The Kinks album that reduced Sid Vicious to tears
Music is an inherently emotional art form, capable of conjuring up deeply buried emotions and long-forgotten memories with ease. Even somebody as seemingly tough and stoic as the punk rock poster boy, Sid Vicious, was capable of being reduced to tears by the right song and, for him, that song was plucked from the illustrious discography of The Kinks.
Although punk rock was born from a desire to burn down the musical establishment and rebuild from its smouldering ashes, the angry young upstarts at the heart of the scene still maintained certain influences from the pre-punk days, with The Kinks being among the most prominent. After all, the Ray Davies-led band almost single-handedly established the art of short, sharp, and abrasively rebellious rock and roll anthems during their swinging sixties heyday.
Sonically, punk took a plethora of cues from tracks like ‘You Really Got Me’ or ‘All Day and All of the Night’, what with their pioneering use of guitar distortion, easy-to-play power chords, and earworm quality.
What’s more, many of the architects of the punk age were children of the 1960s, so the infectious sounds of the Davies clan were able to infiltrate their still malleable minds at an early age. In that sense, it is no surprise that they were one of the few ‘old’ bands still beloved by punks.
In fact, The Kinks were very close to the heart of ever individual member of the Sex Pistols, the band that arguably kicked off the UK punk scene, and certainly played an essential role in spreading its message of defiance far and wide across the nation.
Their sneering frontman John Lydon, for instance, once declared that ‘You Really Got Me’ was the song that “started it all,” setting him on a path to musical greatness in his own right.
For Lydon’s close comrade and future bandmate, Sid Vicious, though, The Kinks’ appeal didn’t start and end with their anthemic rock and roll rebellions. According to Ray Davies, it was the band’s profound concept album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, tackling misguided nostalgia and the myth of middle England, that really stuck in the mind of the Pistols’ troubled bassist.
Talking to The Big Takeover in 2012, the songwriter recalled, “Sid Vicious once got emotional about one song with me in the Speakeasy Bar in London (forget which one) but I didn’t take it seriously.” He added, “It does amaze me how many different artists like that album [Village Green Preservation Society] particularly, as it was not what could be called a hit. Some people like the album simply for that reason.”
Far from being a hit, that 1968 album was something of a flop for the band, failing to evoke the same success as their early triumphs. Nevertheless, the songwriting quality of the record is among Davies’ best, so it is no surprise that it amassed a cult following in the years that followed its release, including Sid Vicious, although the exact track that rendered him in tears – seriously or not – is not known with any certainty.
