People Take Pictures of Each Other
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- 2:22 (stereo with coda)
- 2:10 (stereo without coda)
- 2:14 (mono)
| "People Take Pictures of Each Other" | |
|---|---|
| Song by the Kinks | |
| from the album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society | |
| Released | 22 November 1968 |
| Recorded | July 1968 |
| Studio | Pye, London |
| Length |
|
| Label | Pye |
| Songwriter | Ray Davies |
| Producer | Ray Davies |
| Official audio | |
| "People Take Pictures of Each Other" on YouTube | |
"People Take Pictures of Each Other" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks from their sixth studio album, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968). Written and sung by Ray Davies, the song was recorded in July 1968. The song features a breathless vocal from Davies as well as harpsichord and piano from Nicky Hopkins, which was likely the last contribution he ever made to a Kinks recording.
Davies was inspired to write the song after attending a wedding and finding it strange that the bride and groom photographed one another. The lyrics satirise the absurdity of using photographs to prove one's existence. Retrospective commentators often describe the song as the darker opposite of "Picture Book", another song on Village Green about photography. Others comment that its status as closing track serves to summarise several of the album's themes. The Kinks performed "People Take Pictures of Each Other" in concert in 1973, and it has since been covered by the Dig.
I was at a wedding. [...] and they all stood there and they took a picture. And then she got the camera and took a picture of him ... and he got the camera and took a picture of her ... that's strange. That's where that came about. I just got the line and then built on that.[1]
Ray Davies was inspired to write "People Take Pictures of Each Other" after he attended a wedding and saw the newlywed couple photograph one another.[2] The song's lyrics satirise the absurdity of using photographs to prove one's existence,[3] and Davies stated in his 1994 autobiography that its lyrics sum up how he feels about "the world of photographic images", which he thinks both encourage nostalgia and mislead the viewer by providing a narrow perspective.[4]
Author Johnny Rogan describes the song's sound as a cross between a Cossack dance and a Greek wedding, something he relates to its original wedding inspiration.[5] Like several of Davies's late 1960s compositions, such as "Autumn Almanac" (1967), the song features a sing-along format during its choruses,[6] a feature Miller relates to the influence of Davies's father, who regularly went to musicals and dances and encouraged his children to sing songs at the piano.[7] Kitts writes the music's mix of "breathy vocals" against the fast-paced piano and "thumping" bass convey both the passage of time and the anxiety of the narrator as he looks at photos of his happier past.[8]
The song is one of several on the Kinks' 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society which thematically relate to memory.[9] Its lyrics return to previous imagery on the album, such as the oak tree in "Village Green" and the family photos of "Picture Book", leading author Andy Miller to hypothesise that Davies wrote the song specifically to be a closing track.[2] Like both "Picture Book" and the unreleased song "Pictures in the Sand", the song explores how memory relates to photographs and serves as a reflection on humans' transitory existence.[10][11] Several authors see "Picture Book" and "People Take Pictures of Each Other" as direct contrasts of one another, with the latter featuring a darker reflection on photographs and memory.[12] Author Christian Matijas-Mecca writes it combines several of the album's themes, including nostalgia, "the awkward outsider" and "the lost world of one's youth",[13] and author Rob Jovanovic suggests the song serves as a commentary on the other tracks, which often document the experience of a specific character.[14] Author Thomas M. Kitts suggests the song's closing line, "Don't show me no more, please", ends the album with frustration,[8] while author Ken Rayes thinks the closing lines both restate the album's themes while resolving its central tensions, "[recognising] the intangibility of the past and the impossibility of truly recapturing and preserving it".[15]
