Mr. Songbird

"Mr. Songbird" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks. Written and sung by Ray Davies, it is about a songbird whose call helps the singer's problems go away. Its recording features session musician Nicky Hopkins on Mellotron, duplicating a flute which mimics the call of a bird. Davies included the song on the original 12-track edition of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968), but removed it from the LP in a last-minute decision to expand the album's track listing. Because the original 12-track edition had already been sent to several European countries, the song's first release was in Sweden and Norway in October 1968. It was first issued in the US on the 1973 compilation The Great Lost Kinks Album and was not officially available in the UK until Village Green's 1998 CD remaster.