Ray Davies’ striking satire of English nostalgia: “For this land, I shall die”
Everything was so much better in the ‘good old days’, wasn’t it? When everybody, apart from the landed gentry, was crammed into overcrowded slums, worked to death, and then left to die penniless in their own excrement at the age of 30 for the good of the British Empire. No, despite worryingly widespread views in modern-day Britain, things were pretty terrible for the working class back in the days of Queen Victoria and the height of the British Empire. That sense of misguided nostalgia has always been around, though. In fact, it helped to fuel one of the greatest songwriters Britain has ever produced, Ray Davies.
Typifying the youthful post-war rebellion of the swinging sixties, Davies penned a litany of utterly iconic, groundbreaking rock anthems during his younger years. At the forefront of The Kinks, he paved the way for virtually all future punk and alternative rock outfits, pioneering the use of guitar distortion and crafting countless short, sharp anthems that captured the revolutionary spirit of a new generation in Britain. That generation consistently threatened the typically conservative attitudes of their parents, always looking towards the future rather than wallowing in the past.
During the 1960s, with all the newfangled fashions, technologies, sounds, and cultures emanating from London at that time, there were many people who yearned to return to the simpler times of the Victorian era. After all, it was an era in which Britain was strong, with one of the biggest empires the world has ever known, and leading the world in so many fields of research and invention. In reality, though, life under Victorian rule was pretty miserable for the working class, particularly in cities like London.
Working class life has been a common theme in Ray Davies’ songwriting going right back to his earliest efforts; after all, the best writing comes from personal experiences. From kitchen sink anthems like ‘Dead End Street’ to the mod rock masterpiece ‘All Day and All of the Night’, Davies always coveted working class stories and attitudes within his songwriting. As The Kinks progressed, however, his work became much more ambitious, culminating in groundbreaking efforts like ‘Victoria’.
Released in 1969 in support of their record Arthur, the song presents a surface-level view of nostalgia for the Victorian era and for the mighty British Empire. Since its release, the song has repeatedly been used as an example of triumphant patriotism and British pride, mainly by those who have completely missed the point of the song altogether.
For if you dig a little deeper into the lyrics of Davies’ songwriting, ‘Victoria’ doesn’t present an overly joyous view of the time period. Highlighting the extreme class inequality which was rife during the time of the Empire, the songwriter presents a view that ordinary people were used as nothing more than cannon fodder under Victoria’s rule: “Though I am poor, I am free, when I grow I shall fight, for this land I shall die.”
Although a simplistic song on a surface level, Davies actually presents a striking satire within ‘Victoria’, both of the Victorian era itself and the phoney nostalgia for that era, which right-wing commentators tend to capitalise on. Still, much like earlier efforts on ‘Village Green Preservation Society’, Davies’ satirical takes on ideas of ‘Englishness’ largely went over people’s heads. Today, both tracks are still hailed as being reflective of the quaint, patriotic English landscape that has only ever really existed in people’s heads.
After all, it isn’t as though The Kinks were strolling down Carnaby Street during the swinging sixties wearing tweed shooting jackets and heading off for a quaint afternoon tea in the countryside; they were dismantling these ridiculous middle-class notions of Englishness and blazing a trail for working-class voices in rock music. ‘Victoria’ carries the dormant spirit of William Blake’s ‘London’ within its verses, using the perceived values of the Victorian era to satirise the treatment of working-class communities throughout British history. In that sense, the song is among the most defiant and misunderstood anthems of the 1960s.
