delay its release until August.[54]

After being quickly written and recorded earlier in March, "Wonderboy" was selected by Pye from the available recordings to be the band's next single.[55] Despite Ray's protestations that the song was insufficiently commercial for release as a single,[56] Pye rush-released it in the UK on 5 April.[55] Its B-side "Polly", also recorded in March, indicated Ray's continued interested in Under Milk Wood by directly referencing a character in the drama, Polly Garter.[49] Though it was moderately advertised and was well-received by music critics,[57] "Wonderboy" flopped in the UK and was the band's worst performing British single since 1964.[56] The failure ended the band's streak of twelve consecutive top twenty hits, the last five of which had made it into the top five.[58] It sold 26,000 copies in the UK, roughly one-tenth of each of the band's two most recent singles, "Waterloo Sunset" (May 1967) and "Autumn Almanac" (October 1967).[59]

Further indicating the band's diminishing status, they were unable to support themselves as a headlining act in concert; recording for the album paused from 6 to 28 April 1968 as the band toured England on a package tour, performing in cinemas with the Herd and the Tremeloes, among other groups.[60] Contemporary reviewers critised the Kinks for their poor stage presence and often inaudible vocals; Dave later recalled that the band were insufficiently rehearsed due to Ray's intense focus on his songwriting and a lack of motivation among the other Kinks.[56]

The band resumed work on the album in May 1968 by recording several new songs, including "Picture Book", "Misty Water" and "Pictures in the Sand".[61][nb 8] After the commercial disappointment of "Wonderboy", Ray opted to record his new composition "Days" as quickly as possible in order to reestablish the Kinks' status.[61] Recording for the song concluded in early June and it was issued as a single in the UK on the 28th.[63] Though the single was not as successful as the band's earlier hits, it received strong airplay and helped them return to the top twenty of the British charts,[13] reaching No. 12 and No. 14 in Record Retailer and Melody Maker, respectively.[64] Hinman writes that by early June, Ray's solo LP and the band's next album had "[slowly] mutated into one" under the expected title Village Green.[65] Pye Records allowed the band extra time to record more tracks for Village Green and made plans to release the album in September in the lead-up to Christmas 1968.[65]

Throughout the 1960s, the Kinks were on different record labels in the US and UK and had differing contract schedules between the two countries. By June 1968, the band were contractually obligated to immediately submit a finished LP to their US label, Reprise Records. Of those songs the band had already recorded, except "Village Green", Ray sent fifteen to the label.[66] The label titled the album Four More Respected Gentlemen in reference to the band's 1965 single "A Well Respected Man". After Reprise learned about the Kinks' plans for a September release of Village Green, the label planned to not issue Four More Respected Gentlemen immediately but instead scheduled a November release.[66] The band again took time off from recording for a tour of Sweden from 8 to 23 June 1968.[65] Because of the band's weakening reputation, the booking agency and the band's new agent, Barry Dickens, scheduled them to perform at outdoor public parks, seeing it as the only realistic way for the band to turn a profit.[67]

Ray Davies's former home at 87 Fortis Green, North London (pictured 2016). Most of the LP's songs were composed and rehearsed in its living room.

After returning from Sweden, the band began rehearsing more songs for Village Green in July at Ray's Fortis Green home. To boost the album's track listing, the Kinks spent most of the second half of July recording new songs. New tracks included "Do You Remember Walter", "Wicked Annabella", "Starstruck", "People Take Pictures of Each Other" and "Sitting by the Riverside".[68] In late July, Ray and his family moved out of their Fortis Green home to a larger Tudor house in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.[69] Ray's previous work had been heavily inspired by life in the original area, not far from his and his brother's childhood home.[70] He later reflected that as soon as he moved into the new house he felt unhappy.[71][nb 9]

In mid-August 1968, the Kinks recorded Ray's new composition "The Village Green Preservation Society". Ray intended for the song to be the last recorded for the album, making it a twelve track LP. With its recording, he changed the album's title to The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society and did its final mixing. Publishing was assigned for the LP's songs on 16 August.[69] Around the same time, Ray interviewed with Record Mirror and New Musical Express (NME) magazines in anticipation of the album's release,[69] and the album cover was photographed.[73]

In September 1968, with recording for Village Green finished, the Kinks returned to Pye to record a new Ray composition, "Til Death Do Us Part", for a film of the same name.[74] Extracts from the LP were played by Pye executives at the label's international sales conference, held on 5 and 6 September at London's Europa Hotel,[75] and around 11 September, Keith Altham of NME listened to a tape of the album at the band's manager's office.[76] Before Altham's favourable review was published in the 21 September issue of NME, Ray had Pye halt the album's production and postpone its planned UK release of 27 September.[77]

Ray's reason for delaying Village Green's release is unclear.[78] Hinman writes the last-minute decision foreshadowed major conflicts between Pye and Ray in late 1968. Ray later suggested he was annoyed that the label demanded hit singles from him and afforded little support for full-length LPs, and Hinman suggests this annoyance moved Ray to withhold from Pye any potential Kinks singles.[3] Miller suggests Ray may have desired to increase Village Green's track listing after becoming aware that both the Beatles and the Jimi Hendrix Experience would be issuing double albums,[79] Apple Records having announced on 22 September that the Beatles' November release would include 24 songs.[80] On 30 September, a press release stated that the Kinks' next album would be released in a month as a double-record with at least eighteen songs.[3] Interviewed in October for next month's issue of Beat Instrumental magazine, drummer Mick Avory explained that the band were talking to their record label about the possibility of having twenty songs on two LPs but sold for the price of one, something he hoped would give fans more for their money.[81] After Ray suggested the change to Pye, the label rejected it for financial reasons but accepted a compromise of a fifteen-song single-disc LP.[82]

The Kinks returned to Pye Studios around 12 October 1968 to record more tracks for the album, including "Big Sky", "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" and "All of My Friends Were There", though the latter may have been recorded in July.[3] Ray remixed several songs from the July sessions on 28 October, likely because his original mixes from August had been rushed. He submitted the final tapes to Pye for the fifteen-track LP in November.[47] In anticipation of the UK release of Village Green,[83] Reprise cancelled Four More Respected Gentlemen in October, only a month before its planned release.[84]

Village Green is the Kinks' first studio album which credits Ray as its producer.[86] Halfway through the sessions for Something Else, he and the band's longtime producer Shel Talmy experienced a breakdown in their relationship, resulting in a mixture of tracks produced by one or the other.[87][nb 10] Engineer Brian Humphries later reflected that though Ray was not formally trained as a producer, he had become "quite knowledgeable" by the time of Village Green due to his practice of standing behind Talmy during the production process of the band's earlier albums.[50] Ray's production of Village Green is subdued and his mix is generally light on the bottom end.[89][90][91] Author Nicholas Schaffner describes the production as "unassuming in the extreme, with embellishments kept to a minimum".[92] Ray subsequently suggested he under-recorded the songs, either deliberately or out of inexperience, resulting in a demo-like sound.[93]

The album uses a variety of contrasting instruments and sounds, such as harmonica, harpsichord and flute, as well as guitar feedback.[94] The Kinks' recording process generally consisted of laying down the rhythm track first, featuring drums, bass and Ray on piano or rhythm guitar. The band would next overdub percussion, keyboards and a guitar contribution from Dave, before mixing-down the recording to make room for vocal contributions.[95] The recordings are generally driven by Ray's 1965 Fender Malibu acoustic guitar, while Dave often supplemented an electric guitar contribution on Ray's 1963 Fender Telecaster or one of his own guitars, including a 1959 Gibson Flying V and Guild Starfire III.[41] Dave's typical Vox AC30 amplifier was likely used for most tracks, though the long sustain heard on "Wicked Annabella" suggests the use of an early-era solid-state amplifier.[41] Four microphones were placed around Avory's drum kit and Pete Quaife's Rickenbacker bass was plugged directly into the mixing desk.[96] Avory altered his drum sound on "Wicked Annabella" and "Picture Book" by disengaging the snare and deadened the sound on "Phenomenal Cat" by placing newspaper over a floor tom.[96]

A Mellotron Mk II. After first using the tape-loop-based instrument in June 1967, Ray employed it extensively during the Village Green sessions as an inexpensive alternative to real string- and brass-sections.

The album prominently employs a Mellotron as an inexpensive alternative to real string- and brass-sections.[97] A predecessor to the synthesiser, the Mellotron is a keyboard instrument on which the keys trigger tape loops of recordings of a variety of instruments, enabling its user to play keyboard parts using those voices.[98] Ray was introduced to the instrument in May 1967 while visiting the home of Graham Nash, a member of the contemporary English rock band the Hollies.[99] He purchased his own soon after and likely first employed it in early June 1967 on the Kinks' song "Lazy Old Sun".[100] The sounds it mimics on Village Green include a horn section ("Do You Remember Walter"),[101] accordion ("Sitting by the Riverside") and flute ("Phenomenal Cat"), among others.[102] Strings are generally absent from the Kinks late 1960s recordings, likely because Pye executives saw the hiring of an arranger and string players as too expensive to warrant.[103] Among the songs on Village Green with real string sections are "Village Green" and possibly "Animal Farm", as arranged by English composer David Whitaker,[104] though the string sounds on the latter may have been accomplished with a Mellotron.[105][nb 11] Whitaker may have also arranged strings for the non-album B-side "Polly", which was likely recorded the same month as "Animal Farm".[55]

Session musician Nicky Hopkins contributed extensive keyboard work for the album on piano, harpsichord and Mellotron.[106] Hopkins had first contributed to a Kinks LP in 1965 on The Kink Kontroversy and his playing featured heavily on the band's releases to 1968.[107] He later estimated he played "about seventy per cent" of the LP's keyboard work,[108] while Ray played the rest.[109]

Ray sings lead on each song except "Wicked Annabella", where Dave sings lead.[47] Ray's vocal is generally double tracked throughout.[110] The group sang harmony vocals together, often supplemented by a falsetto from Ray's wife, Rasa Davies,[111] who had sung backing vocals on all of the band's studio albums to that point.[112] Typical of the band's vocal work, their barbershop harmonies include falsettos and wordless sounds like "la la" ("Village Green"), "na na" ("Picture Book") and "ba ba" ("Johnny Thunder") or nonsense phrases like "fum fum didle um di" ("Phenomenal Cat").[113]

When the Kinks rehearsed and recorded Ray's new compositions, he typically avoided sharing the song's lyrics or melody with his bandmates.[114] Quaife recalled:

Rehearsals took place at Ray's house, but they were often quite odd. He would keep us waiting for ages, then appear, play a song on a piano and we'd try it. Then he'd announce, "You've got it!" and disappear again. I didn't know what to think.[83]

Avory suggested the practice arose out of Ray's paranoia that his song's would be stolen, while Quaife ascribed it to "Ray playing silly buggers". Both Avory and Quaife recalled being annoyed by the method since it prevented them from easily adding fills and embellishments that fitted the song.[114][nb 12] Ray explained to his bandmates that he wanted the songs of Village Green to relate to a single subject but he otherwise remained secretive about the details. Quaife later stated that the band began to understand the album's message once several compositions had been finished and that "[a]bout the time of 'Animal Farm', it all clicked".[115]

In contrast to the Kinks' work under Talmy, Ray ensured the group ran through numerous takes of songs on Village Green. Avory recalled that after Talmy's departure, the group spent more time collaborating and "[fleshing] out the sound" in studio.[95] All group members contributed to the recording process, though Ray held final say over all decisions.[116] He required all band members to attend all sessions, regardless of whether they were expected to play on the particular song. Quaife recalled: "He'd keep you there for hours and he wouldn't let you out of the studio either. You'd have to be there even though you weren't doing anything."[116]

Humphries later said that the band's dysfunction has been overemphasised in later accounts, adding that rather than fistfights, disagreements typically led to verbal arguments between Ray and Dave.[50] Rasa served as an intermediary in the studio between Ray and his bandmates.[111] In subsequent interviews, Humphries recalled that Rasa "kept the peace a lot".[50] Quaife has sometimes said that she eased group tensions, but he has also suggested that her presence catalysed anger within the band.[117]

Tensions within the group culminated on 27 May 1968 during a session for "Days", during which Ray and Quaife argued before the latter left the studio.[119][nb 13] Following the incident, Quaife remained unhappy. As the Kinks prepared to fly to Dublin for an evening show on 1 June, he stepped off the plane shortly before it departed. His absence was not noticed by his bandmates until after their arrival and necessitated the cancellation of the performance.[123] Quaife later recalled that he and Ray remained distant from one another during the band's June tour of Sweden.[122] Tensions eased after they returned and resumed recording in July,[124] at which time Ray reluctantly allowed for more creative input from his bandmates.[125] Avory recalled it was the first time in the group's history that they worked together during recordings. Quaife was unsure what precipitated Ray's change, but remembered the period as being "amazing", with a "lightened up" Ray allowing them to suggest things during both the rehearsal and recording process. He further remembered Ray's reluctance returning near the end of the album's recording sessions.[126]

External video
"Do You Remember Walter?" (European Stereo Mix Without Tambourine)
" People Take Pictures of Each Other" (European Stereo Mix with Big Band Coda)

Despite an industrywide trend towards stereo,[127] mono remained Ray's preferred format when he mixed Village Green in 1968.[128] The album received both mono and stereo releases in the UK, but in the US it was the Kinks' second LP to be commercially issued in only stereo.[129] As was typical for the time, the mono and stereo editions contained obvious differences.[128] The mono mix of "Do You Remember Walter" has more electric guitar, less Mellotron and no tambourine, while "Wicked Annabella" has more reverb and is louder.[130] The mono mixes of both "Starstruck" and "People Take Pictures of Each Other" last for a few extra seconds.[131]

The mixes on the twelve- and fifteen-track editions contain additional differences,[128] since Ray remixed some tracks in late October 1968 after finding his original August mixes rushed.[51] The original stereo ending of "People Take Pictures of Each Other" featured a trad jazz ragtime piece, which Miller writes served to express "That's All, Folks!" at the album's close. Ray was forced to remove it due to copyright issues, likely because he used a pre-existing tape rather than hiring session musicians to play it.[132]

Village Green is the Kinks' first album where every composition is credited to only Ray.[133] Schaffner terms its songs "miniatures";[92] most tracks run only a little over two minutes, and other than "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" all are under three.[134] Authors Andy Miller and Mike Segretto describe Village Green as an example of rock and pop music.[135] Many of the songs are acoustically-driven;[41] critic Hal Horowitz writes it is less a rock album than an example of "melodic folk/pop".[136] According to Segretto, while the album includes some elements of 1968 music, borrowing from "heavy blues", psychedelia, raga rock and acid rock, it is generally separate from contemporary musical trends.[137] According to author Mark Doyle, the album fits in the contemporary Pop art movement due to its drawing from "eclectic and cosmopolitation" styles, such as the "English folk-pastoral traditions", music hall, psychedelia, calypso and blues.[27] Music critics Jonathan Donaldson and Jem Aswad each place the album with the baroque pop of the late 1960s – exemplified by the Zombies' 1968 album Odessey and Oracle, Love's 1967 album Forever Changes and the music of the Left Banke[138][139] – a trend critic Greg Kot terms "orchestral guitar-pop".[140] The Smithsonian Institution's book on the history of music groups the album with the pop-rock of the 1960s and the genre's trend towards cohesive albums rather than collections of popular singles.[141]

Musicologist Stan Hawkins describes the album's sound as generally "flowery, tranquil and dreamy", influenced equally by music hall and American rock and roll.[142] Author Patricia Gordon Sullivan sees the album as a continuation of the music hall overtones established the previous year on Something Else, heard especially in songs on Village Green like "The Village Green Preservation Society", "Johnny Thunder" and "Phenomenal Cat".[143] Ray later recalled that though he never went to a music hall performance as a child, his style of composition was heavily influenced by his father, who regularly went to musicals and dances and encouraged his children to sing songs at the piano. Miller suggests the sing-along style is evident in Ray's late 1960s work, such as on "People Take Pictures of Each Other",[144] while Sullivan writes "All of My Friends Were There" arose from Ray's time spent as a child listening to his father's sing-alongs at the local pub.[145]

In contemporary interviews, Ray explained that the songs on Village Green are "all related in a way",[146] and Dave suggested that the album is "about a town and the people that have lived there", where "the village green is the focal point of the whole thing".[147] The tracks typically serve as portraits of the village's inhabitants or as a description of local attractions or activities.[92] Among the album's character studies are "Johnny Thunder", "Monica" and "Do You Remember Walter",[148] about a biker, a prostitute and a lost friend, respectively.[92] Other songs display an interest in memory and its relationship with photographs, such as "Picture Book", "People Take Pictures of Each Other", the unreleased song "Pictures in the Sand" and "Village Green", where the value of the community consists in being photographed by American tourists.[149]

While the songs on Village Green vary in their adherence to the village green theme, the album displays a preoccupation with the past,[148] hoping to find refuge in a simpler time rather than in the alienation of the present.[151] Polito writes that while some listeners regard the album as "an exercise in nostalgic fantasy", the album often instead rebuffs nostalgia. He writes that it concludes that while living in the past would be more tolerable than living in the present, it is impossible to go back.[152] Academic Carey Fleiner similarly writes that the album recommends using the common cultural experience of the past to cope with the issues of the present, drawing strength from previous generations while showing contempt for those who would indulge in constant reminiscing.[153] She adds that gentle sentiments about the past are often directly contrasted against a general cynicism or rude voicing.[154] Miller writes that several of Ray's compositions employ a similar format of having one stinging line, an idea Ray elucidated in a December 1969 interview: "If you can make a funny song and then have one very hard line, you reach people."[155][nb 14]

Ray was initially inspired by Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood,[157] a radio drama which focuses on the townspeople of a small Welsh town on a typical spring day.[26] He later cited the Kinks' five-year ban from American performance as producing his English-focused lyrics.[158] Miller instead connects Ray's writing to a broader tradition of English pastoral poetry, made up of authors like William Blake, William Wordsworth and Oliver Goldsmith.[159] He further suggests Ray may have gone through a period of reading the works of English author George Orwell, especially his 1939 novel Coming Up for Air,[160] a connection that several other commentators have similarly drawn.[161][162] In the novel, the main character George Bowling goes back to the country town of his childhood and experiences disappointment when comparing it to his nostalgic expectations.[163] Ray subsequently compared his notion of the village green as a safe haven to the secret place Orwell's character Winston Smith goes in his 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.[50][nb 15] Journalist and musician Rob Chapman suggests that in addition to Coming Up for Air, Ray's lyrics further allude to other English writings, including Harold Nicolson's short stories, E. M. Forster's Bloomsbury essays and the writings of Philip Larkin.[166]

Popular culture researcher Nick Baxter-Moore suggests that while Village Green is "quintessentially English", it reveals Ray's fascination with American culture. In particular, he lists the blues of "Last of the Steam Powered Trains" and the mention of American cartoon character Donald Duck and vaudeville – the American term for music-hall – in "The Village Green Preservation Society".[167] Author Ken Rayes compares the album to F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, a relationship he thinks is hinted at in the song "Village Green" by the presence of the characters Tom and Daisy, who have the same names as the novel's characters Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Rayes writes that Ray's notion of "an encroaching modern English culture" parallels the novel's motifs of "mythic America and the changing American dream".[168]

In a contemporary interview, Ray explained that he composed "The Village Green Preservation Society" after someone suggested to him that the Kinks had been preserving "nice things from the past", and he hoped to capture the idea within a single song.[170][172] He subsequently described it as the album's "national anthem".[172] The song states the band's intentions to "preserve" things from the past and consists of a listing of institutions to be saved for posterity.[173] Among the things listed are vaudeville, strawberry jam, comic book character Desperate Dan, draught beer and custard pies, among others.[174] Employing a simple composition, the song's arrangement is defined by what Miller terms Avory's "especially exuberant" drumming and the "similarly light and effective" piano contribution.[175][nb 16] Ray and Dave closely harmonise throughout, while Ray's voice is emphasised at the midway point and its closing,[178] building towards the song's final lyric of "God save the village green!"[178]

Ray was inspired to compose "Do You Remember Walter" after running into an old childhood friend and finding they no longer had anything in common.[179] After opening with "machine gun drumming",[180] the song is defined by a dominant piano and bass guitar, alongside snare rolls.[181] In the first part of the song, the singer recalls his and Walter's various childhood exploits, while in the second half, the singer instead sees the older Walter as fat and married.[180] He mocks Walter's early bedtime, while Walter is uninterested in the singer's reminiscing of the past.[182] In his November 1968 interview with Melody Maker, Ray stated the song's closing line, "People often change but memories of people can remain", served to sum up the song's message.[179] Rogan compares it to Ray's 1967 song "David Watts" and suggests it conveys "a loss of almost tragic proportions" when the Walter character is "demythologised in adulthood".[183]

"Picture Book" describes the singer's experience flipping through a photo album reflecting on happy memories.[184] Both Rogan and Miller suggests the song's cheerful sound provides a misleading impression that it is purely lighthearted, since it not directly describing happy memories, but instead the experience of the ageing narrator looking at photographs from "a long time ago".[185] In addition to using barbershop-like harmonies for a wordless vocal,[186] Ray sings "scooby dooby doo" in reference to Frank Sinatra's 1966 single "Strangers in the Night".[187] The song employs two acoustic guitars along with an overdubbed electric guitar.[188] Unlike most of the album's songs, its mix emphasises the low-end, particularly Quaife's bass and Avory's drums, which critic Stewart Mason terms "cleverly sloppy". Quaife's bass doubles Ray's rhythm guitar in playing the song's hook.[91]

Ray composed "Johnny Thunder" after watching László Benedek's 1953 film The Wild One, which had been issued in London cinemas in early 1968 after a fifteen-year ban.[189] Miller retrospectively compares the Johnny Thunder character to the film's lead character, Johnny, as played by Marlon Brando.[110] The character is an enemy of conformity who survives on a diet of water and lightning.[190] A straightforward rock song, it joins acoustic guitars, bass and drums with an electric guitar contribution by Dave, who plays a countermelody low in the mix. The backing vocals are wordless and imitate the sound of a brass section, while it is one of the few instances on the album of Ray's lead vocal not being double-tracked.[110]

"Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" is likely the last song Ray wrote for Village Green.[181] Its lyrics describe a steam train that has outlived its usefulness and moved to a museum.[190] The composition coincided with a years-long reduction in the British railway network and the replacement of steam trains by diesel engines,[191] a change which went into effect two months before the song's recording.[47][192] Based around the riff of Howlin' Wolf's 1956 song "Smokestack Lightning" – a popular recording among early 1960s British R&B groups[193] – the song recalls the Kinks' roots as an R&B focused band.[194] Its recording displays a noticeably more live sound than the rest of the album,[181] using both harmonica and guitar to imitate the sound of a rolling train.[194] Several commentators regard the song as Davies's criticism of early British R&B groups for being inauthentic compared to the American blues artists who wrote many of the songs they recorded.[195]

Ray composed "Big Sky" in late January 1968 while attending the second annual MIDEM Music Publishers Festival in Cannes, France.[196] He recalled the song's initial inspiration coming when he watched businessmen walk beneath the sunrise from his balcony at the Carlton Hotel.[197] He later suggested that watching them below made him imagine "a being somewhat bigger than all the hustlers around me",[198] but that rather than dealing with his dissatisfaction of the music business, the resulting lyrics are instead "more about the struggle of ordinary humans beings surviving in the modern world".[199] While Ray has typically been coy about interpreting the song's meaning,[174] retrospective commentators often interpret it as describing God as unsympathetic towards the problems of humans.[200] Ray's lead vocal alternates between singing, speaking and harmonising with Dave while Rasa contributes a wordless falsetto harmony.[201]

"Sitting by the Riverside" joins honky-tonk piano with an accordion produced via Mellotron.[202] The singer enjoys the calmness and warmth offered by a pastoral setting,[203] before closing his eyes results in a rush of overwhelming memories and fear.[204] Accompanying the eye-closing moment is a swelling cacophony,[204] a sound Rayes compares to the orchestral crescendos heard in the Beatles' 1967 song "A Day in the Life".[203] When the singer reopens his eyes, he is overtaken by the area's splendor.[203] Ray contemporaneously described the composition as a "fishing song", relating it to his time spent fishing when he was a child,[205] and Miller suggests it was perhaps further inspired by Orwell's Coming Up for Air, since Bowling's happiest childhood memories relate to his time spent fishing.[206]

Side two of the LP opens with "Animal Farm". While its title references the Orwell's 1945 novella of the same name, the song does not relate to the book's dystopic themes,[207] but instead displays an anti-urban theme which has more in common with H. G. Wells's 1910 novel The History of Mr Polly.[208] The song expresses feelings of pastoral bliss,[183] the singer recalling an earlier time where he was happy living a simple life on a small farm.[209] He yearns for his idealised world where people can be authentic rather than insincere actors.[203] Recorded in Pye Studios's bigger studio, No. 1, the song has a larger sound than the rest of the album, featuring reverb on the drums, percussion and tack piano.[105]

Ray likely composed "Village Green" around 16 August 1966, the same day the Kinks played at Torquay Town Hall in Devon, a rural part of England.[210] Its lyrics lament the decline of a fictional English community's traditional village green.[208] The singer recalls the village green in his memory as somewhere he misses but expects to have changed since he left it.[211] He mourns the town's invasion by American tourists and the community's cheapening atmosphere,[208] while remembering it as the place he left his romantic love, Daisy.[211] He declares that he will return to see Daisy so they can reminisce about the village green as it was.[211]

Hopkins plays a prominently featured harpsichord, which Rogan writes helps further the song's drama.[212] Musicologist Allan F. Moore suggests the instrument's presence, joined with the "fifth-cyclic sequence and descending chromatic chorus", evokes the music of Baroque composer George Frideric Handel.[213] Whitaker's orchestral arrangement of the song features oboe, cello, viola and piccolo, all played by session musicians.[214]

Ray later said he wrote "Starstruck" as a tribute to his favourite Motown groups, including the Four Tops and the Temptations.[215] Miller writes Ray's suggested Motown connection is difficult to discern, but suggests the song has a slight resemblance to the Four Tops' 1965 single "It's the Same Old Song".[216] Rogan instead writes "Starstruck" displays "a distinct Acapulco-flavouring" with vocal harmonies influenced by the American band the Turtles.[217] The singer politely chastises a female listener for failing to distinguish between stardom and real-life and further warns her about the risks of the big city.[218] Miller suggests the song's warning about city life is similar thematically to "Village Green",[216] and Rayes writes its comparison helps contrast "rural with urban, spirituality with materialism, and the natural with the manufactured".[190]

Ray described "Phenomenal Cat" as like a nursery rhyme, telling the story of a flying cat who has visited Katmandu and Hong Kong and discovers "the secret of life", and so decides to spend the rest of his life eating.[188] Rogan compares its "vaguely Victorian flavour"[217] to the work of English 19th-century authors Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll,[221] while Miller instead describes it as a blend of contemporary children's music and psychedelia.[222] Rayes writes the song is about conspicuous consumption and a "gentle, nuanced portrait of the temptations of capitalist materialism", contrasting it against the more "spiritually and emotionally fulfilling possibilities" offered by the village green.[223] The recording's distinct flute introduction was accomplished by holding down the Mellotron's keys and allowing each tape loop to spool through.[219] Ray's lead vocal is double tracked, while Dave sings as the cat. Dave's voice was altered by recording the master tape slowly and then playing it sped-up.[219] Ray and Dave do not fully harmonise until the song's ending, before Dave's vocal fades away.[224]

"All of My Friends Were There" was inspired by a Kinks concert at Rectory Field in Blackheath, London on 1 July 1967.[225] Ray later recalled falling ill with a 104 °F (40 °C) fever but he was persuaded to perform by the event organisers due to the agreed contract: "I had lots and lots to drink and I thought 'It doesn't matter.' The curtains opened and all my friends were sitting in the front row ... It was a terrible night and I thought I would write a song about it."[226] Another example of music hall style,[227] the song employs an organ and a jerky rhythm,[223] shifting between what Miller terms a "music-hall gallop" in the verses and a "lilting, wistful waltz" during the choruses.[228] The singer describes his embarrassment after his friends attend his missed performance.[223] After struggling during his next show,[229] he goes to a café he frequented during happier times in his life, only to find all of his friends there as well.[223] Rayes describes the ending "another typical [Ray] Davies twist", where "in the end, the presence of the singer's friends both deepens his embarrassment and strengthens his stability and sense of companionship".[223]

"Wicked Annabella" is Dave's only lead vocal contribution on the album.[47] His voice is double tracked,[230] and ranges from frightened whispers to raging screams.[231] Another of the album's character pieces, the song recounts the wicked deeds of a local witch as a warning to children to stay in their beds and avoid the woods.[232] In his November 1968 interview with Melody Maker, Ray suggested "Wicked Annabella" was his attempt at getting a song "to sound as horrible as it could", resulting in its overall "rude sound".[233] Employing guitar feedback, the song's main riff is reminiscent of the Doors' 1967 song "Light My Fire", while its conclusion of interplay between drums and guitar features Dave's laughter and heavy echo and reverb.[234] Critic Jim DeRogatis counts the song as the only example of psychedelia in the Kinks' discography,[235] while author Steve Alleman instead writes that its "freakout ending" is one of the few times the Kinks approached the genre, without actually achieving it.[220][nb 17]

"Monica" is a calypso number, a genre Ray first explored on The Kink Kontroversy with "I'm on an Island".[236] The song incorporates Caribbean rhythms and jazz tempo changes.[237] The backing track includes acoustic guitar, congas and organ, while bass guitar does not enter until the second verse.[238] Possibly inspired by the character Polly Garter from Thomas's Under Milkwood, the lyrics are a serenade for a prostitute.[239] The words are deliberately subtle, never directly mentioning her profession.[240] Ray later expressed pleasure with its subtlety since it both averted a ban from radio-play and allowed for others to more easily relate to the song.[241]

"People Take Pictures of Each Other" was inspired by a wedding Ray and Rasa attended where he found it strange how the newlywed couple took turns photographing one another.[242] Rogan describes the song's sound as a cross between a Coassack dance and a Greek wedding, something he relates to its original wedding inspiration.[243] It employs a quickly strummed acoustic guitar and fast a breathless lead vocal from Ray.[244] Hopkins plays harpsichord,[47] along with what Miller terms a "silly vaudeville piano vamp".[245] The song's lyrics satirise the absurdity of using photographs to prove one's existence.[246] Beyond being a reflection on humans' transitory existence, Chapman suggests the lyrics also "serve as a metaphorical postscript for the swinging '60s".[247] Miller suggests Ray composed the song to be a closing track, since it served as such on both the twelve- and fifteen-track editions of the LP, and because of the return of the oak tree from "Village Green" and the theme of photography from "Picture Book".[242]

The original twelve-song edition of the album had been completed in mid-August 1968 and was released as such in Sweden, Norway, France, Italy and New Zealand.[248] In addition to a rearranged track listing, it includes the songs "Days" and "Mr. Songbird" while being without "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", "Big Sky", "Sitting by the Riverside", "Animal Farm" and "All of My Friends Were There".[3]

"Days" recalls a past relationship,[58] the singer remembering either a friend or lover.[249] The song's theme of nostalgia lyrically relates it to the rest of Village Green,[250] and Alleman writes its motif of "looking back yet trying to start anew" makes it the composition most representative of Ray's 1966–68 songwriting.[220] Instrumentally, the recording incorporates acoustic and electric guitars, bass, harmonium, piano and a Mellotron which mimics a string section.[251] "Mr. Songbird" is about a songbird whose call helps the singer's problems go away.[252] Hopkins plays Mellotron to duplicate the sound of a flute, trilling during the chorus to mimic the sound of a bird.[253] Miller suggests the song's escapist sentiment is comparable to other contemporary Ray compositions like "Picture Book",[254] and author Christian Matijas-Mecca writes the song is thematically related to the album's "loose narrative about a desire for a lost England".[255]

In the United Kingdom, Pye planned to release Village Green on 27 September 1968.[3] Ray began press interviews in mid-August to promote its release; the band performed some of its songs for BBC Radio, including "Monica" on 1 and 9 July and "Picture Book" on 22 July;[177] and Pye placed advertisements in several British pop magazines.[259] Following Ray's last-minute request that its release be postponed, only test-pressings of the twelve-track edition were made in the UK. Because Pye had already made and sent production masters to several other countries, release of the twelve-track LP went ahead in Sweden and Norway on 9 October, with subsequent releases of that edition following in France, Italy and New Zealand.[271]

Ray's last-minute delay of the LP resulted in confusion for both the music press and recording-buying public.[184] Pye instead issued the rearranged and expanded edition of the album in the UK on 22 November 1968.[272] The album had no associated lead single in the UK,[273] but "Starstruck" was released in parts of continental Europe, backed with "Picture Book".[274] To promote the European single, the Kinks filmed a black-and-white promotional film in late November 1968. It depicts the band walking around Waterlow Park in Highgate on a cold day and is similar in style to the photographs taken for Village Green's album cover.[275][nb 19] To promote the UK album release, Pye again placed advertisements in several British music magazines and the band performed "The Village Green Preservation Society", "Johnny Thunder" and "Animal Farm" on 26 November for BBC Radio.[278]

Timed to correspond with the Christmas rush,[47] the album was coincidentally released the same day as the Beatles' eponymous album (commonly known as the "White Album"),[279] and the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet followed a week-and-a-half later.[280] Though the album was moderately advertised and reviewed, its sales were quickly eclipsed by the other albums[47] – the "White Album" sold two million copies worldwide in its first week, while Village Green failed to chart in the UK or anywhere in Europe.[281] Exact figures for LP sales in the UK in the late 1960s are generally unavailable;[282] in 1995, Ray suggested "worldwide we'd be lucky if it [sold] 100,000 [copies]".[283] Rogan writes that the available context clues and Ray's later estimate suggest the album was likely "a modest seller".[284] Stiff competition from other releases during the holiday season kept the album from appearing in any UK album charts, which often only listed the top fifteen LPs. After Something Else failed to appear on most UK charts, Village Green's absence from all UK charts continued a decline in the performance of the Kinks' studio albums.[285] The album marked the beginning of a commercial low for the band, from which they did not recover until their late 1970s US revival.[286]

Both Miller and author Jon Savage suggest Village Green failed to register with the public, something they attribute to its separation from the contemporary culture's focus on revolution, protest and free love.[287] Rogan counters that Ray and authors like Miller have overstated the album's commercial failings.[288] Rather than finding the album out of step with contemporary culture, he writes its release corresponded with a surge of nostalgia and escapism in England, and that its championing of country living over city life aligned with the burgeoning ecology movement.[289][nb 20] He adds that the contemporary music press were typically excited by unified albums, and that Village Green's disconnect from psychedelia fitted with the back-to-basics approach adopted by many of the Kinks' contemporaries.[291][nb 21] Rather than laying blame with the album's content or its marketing, Rogan attributes Village Green's commercial shortcomings to the Kinks' waning popularity and the album's lack of an associated single in Britain, which resulted in fewer opportunities for television appearances and publicity.[294]

In the United States, Reprise Records received Village Green's master tapes on 20 December 1968 and planned to issue the album in late January 1969.[3] The label issued "Starstruck" as the album's lead single on 8 or 15 January 1969.[295] The single was initially afforded little critical attention as Reprise neglected to send review copies to US magazines.[296] Reviewers in both Cash Box and Billboard predicted the single would help the Kinks return to each magazine's chart,[297] though it ultimately failed to position in any American chart.[298]

Reprise likely issued Village Green in the US on 5 February 1969, though it possibly came out a week earlier. It was not advertised or announced in any American music magazines.[299] After Robert Christgau requested press material regarding the band in preparation for his album review, Warner Bros. Records sent him a group biography from 1964.[300] Like in the UK and Europe, the album failed to appear in any American charts.[281] The failure continued a trend of the Kinks' studio albums being outsold by compilations collecting their mid-1960s hits;[47] the 1966 compilation The Kinks Greatest Hits! sold over 200,000 copies in the US by 1969,[300] while the combined American sales of both Village Green and Something Else were later estimated to be 25,000.[281]

Village Green received favourable reviews in the music press.[47][301] Among British critics, Bob Dawbarn of Melody Maker interviewed Ray in a feature review and declared that the LP was "easily [the Kinks'] best".[302] In another positive assessment,[303] Disc and Music Echo's reviewer stated that Ray "managed to bypass everything psychedelic and electronic" by continuing to focus on "simple, even rustic melodies with words of wisdom". The reviewer concluded: "The Kinks may not be on the crest of the pop wave these days, but Ray Davies will remain one of our finest composers for many years."[47] The reviewer for Top Pops commented that the album's themes and styles varied greatly with considerable thought put into its lyrics and production, concluding that the LP was a "[v]ery good value" which would "command many hours listening".[47] Judith Simons of the Daily Express stated the album represented "the gentler aspects of British life" and "could make an idyllic stage musical".[47]

In his September 1968 preview of the twelve-track edition for NME, Altham reviewed the album favourably. He was especially fond of the title track, which he thought could have made it to No. 1 in the UK had it been issued as a single.[304] Having already published Altham's review of the original album, NME did not publish a review of the expanded edition in November.[47] Altham reflected decades later that while he liked the album on first listening and thought it was musically and aesthetically interesting, he worried at the time that it was a risky release for the Kinks since it was "a bit too twee".[305] He elaborated that compared to the band's earlier work, it was "missing [something] in terms of dynamics ... it didn't seem to have that anger, the kind of attack that Dave used to bring".[259]

Village Green was especially well received by US critics.[301] America's new underground rock press began embracing the Kinks after the January 1968 release of Something Else, a trend which continued following the release of Village Green.[306] The album was not covered in major US trade magazines like Billboard or Cash Box but instead received extensive coverage from non-mainstream sources.[299] Reviews were slow to appear after its February 1969 release; the only immediate response was a short piece in the 27 February issue of New York City's Village Voice, in which Johanna Schier provided a mixed assessment.[307] Schier described it as "a good album, not a great one", hampered by its attempts to extend in too many directions. She concluded that the album's best moments were when it approached the "[m]usical violence" which characterised the Kinks' earliest singles, though she still found the new music too subdued by comparison.[308] In the 10 April issue of the Voice, Robert Christgau countered Schier's review in his regular Rock&Roll& column and instead concluded that the album was the best of the year so far.[309][nb 22] While Schier suggested that band should have continued recording tracks with the raunch of "You Really Got Me", Christgau countered that the band necessarily progressed beyond their original sound, just as the Beatles never returned to recording songs like their earliest singles.[268] He declared "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" the album's most memorable song, placing it in the context of the rock and roll revival, and expected it would have been the lead single had there been enough demand.[310]

A review of the album by Paul Williams, the former editor of Crawdaddy! magazine, served as the lead review in the 14 June 1969 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.[311] In addition to praising the album,[299] Williams described Ray as a genius who "makes statements" and "says the sort of stuff that makes you delighted just to know that someone would say stuff like that".[312] Comparing Ray to the French composer Erik Satie,[313] Williams concluded that "only genius could hit me so directly, destroy me and rebuild so completely".[312] Williams's review subsequently became the most influential piece ever written about the Kinks, helping establish a cult following for the band.[314]

A review in Circus, formerly the teen magazine Hullaballoo, stated that though the Kinks were "backdated" and "cut off from the mainstream of pop progression", Village Green indicated their continued originality. A reviewer in Boston's new underground paper Fusion similarly wrote that despite the increasingly bad press the band were facing, Village Green showed their persistence. The album was also reviewed in university newspapers. Musician John Mendelsohn reviewed it for UCLA's paper the Daily Bruin, counting it as his favourite LP since the Who's 1967 album The Who Sell Out and predicted that it would be one of the best in 1969. The reviewer in Caltech's paper instead disparaged the album as "schmaltz rock", being "without imagination, poorly arranged, and a bad copy of The Beatles".[299]

Village Green frequently appears on professional rankings of the best albums.[359] The album was voted No. 221 in the first edition of English writer Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (1994).[360] It placed No. 171 and No. 141 in Larkin's updated second and third editions, published in 1998 and 2000, respectively.[361] In 2003, Rolling Stone placed it at No. 255 in the magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[362] When the list was updated in 2012 and 2020, it was placed at No. 258 and No. 384, respectively.[363][364] Rolling Stone also ranked it No. 28 on its "50 Greatest Concept Albums of All Time" list in 2022.[365] In Pitchfork and Paste's lists of the best albums of the 1960s, they placed Village Green at No. 27 and No. 18, respectively.[366][367]

Based on Village Green's appearances in professional rankings and listings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists it as the eighth most acclaimed album of 1968, the 38th most acclaimed album of the 1960s and the 185th most acclaimed album in history.[359]

Professional ratings

50th Anniversary Super Deluxe
Review scores
Source	Rating
American Songwriter	[136]
Rolling Stone	[368]
Uncut	8/10[323]

Along with the rest of the Kinks' catalogue, the album was first remastered on CD in 1998.[369] In contrast to the band's other 1998 reissues, Village Green included no bonus material but instead consisted of the mono version of the fifteen-track edition, the twelve-track edition in stereo and the mono single version of "Days".[369] Sanctuary Records reissued the album in 2004 as an expanded 3-CD box set, joining stereo and mono versions of the album and compiling many of the sessions' songs as bonus tracks.[319]

To coincide with the album's 50th anniversary, Sony BMG and Legacy issued a "Super Deluxe" edition on 26 October 2018.[136][370][371] The release featured three different versions, including a 1LP/1CD-edition, a 2CD-edition and the "Super Deluxe Box Set", the last of which spanned five CDs.[136][368] Among the bonus tracks were previously unknown reel-to-reel demo tapes made by Ray at 87 Fortis Green, as well as the unreleased studio recording "Time Song".[370] The reissue received critical acclaim, though several reviewers remarked that most of interesting bonus material had already been included on previous reissues.[nb 25] The 2018 release resulted in the album's first appearance on the UK Albums Chart, where it charted for one week at No. 47.[374] It also charted in Belgium, Spain and Germany.[nb 26]

All tracks are written by Ray Davies.

Side one

1. "The Village Green Preservation Society" – 2:49
2. "Do You Remember Walter" – 2:28
3. "Picture Book" – 2:38
4. "Johnny Thunder" – 2:33
5. "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" – 4:03
6. "Big Sky" – 2:49
7. "Sitting by the Riverside" – 2:21

Side two

1. "Animal Farm" – 2:57
2. "Village Green" – 2:08
3. "Starstruck" – 2:22
4. "Phenomenal Cat" – 2:37
5. "All of My Friends Were There" – 2:23
6. "Wicked Annabella" – 2:40
7. "Monica" – 2:13
8. "People Take Pictures of Each Other" – 2:10

Notes

• The original release included four discrepancies between the titles listed on the album sleeve and those on the LP's central label.[303] Other than "Phenomenal Cat", the titles are listed above as they were on the original sleeve.[nb 27]
• Track lengths according to AllMusic.[89]

All tracks are written by Ray Davies.

Side one

1. "The Village Green Preservation Society" – 2:49
2. "Do You Remember Walter" – 2:25
3. "Picture Book" – 2:36
4. "Johnny Thunder" – 2:30
5. "Monica" – 2:15
6. "Days" – 2:52

Side two

1. "Village Green" – 2:08
2. "Mr. Songbird" – 2:25
3. "Wicked Annabella" – 2:41
4. "Starstruck" – 2:20
5. "Phenomenal Cat" – 2:36
6. "People Take Pictures of Each Other" – 2:23

Notes

• The track listing above was originally intended for UK release but was instead issued in Sweden, Norway, France, Italy and New Zealand.[381][nb 28] The 50th anniversary deluxe box set included a replica of the Swedish LP.[371][373]
• Track lengths according to AllMusic.[383]