This celebration of British suburban life was inspired by a local gardener in Ray Davies' native Muswell Hill neighborhood of North London. Davies explained to Q magazine: "The words were inspired by Charlie, my dad's old drinking mate, who cleaned up my garden for me, sweeping up the leaves. I wrote it in early autumn, yeah, as the leaves were turning color."

The baroque tune includes some tape-manipulated feedback and backwards guitar. Davies explained: "I was experimenting a lot with winding tapes backwards, like that 'This is my street' bit is the first part of the song reversed. I was really pleased with that tune, all the little segments."

This was released as a non-album single in between 1967's Something Else by the Kinks and 1968's The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. It was a huge success in the UK, reaching #3 on the singles chart, but the song wasn't even released in the US until it was included on The Kink Kronikles compilation set in 1972.