The Englishness of The Kinks

I recently downloaded The Kink's "Father Christmas" (tis the season, after all), and I gotta say, what a wonderful, biting bit of social commentary wrapped in a joyous, holiday sing-along!  I do believe it just edges out John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" for coherent social commentary and sheer fun, and of course blows Sir Paul McCartney's insipid "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" out of the water--and I say that as a die hard Beatles fan.

I am constantly surprised by the virtuosity of The Kinks, and lately I've been wondering why--why am I surprised by them?  Why are they always just one of those other English bands?  When we speak of British Invasion bands in hushed, reverent tones, we inevitably mean The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen.  Why are the Kinks so recurrently relegated to also-ran status?

Don't get me wrong, it's not like they're unknown or anything--they're Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductees, had a massive and acknowledged influence on Punk and New Wave, "Lola" is surely playing on some classic rock station as we speak, "Tired of Waiting" in some commercial, and the twin hits of "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of The Night" contain hands-down, no contest, the two most famous, awesome, and imitated guitar riffs in the history of rock, bar none.  Van Halen got its start covering "You Really Got Me." The Doors ripped them off for "Hello, I Love You."  The Kinks are not followers, not imitators, no, they are the pioneers, the trend-setters, the influential.  Guaranteed one of their songs is one of your favorite songs.

And that's just my point--given all their accomplishments, why are they so rarely spoken of in the same hushed awe as, say, The Beatles or The Stones? 

My theory is that The Kinks are just, well, so much more English than these other bands.  They don't just happen to be English you see--no, they are thoroughly, proudly, quintessentially English.

By way of comparison, yes, the Beatles make fleeting references to the Queen in "Penny Lane" and Side B of "Abbey Road," but for the most part their musical influences and ethos, from their early R&B covers to their psychedelic experiments, are firmly rooted in America.  John Lennon was initially trying to be Elvis; the American Bob Dylan is who first introduced them to weed, Timothy Leary to LSD; "Rubber Soul" was their attempt to sound like The Byrds; "Back in the USSR" was their send-up of the Beach Boys; Tuscon, Arizona is name-checked in "Get Back;"  John Lennon chose to live in New York over London.  They came from Liverpool, but their goal was clearly America.  Some pop-culture neophyte could be forgiven for assuming the Beatles were actually an American band.

Same deal with the Stones, the Who, Led Zep--all these bands got their starts covering American R&B standards.  Their favorite acts were Elvis Presley, Bo Diddly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc.  The Rolling Stones are named for a Muddy Waters song, an American, not a Brit.  From the start, they were all openly trying to sound like Americans--and by the end of their careers, had all functionally become adopted-Americans, no matter their nationalities.  Robert Plant sings of "Going to California," not the Isle of Wight.  Your most meat-headed, 'Murica-lovin', patriotic red-neck will proudly get the Led out to Jimmy Page, blissfully uncaring of his British citizenship.

Note that the least-revered parts of these bands' oeuvres here in the U.S. are typically the most British parts: David Bowie, for example, is best known state-side for such hits as the NASA-mimicking "Space Oddity" than his more recent "I'm Afraid of Americans."  The Who are best known in the States for such concept albums as "Tommy" and "Who's Next," while the more explicitly British "Quadrophenia" (about warring Mods and Rockers in 1964 Brighton), remains a favorite only of dedicated Who fans--State-side, anyways.

In other words, the British bands we Americans revere the most are the ones that sound the most American.

But there is absolutely no confusion about where The Kinks come from.  They make none such attempts to imitate American singers; their thick North London accents shine through at all times, you can almost hear their bad-teeth belting into the microphone.  Note that their Christmas song is called "Father Christmas," not "Santa Claus."  They composed an entire album entitled "Arthur: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire," which featured the hit-single "Victoria," about, yes, Queen Victoria and the height of British imperialism.  "Waterloo Sunset" paints a romantic scene of Waterloo, London, not Kansas City or California.  "Lola" takes place in "Old Soho," London.  "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" references the "Boutiques" and "Discotheques" of some fashionable dandy the way only an Englishman could.

That is to say, the gaze and locus of The Kinks was always firmly in their native England, never on America.  They are not adopted-Americans; they are, as I said, thoroughly, proudly, quintessentially English.  I'm sure they appreciated having hits state-side, but they were never writing for the U.S.; they were writing for themselves.

And I fear that may be why they are perpetually the also-rans of the British Invasion--no matter their undisputed accomplishments, no matter how awesome their songs, how fun their music, they are just too English for us Americans to fully embrace, deep down in our gut, like we have, say, the Stones.  We are not nearly so cosmopolitan as we might hope; even someone who's just firmly English is too foreign, too alien, too incomprehensible to our mainstream sensibilities.  Music written even in our native language must still be filtered through American lenses for our pop-culture to adopt it sub-consciously.

Which is a shame--the Kinks really are amazing. Our loss.