Polly

"Polly" (titled "Pretty Polly" on early singles) is a song by the English rock band the Kinks. It was released on a non-album single in April1968, as the B-side to "Wonderboy". Written and sung by bandleader Ray Davies, the song was recorded in March1968 during sessions for the band's 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Ray was initially inspired by the character Polly Garter in Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio drama Under Milk Wood, though his resulting character does not share anything with Thomas's besides the same name. The song is one of the few Kinks recordings from the late1960s to possibly feature real strings, as arranged by David Whitaker. Background and composition Ray Davies composed "Polly" in reference to the character Polly Garter from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio drama Under Milk Wood. Ray briefly planned to write a suite of songs inspired by Thomas's drama, but the idea instead evolved into the Kinks' 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Later commentators write that the Polly in Ray's song bears little resemblance to Thomas's character beyond having the same name. In Thomas's drama, Polly Garter is a promiscuous unmarried woman who cares for her many illegitimate children, while in Ray's song, she is a party girl. Band biographer Andy Miller suggests Ray instead drew his idea for the character from the woman who ran the Kinks' fan club before she died of a heroin overdose. In addition, he writes that the name parallels Pretty Polly, an English brand of women's stockings. Author Nick Hasted connects "Polly" to the woman addressed in Ray's song "Starstruck", while author Thomas M. Kitts writes the song is one of several by Ray about "crushed female innocence", including "Little Miss Queen of Darkness" (1966), "Big Black Smoke" (1966) and "Monica" (1968). Author Patricia Gordon Sullivan characterises the song as another of Ray's written in the tradition of music hall.