Editing Ray Davies (section)

===Mid-period (1965–1975)===
[[File:Fanclub1967TheKinks1.jpg|thumb|Ray Davies with his brother Dave in background, performing with the Kinks (Dutch TV, 1967)]]
Beginning with "[[A Well Respected Man]]" and "[[Where Have All the Good Times Gone]]" (both recorded in the summer of 1965), Davies's lyrics assumed a new sociological character. He began to explore the aspirations and frustrations of common working-class people, with particular emphasis on the psychological effects of the [[British class system]]. ''[[Face to Face (The Kinks album)|Face to Face]]'' (1966), the first Kinks album composed solely of original material, was a creative breakthrough. As the band began to experiment with theatrical sound effects and [[baroque (music)|baroque]] musical arrangements ([[Nicky Hopkins]] played [[harpsichord]] on several tracks), Davies's songwriting fully acquired its distinctive elements of narrative, observation and wry social commentary. His topical songs took aim at the complacency and indolence of wealthy playboys and the upper class ("[[Face to Face (The Kinks album)|A House in the Country]]", "[[Sunny Afternoon]]"), the heedless ostentation of a self-indulgent spendthrift ''[[nouveau riche]]'' ("[[Face to Face (The Kinks album)|Most Exclusive Residence For Sale]]"), and even the mercenary nature of the music business itself ("[[Face to Face (The Kinks album)|Session Man]]").

By late 1966, Davies was addressing the bleakness of life at the lower end of the social spectrum: released together as the complementary A-B sides of a [[single (music)|single]], "[[Dead End Street (song)|Dead End Street]]" and "[[Big Black Smoke]]" were powerful neo-[[Dickens]]ian sketches of urban poverty. Other songs like "[[Something Else by the Kinks|Situation Vacant]]" (1967) and "[[Shangri-La (Ray Davies song)|Shangri-La]]" (1969) hinted at the helpless sense of insecurity and emptiness underlying the materialistic values adopted by the English working class. In a similar vein, "[[Dedicated Follower of Fashion]]" (1966) wittily satirized the consumerism and [[celebrity worship]] of [[Carnaby Street]] and '[[Swinging London]]', while "[[David Watts (song)|David Watts]]" (1967) humorously expressed the wounded feelings of a plain schoolboy who envies the grace and privileges enjoyed by a charismatic upper class student.

The Kinks have been called "the most adamantly British of the Brit Invasion bands"<ref name="Paul Evans 1992, p. 403">Paul Evans ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', Straight Arrow Publishers, 1992, p. 403</ref> on account of Ray Davies's abiding fascination with [[British Empire|England's imperial past]] and his tender, bittersweet evocations of "a vanishing, romanticized world of village greens, pubs and [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public schools]]".<ref name="Paul Evans 1992, p. 403"/> During the band's mid-period, he wrote many cheerfully eccentric—and often ironic—celebrations of [[English culture|traditional English culture and living]]: "Village Green" (1966), "Afternoon Tea" and "[[Autumn Almanac]]" (both 1967), "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" (1968), "[[Victoria (The Kinks song)|Victoria]]" (1969), "[[Have a Cuppa Tea]]" (1971) and "Cricket" (1973). In other songs, Davies revived the style of British music hall and [[trad jazz]]: "[[Dedicated Follower of Fashion]]", "[[Sunny Afternoon]]", "[[Dandy (song)|Dandy]]" and "Little Miss Queen of Darkness" (all 1966); "[[Mister Pleasant]]" and "End of the Season" (both 1967); "Sitting By the Riverside" and "All of My Friends Were There" (both 1968); "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina" (1969); "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" and "Alcohol" (both 1971); "Look a Little on the Sunny Side" (1972); and "Holiday Romance" (1975). Occasionally, he varied the group's sound with more disparate musical influences, such as [[raga]] ("Fancy", 1966), [[bossa nova]] ("No Return", 1967) and [[calypso music|calypso]] ("I'm on an Island", 1965; "Monica", 1968; "[[Apeman (song)|Apeman]]", 1970; "[[Supersonic Rocket Ship]]", 1972).

Davies is often at his most affecting when he sings of giving up worldly ambition for the simple rewards of love and domesticity ("This is Where I Belong", 1966; "Two Sisters", 1967; "The Way Love Used to Be", 1971; "Sweet Lady Genevieve", 1973; "You Make It All Worthwhile", 1974), or when he extols the consolations of friendship and memory ("[[Waterloo Sunset]]", 1967; "[[Days (The Kinks song)|Days]]", 1968; "[[Do You Remember Walter?]]", 1968; "[[Picture Book (song)|Picture Book]]", 1968; "Young and Innocent Days", 1969; "Moments", 1971; "Schooldays", 1975). {{citation needed|date=July 2022}}Yet another perennial Ray Davies theme is the championing of individualistic personalities and lifestyles ("[[I'm Not Like Everybody Else]]", 1966; "Johnny Thunder", 1968; "Monica", 1968; "[[Lola (song)|Lola]]", 1970; "[[Celluloid Heroes]]", 1972; "Where Are They Now?", 1973; "[[Sitting in the Midday Sun]]", 1973). On his 1967 song "[[Waterloo Sunset]]", the singer finds a fleeting sense of contentment in the midst of urban drabness and solitude.

Davies's mid-period work for the Kinks also showed signs of an emerging social conscience. For example, "Holiday in Waikiki" (1966) deplored the commercialization of a once unspoiled [[indigenous culture]]. Similarly, "God's Children" and "[[Apeman (song)|Apeman]]" (both 1970), and the songs "[[20th Century Man]]", "Complicated Life" and "Here Come the People in Grey" from ''[[Muswell Hillbillies]]'' (1971), passionately decried [[industrialization]] and [[bureaucracy]] in favour of simple [[pastoral]] living. Perhaps most significantly, the band's acclaimed 1968 concept album ''[[The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society]]'' gave an affectionate embrace to "[[Merry England]]" nostalgia and advocated the preservation of traditional English country village and [[Hamlet (place)|hamlet]] life.

A definitive testament to Davies's reputation as a songwriter of insight, empathy and wit can be heard on the Kinks' landmark 1969 album ''[[Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)]]''. Originally conceived as the soundtrack to a television play that was never produced, the band's first [[rock opera]] affectionately chronicled the trials and tribulations of a working-class [[everyman]] and his family from the very end of the [[Victorian era]] through the First World War and Second World War, the [[Rationing in the United Kingdom|postwar austerity years]], and up to the 1960s. The overall theme of the record was partly inspired by the life of Ray and Dave Davies's brother-in-law, Arthur Anning, who had married their elder sister Rose—herself the subject of an earlier Kinks song, "[[Rosie Won't You Please Come Home]]" (1966)—and had emigrated to Australia after the war.<ref>Kitts, Thomas. ''Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else'', p.131.</ref> Throughout a dozen evocative songs, ''Arthur'' fulfills its ambitious subtitle as Davies embellishes an intimate family chronicle with satirical observations about the shifting mores of the English working class in response to the declining fortunes of the [[British Empire]].

The Kinks followed up ''Arthur'' with ''[[Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One]]'' (1970), a satirical take on the travails of the recording industry. This album proved to be another critical achievement as well as a commercial hit, spawning "[[Lola (song)|Lola]]", their first US Top Ten single since "[[Tired of Waiting for You]]" in 1965. ''[[Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One]]'' would also prove to be the band's final album before signing with RCA Records. This period on the [[RCA]] label (1971–75) produced ''[[Muswell Hillbillies]]'', ''[[Everybody's in Show-Biz]]'', ''[[Preservation Act 1]]'' and ''[[Preservation Act 2|Act 2]]'', ''[[Soap Opera (album)|Soap Opera]]'' and ''[[Schoolboys in Disgrace]]''.