On this blog, you’ll find that the majority of songs by The Kinks that I’ve written about are from the Village Green Preservation Society album, released back in 1968. I’m quite fond of Village Green, think it goes without saying. The first number from the record I covered was ‘Do You Remember Walter?’ in 2014. I didn’t give much of a backstory on there as to how I came across the album. It would have been an ideal situation to, that’s for sure. I’m fairly certain I found it through besteveralbums.com, sometime in 2013, and after going through it a couple more times, melodies and rhythmic moments would spontaneously arrive in my head and the songs that would become my favourites made themselves known.

‘Starstruck’ was one of the songs on there that I came to treasure. When exactly, I don’t know, but I seem to remember at one point listening to the part where the band go into that wordless “ba-ba-da-ba-ba” vocal break during the middle eight, thinking “Oh, hell yeah” and wanting to clap along with them. Reminded me of being at the pub with old mates or something. The track was released as the album’s lead single. ‘Days’ had been released as one earlier in the year, but didn’t make it onto the full LP. The band even made a video for ‘Starstruck’ and everything, which you can see above. Apparently might be the last footage of the band in their original four-piece line-up before bassist Pete Quaife departed not too long after. But for whatever reason, ‘Starstruck’ only charted in the Netherlands and didn’t get the commercial success it was probably warranted. Very much like the album as a whole. A shame, but that’s how things had to be, I guess.

In the track, Ray Davies sings about a lady within his/the band’s circle who’s sounds like she’s having a good time being caught up in the celebrity lifestyle a member of a rock group would experience in the ’60s. Davies, however, takes a point of view that she might be having a little too much fun and that while the glitz and glamour may seem all appealing and everything, she’ll eventually be chewed up and spat out by all the vices that come along with it. Some fair advice, though could come across as a little condescending. Man telling a woman what to do and all that. “Starstruck on me.” Bit presumptuous. But man, if the melody on here doesn’t supersede all of that. Davies was in his melody bag during the making of this particular record, must have been something in the air. He sort of takes on this high, soft register, maybe to adopt a parental, motherly kind of character perhaps, which contrasts with the drier “Starstruck, baby, you know that you’re starstruck” backing vocals during the chorus. It’s all nice stuff. And you’ve got to appreciate a good use of a Mellotron too. It provides those strings you hear throughout. The Mellotron should come back in these times.