Jam & Jerusalem & the Kinks
The theme song to "Clatterford," the brilliant current BBC America sitcom created by Jennifer "Absolutely Fabulous" Saunders, is the Kinks' 1968 masterpiece, "Village Green Preservation Society":
"We are the Village Green Preservation Society. God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety. We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society. God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties."
Sung by Kate Rusby (the Kinks themselves perform it here), "Village Green" captures the essence of the West Country village of Clatterford and its church-based Women's Guild (in England the show airs as "Jam & Jerusalem"). Like its theme song, the show is a perfectly pitched and gently amusing look at the centuries-old rural friction of old and new, past and present, young and old.
The Kinks themselves experienced a similar culture clash when singer Ray Davies began writing music that rocked softer than "You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," and the group's other early sixties chart toppers. His guitarist brother, Dave, preferred the harder stuff and the brothers' infamous sibling rivalry was fueled when Ray began writing more personal and socially observant songs such as "A Well Respected Man" and "Sunny Afternoon" in 1965 and 1966. The tension between Ray's more personal, theatrical, and observational writing and Dave's preference for hard rock created nearly constant tension until the band finally broke up in 1996. Anyone curious about the (almost literally) gory details of the Davies brothers' sad dysfunctional relationship won't want to miss this British documentary on the group.