People Take Pictures of Each Other.

On page 145 of Martin Westley Takes a Walk, Martin Westley lies on a bed surrounded by photographs he doesn’t remember. All he remembers is a single lyric from a song:

People take pictures of each other, just to prove that they really existed.



Martin doesn’t know it, but the song, “People Take Pictures of Each Other”, is the last song of the Kinks’ excellent 1968 album, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. If you’ve never heard it, you should run down to your nearest record store (I’m fairly sure they still exist in select metropolitan locations) and demand a copy as soon as you finish reading Martin Westley.



Ray Davies is a phenomenal songwriter with a genuinely unique vision. He is also the only real reason to watch the otherwise ordinary Julien Temple musical, Absolute Beginners.

The songs Davies wrote for Village Green are as much an examination of nostalgia itself as they are a lament for a disappearing rural England. It’s an incredible achievement, one of the first of the great British concept albums (the Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow is another good one), and naturally it flopped when it was first released. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, especially for music critics.

What’s even more staggering is that Davies and the Kinks made other albums that are equally as good, including Muswell Hillbillies and Arthur (“Victoria” and “Australia” are particular favourites of mine).

Aside from the epigraph, the only other song reference I’m aware of is the reference to “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” on page three. I’d like it known that this is intended as a reference to the original version of the song by Canadian prog-rockers Klaatu, even if Martin was thinking of the version by The Carpenters. I should also point out that the name Klaatu is a reference to the character as played by Michael Rennie, and not by Keanu Reeves.