Kinks Weeks – Village Green Preservation Society

This is the last Kinks day. I’m going to finish up with one of my favorite Kinks songs. I want to thank everyone who wrote and everyone who read the posts! I thought I would be lucky to get 10-12 people to do this… so I was shocked with 18 Kinks songs. I’ll be listening to The Kinks for months now.  I did this song back in 2018 or 19 but I wanted to make sure it got covered during this Kinksathon so I revamped it.

We are the Sherlock Holmes English-speaking Vernacular.
God save Fu Manchu, Moriarty, and Dracula.
We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity.
God save little shops, china cups, and virginity.

Some songs can be written by anyone and some can be very popular but generic. Some can only be written by certain songwriters. This would be one of those songs. Ray Davies’s songs have their own DNA. This was on the great 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. The album is a concept album reflecting on the loss of the old England that Ray remembered, he captures older village life, tradition, and the impact of the rapid changes happening in British society during the 1960s.

One thing that makes this song and many Kinks songs stand out is  Dave Davies…I’m not talking about his highly underrated guitar playing. It’s his high-pitched harmony singing with Ray that compliments the songs so well. Without Dave’s voice, the Kinks would not sound like The Kinks.

This nostalgic song is a favorite of mine. This is a big jump from You Really Got Me to…”We are the Sherlock Holmes English-speaking Vernacular, God save Fu Manchu, Moriarty, and Dracula.”

I learned a lot about older British Culture with this song. Desperate Dan, Mrs. Mopp, and Mother Riley… he fits the words like a jigsaw puzzle that magically falls into place. There are no forced lyrics and with these lyrics…that is not easy. This song to me, is up there with their best songs.

Ray Davis: “The people in it are all characters I liked as a kid or people my family could relate to, like Old Mother Riley and Mrs Mopp. Because I used to love listening to the BBC Light Programme on Sundays, like Round The Horne with Kenneth Williams. A time when the population was allowed to be trivial.”

Ray Davies: “You have to remember that North London was my village green, my version of the countryside. The street and district I grew up in was called Fortis Green, and then there was Waterlow Park and the little lake. I sang in the choir at St James’s Primary School until I was about 10, then I trained myself to sing out of tune so I could hang around with a gang called the Crooners instead. Our Scottish singing teacher Mrs. Lewis said, ‘Never mind, Davies – I hear crooners are making a lot of money these days.'”

Pete Townshend: “The Kinks were much more quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should be one day, be Poet Laureate. You know, he invented a new kind of poetry. A new kind of language for Pop writing, which I think, influenced me from the very, very beginning. (It was) very strange that I should be so directly influenced because it was from sideways. We were moving forward together. But I was very influenced by him.”

“I think that Dave Davies is also very underestimated. When we started, I used to feel that. Well, it’s obvious that Dave couldn’t have done the kind of innovation that I did. Because I was with Jim Marshall building the bloody amplifiers. Somehow The Kinks adopted some of that as well. They didn’t actually use the Marshall-size amps that we used. But they were loud, they were raucous. The guitar sound was similar, there was feedback there.”

I added a live version which for me is superior to the studio cut but that is just me. This is a rare time when I liked the live over the studio. I heard this live version before the studio recording. The horns add a lot to this song.

We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society.   Amen, Ray…

Village Green Preservation Society

We are the Village Green Preservation Society.
God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety.
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society.
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties.

Preserving the old ways from being abused.
Protecting the new ways, for me and for you.
What more can we do?

We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society.
God save Mrs. Mopp and good old Mother Riley.
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium.
God save the George Cross, and all those who were awarded them.

Oooh…

We are the Sherlock Holmes English-speaking Vernacular.
God save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula.
We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity.
God save little shops, china cups, and virginity.
We are the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliates.
God save Tudor houses, antique tables, and billiards.

Preserving the old ways from being abused.
Protecting the new ways, for me and for you.
What more can we do?

We are the Village Green Preservation Society.
God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety.
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society.
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties.

God save the village green!

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

57 thoughts on “Kinks Weeks – Village Green Preservation Society”

  1. Cool tune! I think I’ve heard it before, but didn’t really know it except for title. Fine little piece and as you say, the lyrics are great and quintessentially tongue-in-cheek Davies.
    Good job putting this together Max! I think you’ve inspired a number of us to look at, and listen to, the Kinks much more down the road.

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    1. Thanks Dave! Thanks for writing your post and following. I do love this song…great melody and fantastic words…one of the very few where I like a live version more than the studio.

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  2. I don’t recall hearing this song. You certainly can’t get anymore quintessentially English lyrics from anywhere else. That’s a great song to end on Max. Really enjoyed reading this series.

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    1. Thanks Randy…I appreciate everything… I never expected to get 18 posts…but it worked out. This song hit me so hard when I heard it for the first time…I love it.

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      2. They are a band worth looking into…I’ve always thought Ray Davies was the British Springsteen…or the other way around…they both write about the working class. Not the same style but same meanings.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Brand new to me, Max, but I see what you are saying. Lyrically, it really is something special. Again, his nostalgia writes an amazing song.

    Thanks for hosting this, Max. I heard many tunes I was unfamiliar with and have a deeper appreciation for the group. Every contributor did a great job with their piece! As far as the number of them, well, you got musical friends in high places!

    Great stuff, my friend!!!

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  7. Cheers Max

    It was an interesting one for me personally as it brought so much many more new Kinks songs to me.

    I’ve always liked them, but just kinda ignored them. It was good to see I wasn’t the only one felt they had just fallen so much in the shadow of ‘the other two’ that we didn’t appreciate them, and Ray in particular, as much as we should have … and indeed do now

    (You should try to get the whole series in front of the band somehow. I bet they’d be well chuffed and truly appreciated what you put together .)

    Yeah let’s do it again … How about with Alex Harvey, Rory Gallagher. … or Sweet!

    😂😂 If so, count me in! 😂😂

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    1. Thank you for participating man! We will do another one…I’m going to get in some practice commenting again and then I’ll be ready in a few months! I’ve thought about bands, artists, and genres….
      I wish I could show them lol.

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    1. I am really intrigued by this song…always have been. I thought it was worth a redo…I just happen to hear the live version first…it stuck with me. Thanks for everything CB.

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  10. I can’t really add anything to what’s been said, but if you wanted to try to sum up the Kinks’ viewpoint in one song, this would be it. A fine way to end things.

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  11. This one is, as Dave says quintessentlaly a Ray/Kinks song. Here we was, not yet 30 and truely sighing over days gone forever. The lyrics have all the slightly self-mocking English genteelity and humour you could ask for. (Sorry Ray, some things are gone forever once their time has come- like virginity.😉)

    This is him writing his heart out, and I can empathise with the world we grew up with fading away. In Australia, then NZ we still had had solid ties with Mother England. In picture theatres (‘the flicks” in Ray-speak) they played ‘God Save The Queen’ over the sound system before showing the programme and you were EXPECTED to stand in respect! Even in the flea-pit Tivoli, faded curtains and saggy sprung cheap seats! And if you didn’t you could be expected to be pointed out by the beam of an usherettes torch and be hissed at by most of the upstanding audience, if not the manager! Madness! By the 70s that never happened.

    I’ll quickly toss in my song choice since no-one else did. OK, I’m sure you’re expecting one off ‘Low Budget’ like ‘Misery?’ Would suit me on a personal level I’m sure, but I’ll give you another hidden gem, off ‘Sleepwalker,’ 1977. ‘Full Moon.’ Great start with a serious slightly ominous sounding piano intro, then off we go into the darkness, yet with Ray’s light dry touch. If you wonder where Warren Zevon got his inspiration for his most well known song, might I suggest ‘Full Moon?’

    ‘If your hands start shakin’ / When night starts to fall / And you’re scared of the moonlight / And the shadows on the wall / If the face in the mirror / Isn’t you at all / It’s just another full moon.’ Just another example of lyrical and musical genius. In my opinion Ray Davies deserves to be preserved.

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    1. This song is very relevant now…it’s just different ways.

      I just listened to both Misery and Full Moon… Full Moon has an eerie mood and I love it…I agree with the Zevon comment. Misery has a Stones sound but is purely Kinks. I rushed through those albums the other day…now I want to have a good listen…those two and Preservation Act Part 1

      Both are going on my playlist…no doubt. I do appreciate you sticking it through obbverse and commenting.

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      1. No worries! There are so many Ray wrote that I appreciated more after a few listens. ‘Sleepwalker’ is one that doesn’t get much love, but this song just kept nagging away. ‘Stormy Sky’ is another I rediscovered thanks to Max’s topic.

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    3. Great record obb. I was close to picking a song off that album. Another turn in their music journey. Great story on the usher business. I knew a guy from my neck of the woods who travelled to England back when and took a job as an usher in a movie theater. Roughest job he ever had. Being a bouncer at a pub had nothing on it.

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      1. They were different times fer sure. My brother actually worked as an usher for a while back in the mid 70s, now that I think about it. He had it easy, he talked softly and carried a weighty twelve inch torch (flashlight in the US), so nobody gave him any lip! The threat of a clout ’round the head with with that usually put the mouthy customer in their (quiet) place.

        That album was from their unheralded lost-in-the-shuffle period, but there was no fall of in quality.

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  12. Great ending to a great series Max! Like others here, I hadn’t heard this one before, the live version was fantastic! Very cool quotes from Pete Townsend too – I’ve always held the Kinks and the Who as my favorite British Invasion bands, and it makes sense knowing the Pete was influenced by the Davies bros!

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    1. I always thought the Who and Kinks were the overlooked ones compared to the Stones and Beatles.
      I found many new Kinks songs and albums that I really didn’t know about through this…thank you for your support!

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  16. Good list song. Nice wrap-up to the series. I learned so much from each blogger’s post on the songs. I’ve enjoyed writing and reading about The Kinks. Thanks for bringing us all together as a musical community, Max.

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  19. Sorry I missed your month-long Kinks party! They are one of my favourite 60s and 70s bands. I haven’t heard “The Village Green Preservation Society” in a long time. Thanks for the memories! 🙂

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