THE ENDURING LEGACY OF THE KINKS
We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society
God save Mrs. Mopps and good old Mother Riley
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the Sherlock Holmes English speaking vernacular
Help 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.
Not my words, but the words of Ray Davies of The Kinks. However you slice it, these do not sound like the lyrics of a cutting-edge British band from the height of the psychedelic era. And yet that’s what The Kinks were – amongst other things.
So, before we go any further, let’s take a medium-sized dive.
A MEDIUM-SIZED DIVE
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, in 1963 by brothers Ray on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, and Dave Davies on lead guitar and vocals. Through their British heyday in the 60s, they fielded a stable line-up that also featured Mick Avory on drums and Pete Quaife on bass.
The band emerged as Beatles-inspired pop music was taking the world by storm, but notably drew from other inspirations such as music hall, folk and country. They were briefly part of the so-called “British Invasion” of the United States. However, they were banned from entering the States for 4 years in the late ‘60s which stalled their expansion there at the same time as The Beatles were embedding themselves in the American consciousness.
The band had hits in the 70s and 80s with Lola and Come Dancing, but it is for their string of ‘60s masterpieces they are best remembered. Chief amongst these are All Day and All Of The Night, You Really Got Me, Days, See My Friends, Sunny Afternoon, Dedicated Follower of Fashion and, their masterpiece, Waterloo Sunset. Yet the heartland of their quintessential observations of English life, even domesticity, can often be found in their less celebrated tracks such as David Watts, Shangri-la, Two Sisters and Village Green Preservation Society.
And now it's time to turn you into an instant expert.
INSTANT EXPERT OPINION #1
THE KINKS SET A NEW TEMPLATE FOR SONGS ABOUT WORKING-CLASS LIFE.
Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.
Nothing could be further from the Kinks’ view of what was great about Britain than the views of modern Tories. They would however have had much more sympathy with John Major who included the above paean to Britain in one of his speeches. You could call the Kinks conservative but with a very small ‘c’.
On Autumn Almanac, Ray Davies sang:
I like my football on a Saturday
Roast beef on Sundays, all right
I go to Blackpool for my holidays
Sit in the open sunlight
The Kinks could be sharp and often satirical but their music was always fiercely protective of working class values. Many of their songs deal with suburban life, social issues, and everyday struggles.
Here's some lines from the Kinks’ Shangri-La:
The little man who gets the train
Has got a mortgage hanging over his head
But he's too scared to complain
'Cause he's conditioned that way
Time goes by and he pays off his debts
Got a T.V set and a radio
For seven shillings a week
In 1979 we meet the same little man later on in his career coming up to retirement. He’s still catching the 8am train on the Waterloo line, but sadly this is the day when he discovers his services are no longer needed. His name is Smithers-Jones and he’s the eponymous hero of a song by The Jam, who covered The Kinks’ David Watts:
It's time to relax, now you've worked your arse off
But the only one smiling is the sun-tanned boss
Work and work and work and work 'til you die
There's plenty more fish in the sea to fry
Class differentiation cut deep for Ray Davies. Not only did he celebrate the working man, he liked to satirise the better off too.
‘The tax man’s taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon
Next let’s talk about the Kinks’ facility in blurring musical genres.
EXPERTT OPINION #2
THE KINKS SET THE EARLIEST TEMPLATE FOR AMALGAMATING MUSICAL STYLES
It’s sometimes tempting to imagine that it wasn’t until the 1970s that fusion music, combining different styles took off, and that in the 1960s music easily divided into siloed genres. But it’s often overlooked that the Kinks possessed a sound that had already combined rock and roll with elements of British folk and music hall traditions.
Some would argue that The Beatles, to quote the most obvious example, were equally as adventurous and arguably more so with their Indian and classical experimentation amongst much else. But take a closer listen to the Kinks’ single See My Friends. In addition to being about the taboo subject of homosexuality, the song’s guitar evokes a sound reminiscent of the Indian tambura, making it one of the key early works in the style known as raga rock. It was in fact released four months before the sitar part in The Beatles’ Norwegian Wood.
From the fjords back to the groves of Albion. Let’s take a look at the Englishness of the Kinks.
EXPERT OPINION #3
RAY DAVIES LEGITIMISED SINGING WITH AN ENGLISH ACCENT
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a ho-o-o-o-o honky tonk woman. When the levee breaks, mama, you’ve got to move, ooh.
It’s understandable that the Beatles, the Stones and Led Zeppelin affected an American accent. It was accepted as the lingua franca of rock’n’roll in the sixties and seventies, as say French was in mediaeval Europe. So, it can come as a surprise to realise how unusual it was that not just the gentler songs by The Kinks but even their rockers such as You really got me were sung in a crystalline English accent. It was a brave decision and probably an uncommercial one too. It may partially account for why the Kinks did not take off to the same degree in the States as the other bands mentioned.
However, the legacy of this approach can be heard resonating through the years. The Kinks legitimised a wide variety of purely English singing styles. Jarvis Cocker of Pulp and Damon Albarn of Blur fairly obviously, but then there’s Mick Jones of The Clash, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys and Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks. In the more alternative world, there’s Mark E Smith of The Fall and Luke Haines of The Auteurs, but also female vocalists such as Allison Statton of Young Marble Giants and Sarah Nixey of Black Box Recorder.
INSTANT EXPERT OPINION #4
THE KINKS WERE THE ORIGINAL NONCONFORMISTS
Were the 1960s all about nonconformity? Not really. One year everyone had a Beatles moptop. Not long afterwards everyone was wearing kaftans. It was very much a case of “Yes, we are all individuals”.
The Kinks were pioneering experimenters in different musical styles and themes, but just as significantly, they dealt with outsiderness and nonconformity in society.
‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ was a plea for noncompliance. The character in the song, unusually sung by Dave, though written by Ray, doesn’t walk about like everybody else, doesn’t want to live his life like everybody else,
doesn’t want to remain confined like everybody else. Dedicated Follower of fashion is scathing about hippy camp followers, offering a template taken up by the Arctic Monkeys many yearsc later on Fake Tales of San Francisco. And as we’ve already noted, See My Friends is a song about homosexuality, which The Beatles and The Stones were conspicuously not tackling at the time.
Plus, let’s not forget the band were called The Kinks: Lola is a song about a transvestite or perhaps a transexual, daring for the time, in the Britain of 1970. It provided a blueprint of much that was gender-fluid and androgynous about the early to mid-70s period. By 1972, David Bowie was scandalising a nation by putting his arm round Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops, while Lou Reed was taking a walk on the wild side in New York.
INSTANT EXPERT OPINION #5
THE KINKS WERE A BUILDING BLOCK, BUT DIDN’T INVENT HEAVY METAL
It’s sometimes said that ‘You really Got me’ invented heavy metal. But American musicologist Robert Walser is more accurate when he describes it as the first hit song built around power chords. Dave Davies, whose riff it is, has himself rejected the idea, saying "I've never really liked that term, heavy metal. I think, in all humility, it was the first heavy guitar riff rock record. Just because of the sound—if you played it on a ukulele, it might not have been so powerful."
So, to sound an expert, settle for The Kinks didn’t invent heavy metal but maybe invented power pop.
SUMMARY
Let’s summarise these instant expert opinions.
1. They invented a new way of celebrating working class life in 1960s pop which proved influential.
2. Ray Davies legitimised singing in an English accent
3. The Kinks weren’t like everybody else. More chaotic than the Stones, closer to the heart of everyday life in England than the Beatles, more musically innovative than The Who. They were the original nonconformists.
4. The Kinks may not have invented heavy metal but they they did invent power pop.