Do You Remember Walter?

"Do You Remember Walter?" is the second track on The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, a 1968 album by the Kinks. It was written by Ray Davies.

"Do You Remember Walter?"
Single by the Kinks
from the album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
A-side"The Village Green Preservation Society"
ReleasedNovember 1968 (US)
Recorded1968
GenreRock
Length2:23
LabelReprise
Songwriter(s)Ray Davies
Producer(s)Ray Davies
The Kinks US singles chronology
"Starstruck"
(1969)		 "Do You Remember Walter?"
(1968)		 "Victoria"
(1969)

Lyrics

Ray Davies said of the song's meaning, "[I]t's really about not having anything in common with people." He noted the similarity in perspective between the song and fellow Village Green Preservation Society track "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains."[1]

The lyrics of "Do You Remember Walter?" involve British culture, much like the other tracks on The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. More specifically, it notes how the people that you once knew likely have changed. The singer recalls his old friend Walter, and how "when the world was young... all the girls knew Walter's name." He reminisces about how he and Walter "said [they'd] fight the world so [they'd] be free" and claimed that they would "save up all [their] money and [they'd] buy a boat and sail away to sea, but it was not to be." He asks himself, "I knew you then, but do I know you now?" The singer concludes that "people often change, but memories of people can remain."

Release

"Do You Remember Walter?" was first released on The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, following "The Village Green Preservation Society", and preceding "Picture Book". "Do You Remember Walter?" eventually had single release as the B-side of "The Village Green Preservation Society". In 1996, an acoustic live version of the song was put on the U.S. version To the Bone. This same version was the penultimate track on the Picture Book compilation.

Reception

"Do You Remember Walter?" received positive reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine cited "Do You Remember Walter?" as a highlight from The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, and Pitchfork Media's J.H. Tompkins said that "in 'Do You Remember Walter', he reminisces, perhaps as a geriatric adult."[2][3] When talking about "Do You Remember Walter?", Rolling Stone's Paul Williams said "Now why is it Ray's songs always sound like something else, a different something else with each song and sometimes with each hearing? Sure, he's the world's master plagiarist, but it's more than that. It's more a feeling that it's all part of the same thing, it's all music and isn't it nice to run a cross this melody again? And it is, it's never a repetition, it's always some sort of opening. Ray Davies makes you realize how much there is all around us, waiting to be explored and explored again. Boredom? Every place you've been is a new frontier, now that you're someone different."[4]

Andrew Hickey praised "Do You Remember Walter?" in his book, Preservation: The Kinks Music 1964 - 1974, calling it "a beautiful, wistful song" and "the heart of [The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society]."[5] He also said that it "finds the universal in the specific" and that "the music reinforces the ambiguity."[5]

References
  1. Miller, Andy. Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.
  2. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "AllMusic". Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  3. Tompkins, J.H. "Pitchfork Media". Retrieved 2014-05-09.
  4. Williams, Paul. "Rolling Stone". Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  5. Hickey, Andrew. Preservation: The Kinks' Music 1964 - 1974. pp. 92–93.
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