an overall "rude sound". Employing guitar feedback, the song's main riff is reminiscent of the Doors' 1967 song "Light My Fire", while its conclusion of interplay between drums and guitar features Dave's laughter and heavy echo and reverb. Critic Jim DeRogatis counts the song as the only example of psychedelia in the Kinks' discography, while author Steve Alleman instead writes that its "freakout ending" is one of the few times the Kinks approached the genre, without actually achieving it. "Monica" "Monica" is a calypso number, a genre Ray first explored in his 1965 song "I'm on an Island". The composition incorporates Caribbean rhythms and jazz tempo changes, while the recording features acoustic guitar, congas and organ. Possibly inspired by the character Polly Garter from Thomas's Under Milk Wood, the lyrics are a serenade for a prostitute. In order to avert a radio-ban, Ray was deliberately subtle in its writing and never directly mentions her profession. "People Take Pictures of Each Other" "People Take Pictures of Each Other" satirises the absurdity of using photographs to prove one's existence. Ray was inspired to write the song after he attended a wedding and found it strange that the newlywed couple took turns photographing one another. Its lyrics recall the oak tree from "Village Green" and the theme of photography from "Picture Book", leading Miller to hypothesise that Ray composed it specifically to be a closing track. Rogan describes the song's sound as a cross between a Coassack dance and a Greek wedding, something he relates to its original wedding inspiration. It employs a quickly strummed acoustic guitar and fast a breathless lead vocal from Ray. Hopkins plays harpsichord, along with what Miller terms a "silly vaudeville piano vamp". European format The original twelve-song edition of the album had been completed in mid-August1968 and was released as such in Sweden, Norway, France, Italy and New Zealand. In addition to a rearranged track listing, it includes the songs "Days" and "Mr. Songbird" while being without "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", "Big Sky", "Sitting by the Riverside", "Animal Farm" and "All of My Friends Were There". "Days" recalls a past relationship, the singer remembering either a friend or lover. The song's theme of nostalgia lyrically relates it to the rest of Village Green, and Alleman writes its motif of "looking back yet trying to start anew" makes it the composition most representative of Ray's songwriting in