the 1966–1968 period. Instrumentally, the recording incorporates acoustic and electric guitars, bass, harmonium, piano and a Mellotron which mimics a string section. "Mr. Songbird" is about a songbird whose call helps the singer's problems go away. Hopkins plays Mellotron to duplicate the sound of a flute, trilling during the chorus to mimic the sound of a bird. Miller suggests the song's escapist sentiment is comparable to other contemporary Ray compositions like "Picture Book", and author Christian Matijas-Mecca writes the song is thematically related to the album's "loose narrative about a desire for a lost England". Title and packaging The album cover was photographed in mid-August1968 during a photo session outside Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath, north-west London. Pye's in-house photographer John Prosser and Barrie Wentzell of Melody Maker photographed the session. After drinking tea on the terrace with the photographers, the band were photographed in their casual attire walking through the Heath's long, uncut grass to emphasise a country-feel. Prosser took the album's cover shot; the original twelve-track edition featured a black-and-white cover design, while the fifteen-track edition featured a different image, retouched to show the band enclosed in what Rogan terms "hazy, psychedelic circles". The album's twelve-track releases in Scandinavia, France, Italy and New Zealand all feature unique album sleeves which have subsequently become valuable collectors' items. Having been pressed in Britain, the Scandinavian edition features Pye's original black-and-white sleeve design. Fleiner suggests the New Zealand sleeve's depiction of the band standing next to several horses sought to emphasise the band's "Englishness". Village Green served as the album's working title to mid-1968, though Ray remained unsatisfied that it was too narrow to encapsulate the album's broader themes. In a November1968 interview, he recalled that in August, while searching for a new title, someone mentioned to him in conversation that "one of things The Kinks have been doing for the last three years has been preserving". The comment prompted him to compose "The Village Green Preservation Society", which subsequently became the new title track. The LP was the Kinks' first to feature a gatefold sleeve. The gatefold image is the same photograph as the cover but flipped horizontally, tinted and placed alongside a George Cross medal. The lyrics of the title track appear on the sleeve's rear. The album's title appears on the cover in small font, with The Kinks written large and detached from Are the Village Green Preservation