I just watched a documentary on the Kinks because I have no life but I was surprised to hear about how wistful for fading English traditions Ray Davies has been in his songs since the mid 60s. He was a bit of an anachronism, when the Beatles were singing about revolution the Kinks were singing Davies' songs about how sad it is that the village greens are going away.
I never really noticed that before, just sort of tuned out the messages in their songs and enjoyed the tunes. I'm listening more closely now.