History Rewards The Kinks' Bad Timing

"Picture yourself when you’re getting old,
Sat by the fireside a-pondering on
Picture book, pictures of your mama, taken by your papa a long time ago.
Picture book, of people with each other, to prove they love each other a long ago.

"Picture book, your mama and your papa, and fat old uncle charlie out cruising with their friends.
Picture book, a holiday in august, outside a bed and breakfast in sunny southend.
Picture book, when you were just a baby, those days when you were happy, a long time ago." The Kinks, Picture Book. 1968.

So go the lyrics of a song from a forgotten album. A mighty difficult challenge it is for a thirty-something gent to comment on a wild period such as the 60s musical scene. Then again, it's just history and some of us are capable of grasping its lost nuances.

In the mind of popular public opinion, the 60s is all about gratuitous sex, drug experimentation and Satanism all rolled up in the spirit of Woodstock - a mythical time and place so long ago it may as well be Camelot or Atlantis. The period is best remembered under the musical umbrella of rock immortals like The Beatles, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin - and on and on. But what about the lesser known members of 1960s musical heritage?

For me, the 60s have become hopelessly dated - especially politically. John Lennon is a hero to many still; I sometimes want to vomit when I hear him described as the world's greatest pure soul. It was all a moment in time and while many baby-boomers hang on to the notions they espoused then, it doesn't resonate all that well anymore. In a way, I'm glad foreign policy resisted the onslaught. What was good for the baby-boomer wasn't necessarily good for the nation moving forward.

There were bands and albums being made that went against the grain. I came across 'The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society' a couple of years ago and thought nothing of it. Ignorance is not only bliss, it's downright indiscriminate. If one is not acquainted with history, we can easily overlook relevant gems before our eyes. Fast forward to 2006 and something hit me about this album. The sound struck me as so contrary to what was being recorded back then. In fact, the lyrics were not only intimate but also hilarious. If the 60s were about hope and youthful exuberance (the Renaissance belief in man run amok if you will), Ray Davies' masterpiece comes off as a little too sober and pragmatic for the period. It's as if he was saying 'Grow up people. Pay attention!'

Alas, this is just my perception. I never interviewed Ray Davies but if I did I'd know exactly what to ask him and what to talk about. Nothing can be more frustrating than to write relevant stuff and not be recognized on the spot. Then again, true relevance ages like a fine wine. It finds a way to reconnect. Inside John Mellencamp's 'Scarecrow' album jacket reads 'There's nothing more sad or more glorious than generations changing hands.' With this album, Davies can sit back and, well, derive satisfaction that a young blogger is writing about his soul.

Worse, it can be quite the uphill battle trying to shake a stigma. The Kinks, as most already know, are the creators of some of rock's most recognizable anthems - 'Lola' and 'You Really Got Me' immediately spring to mind. As a result, they were forever associated as a hitmaking pop rock band that every garage band must copy and master in order to be legitimate. Marketed as part of the British Invasion, Ray Davies and The Kinks were not allowed to spread their intellectual musical wings.

While The Beatles and Brian Wilson were blowing everyone away with 'Revolver', 'Rubber Soul' and 'Pet Sounds' in a game of one-upmanship, Davies quietly offered his perspectives that flopped in the construct of musical business models. Who knows why certain pieces of art get ignored? Maybe the kids were too burnt to truly understand. They were too busy trying to be cool.

What attracts me to The Village Green is its call for a lost time. The whole album seems to try and preserve parts of history. The opening line of 'The Village Green Preservation Society', "We are the VGPS, God Save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety" blasted me with so many realities of modern times. Sadly, Al Jolson is just another forgotten historical relic. No longer central to a people so addicted to immediate self-gratification. Our collective attention spans are that of a tiny fly that has little interest - let alone appreciation - for all things from another era. Fret not, there are many people who are preserving our beauty against the terrible avalanche of profiteering. History on its own is just a word. Add a human face to it and it becomes something more.

Above all, the album hits with a hint of humorous irreverence, as revealed with the references to 'Scooby Doo' and 'Fat Uncle Charlie' in the addictive 'Picture Book.'

Someone once contended that 'The Kinks' are the greatest and most under appreciated rock band ever. Now I know what this astute person meant. The Kinks (who had achieved cult status in the mid-70s) had the courage to go against a grain and a current much like Jonathan Richman did in the early 70s. The price was to forego eternal immortality in the annals of popular consumption.

Now that I think of it, who cares? What albums like VGPS have given is far more profound. Is Davies 'the last of the good old choo-choo trains?' No, but he's a dying breed in the face of Ashlee Simpson.