Tag Archives: pictures

#1026: The Kinks – People Take Pictures of Each Other

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Was this song in a car advert once? You’d think that with the Internet existing and everything, you’d be able to find evidence of this in a split second. But I can’t find it anywhere. I have this vague memory of hearing this song in the advert. And then watching a video of that advert on YouTube somewhere. This was all years ago. But before listening to the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society, that was how I came across ‘People Take Pictures…’ for the first time. It sounded so familiar when Ray Davies started singing those opening lines. Maybe I dreamed that advert up. If someone else remembers it, send answers on a postcard, please.

‘People Take Pictures…’ is the second song on that album concerning pictures being taken of memories gone by. The first to appear on there, ‘Picture Book’, focuses on the good aspects of looking at these photos and having those good ole moments of nostalgia. In ‘People Take Pictures…’, Ray Davies takes the more cynical approach, expressing a feeling that everyone’s just taking pictures of things just for the sake of it, to show their friends were missing out on or to show that they were there when something was happening just to gloat about it. On an album that’s focused on preserving the things of things that were sacred and pure, it’s here that Davies doesn’t want to see anymore pictures from the past after he’s shown an old picture of himself when he was three years old, sitting with his mother by an old oak tree. He wishes to see no more photos, and with those last words the whole record ends on a fadeout of perky ‘la-la-la’ vocals.

The sort of listener who like huge climactic finishes to their albums may be sort of let down when it reaches this point. A short and snappy number, this song is just over two minutes in length and it ends on a fade out rather than a true ending where everything comes to a concrete stop. Kinks fans will know that it was during this period that the band had also recorded ‘Days’, and if ever there would be an ideal album closer, then that track was right there. I personally like ‘People Take Pictures of Each Other’ in the place that it’s in. I think it works in concluding a summary to the album’s theme, through a funny 180-turn from all the ‘god-saving’ in the opening title track, you know? Looking at the past can be fine, but only in its amounts. Too much of that could probably get you down.

#871: The Cribs – Moving Pictures

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‘Moving Pictures’ was released as the second single from the Cribs’ Men’s Need’s… album, back in 2007. I guess I was a fully formed human being by that point, so I have an almost clear recollection of the hype around the band at the time. It was the first album of theirs on a major-label, and its first single became a UK indie dancefloor classic almost immediately.

When the video for ‘Pictures’ started making its rounds on MTV, I’m very sure I preferred the track over its predecessor from the get-go. Being 12-years-old, or whatever my age was back then, I think felt that the track just sounded a lot nicer. Bassist Gary Jarman takes the lead vocal on the majority of the song, with twin brother Ryan on the guitar laying down this really cool guitar pattern that alternates between the higher-pitched strings and the lower ones. Always appreciated that guitar during the verses. Ross Jarman lays down the beat on the drums which are very predominant in the mix, but I don’t say that in a way to complain.

Though I’ve known this song for about 14 years, I’ve no clue what it’s about. That goes for a lot of many other songs that I came to knew when in my first few years of secondary school. Thinking about them now, it may just be another song about a relationship or something… one where both people involved may not even share the same interests but still appreciate the time they share together? Just a guess. If I haven’t thought about it that deeply up to now, there’s small chance that I will from this point on. But no matter how I feel about its subject matter shouldn’t deter you from listening to it for yourself.