THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,043) The Kinks — “Lavender Hill”
Turn on, tune in, and drop out Kinks-style.
DJ Stereo Faith tells us:
“Lavender Hill” is a gorgeous, yearning music hall meets psych rarity . . . . Initially recorded during the late ’60s, during the We Are The Village Green Preservation Society era, the song did not see light until it was released on the odds ‘n’ sods collection, The Great Lost Kinks Album in 1973. The song is built around a minor key oboe and harpsichord vamp, a cascade of backing vocals and one of Ray Davies‘ very best lead vocal turns. The song is also helped along by some deeply wistful and poetic lyrics. . . . It remains one of The Kinks‘ very best song . . . .
http://www.djdmac.com/blog/song-day-kinks-lavender-hill/
Keith Mulopo adds:
[T]he group recorded a song that was considered to be a follow-up single from . . . the timeless “Waterloo Sunset”: “Lavender Hill”. . . . [P]sychedelic rock reached an apogee during 1967, and with “Lavender Hill” The Kinks recorded an earnest foray into the genre. . . . Despite being shelved in favour of the brilliant “Autumn Almanac” (which reached number 3 in the UK charts in October 1967), “Lavender Hill” is a more-than-worthwhile experiment conducted by a peculiar band at the peak of their powers. Lyrically, Ray Davies hits a poetic and observational note . . . but in a vibrant fashion, depicting a land where the “sun saturates [him] with love”, birds “sing sweet melodies”, and it’s ultimately run on “sugar and milk”. . . . Davies channel[s] a spirit of unreality akin to . . . Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his preternatural poetry. His vocals are drenched in reverb and carry the same endearing vulnerability that blessed “Waterloo Sunset”; coupled with the hypnotic melody, Davies’ performance is a lysergic delight. . . . [T]here’s no discernable chorus but rather a refrain (“Lavender Hill for me”) that comes at the end of the verses, whilst there are two different bridges into the second verse and eventual outro to the song. There is a peak-and-trough quality that makes the outtake an involved listening experience, almost emulating the euphoria and come-down that comes with indulging in psychedelics. Only in this case, there’s no sign of existential dread. . . . Avory’s jazzy and imprecise delivery . . . nicely balances the celestial and soft tones of the songs that are provided by Davies’ vocals and the angelic backing vocals by Quaiffe, Dave Davies, and Rasa Davies (Ray’s wife would record vocals during this period). The psychedelic aesthetic is perfectly rounded off with the use of the mellotron, which adds a trippy, ethereal edge to the song (if it needed anymore) . . . . “Lavender Hill” . . . has all of the band’s whimsy packaged into a 3 minute, British, psychedelic expression of . . . a dreamy part of London.
https://www.indiependent.co.uk/track-review-lavender-hill-the-kinks/?amp=1
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