CBEB’s

Over at Reason, Jesse Walker has posted an excellent article on The Kinks, dealing specifically with what he describes as “the most un-1968 song of 1968″, the title track to the album, The Village Green Preservation Society. (Those of you unfamiliar with the Kinks might have heard the song in the soundtrack of Hot Fuzz.)

I happen to agree with Walker; Muswell Hillbillies is my favorite Kinks album too, but The Village Green Preservation Society is pretty high on my list of favorites. The album contains “Big Sky”, a great tune featuring Ray Davies’ thoughts on god:

Big Sky looked down on all the people looking up at the Big Sky.
Everybody pushing one another around
Big Sky feels sad when he sees the children scream and cry
But the Big Sky’s too big to let it get him down.

Big Sky too big to cry
Big Sky too high to see
People like you and me

One day we’ll be free, we won’t care, just you see
‘Til that day can be, don’t let it get you down
When I feel that the world is too much for me
I think of the Big Sky, and nothing matters much to me.

Big Sky looked down on all the people who think they got problems
They get depressed and they hold their head in their hands and cry.
People lift up their hands and they look up to the Big Sky
But Big Sky is too big to sympathize

Big Sky’s too occupied
Though he would like to try
And he feels bad inside
Big Sky’s too big to cry

One day we’ll be free, we won’t care, just you wait and see
‘Til that day can be, don’t let it get you down.
When I feel that the world is too much for me
I think of the Big Sky, and nothing matters much to me.

Incidentally, Walker’s article doubles as a review for Thomas M. Kitts’ Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else, which approaches Davies’ lyrics as literature. It sounds a bit pretentious, but it might be worth looking into if rock star biographies are your thing.