The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    I’ve listened to Little Bit of Emotion many times the last couple of weeks and never gave the sax a second thought, it’s interesting how many people have commented on it here, how our individual experiences over a lifetime with music colour our perception of particular elements in a song.

    I haven’t studied the song too deeply but I do like the a-b-b-a rhyming in the opening verse (disguise/core/more/realize) - it’s conventional but satisfying, and works well with Ray’s gentle delivery. The melody in ‘they put on all the heaviness’ is another high point. I’m with the late man in that even if the chords are the same as Misfits, they has a completely different feel in this song.

    … and a pox on whoever mentioned the drums, now all I can hear when I listen is that too-loud, plodding, lifeless snare drum lol, argh!
     
  2. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Ha ha! That's my favorite sounding instrument on the song! It does sound out of place with the rest of the instrumentation. The sax and this style of synth is a pretty bold production choice. I would like to hear a version with just Ray and that crazy synthesizer. :righton:
     
  3. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    It is really distracting. No wonder he left the band. Mick could have easily been replaced with a drum machine. I have listened to this a few more times today and it sounds like a demo. I don't know what they were thinking. Ray's lyrics, melody, and vocal save it from being a total waste, but it could have been much better. It feels very lazy and underdeveloped to me.
     
  4. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Listening in the car, kitchen, phone etc it’s not as bad but listening on my good system it really stands out like a sore thumb. Here’s to lo fi I guess!
     
  5. the real pope ondine

    the real pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    usa
    Little Bit.....forgot all about this ! I love it, the 'la la la la's' the guitar licks ala Dave, that weird moogy thing that shows up when the looney is mentioned, the sax (kinda), damn, I just love it, very bare bones but it works
     
  6. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    A Little Bit of Emotion
    This is an unassuming song with a big heart I like nearly everything about it - the lyrics, vocals, backing vocals and the music. I have reservations about the fart synth (or moog) near the end of the song but I can live with that ok too. The one thing that holds this song back for me is something that thankfully someone else has already noted...
    I'm hoping to avoid the pox curse by commenting after it was issued :winkgrin:. One of the things that struck me about the Get Back documentary is how great a drummer Ringo was. He lived in the shadow of his illustrious band mates but whenever one of their song ideas needed a beat Ringo instinctively laid down the right rhythm, tone and volume. For the most part, Mick's drumming suits Ray's songs very well. But on this song I would have preferred him to use the sort of subtlety Ringo used on softer Beatles tunes like Something and Here, There and Everywhere. That said, we shouldn't be too hard on Mick because Ray produced the record and could have put the drums lower in the mix had he wanted.
     
  7. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
  8. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    A Gallon Of Gas.

    "A Gallon of Gas"
    [​IMG]
    Single by The Kinks
    from the album Low Budget
    B-side
    "Low Budget"
    Released 7 August 1979 (US)
    Recorded January 1979 - June 1979
    Genre Rock, hard rock
    Length 3:49
    Label Arista
    Songwriter(s) Ray Davies
    Producer(s) Ray Davies

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    stereo mix, shorter edit (2:41), recorded 20-30 May, 1979 (backing track), early Jun 1979 (vocals) at Power Station, New York (backing track), Blue Rock Studios, New York (vocals)

    I've been waiting for years to buy a brand new cadillac
    But now that I've got one I want to send it right back
    I can't afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine
    But even if I had the dough no one's got no gasoline

    I went to my local dealer to see if he could set me straight
    He said there's a little gas going but I'd have to wait
    But he offered some red hot speed and some really high grade hash
    But a gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere for any amount of cash

    I can score you some coke and some grade one grass
    But I can't get a gallon of gas
    I've got some downers some speed all the drugs that you need
    But I can't get a gallon of gas
    There's no more left to buy or sell
    There's no more oil left in the well
    A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere
    For any amount of cash

    (two extra verses from long version:)
    I love your body-work, but you're really no use
    How can I drive you when I got no juice?
    Because it's stuck in neutral and my engine's got no speed
    And the highways are deserted
    and the air smells unnaturally clean.

    It's got power-assisted overdrive and carpets on the floor,
    but it's parked out front just like a dead dinosaur.
    And I'll be paying off the bank for 45 years or more.
    It should go 100 miles an hour,
    but it's never moved away from my door.

    Who needs a car and a seven-forty-seven
    When you can't buy a gallon of gas
    Who needs a highway, an airport or a jet
    When you can't get a gallon of gas
    There's no more left to buy or sell
    There's no more oil left in the well
    A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere
    For any amount of cash
    You can't buy a gallon of gas

    Written by: Ray Davies
    Published by: Davray Music Ltd.

    Probably the first thing that strikes one about this track is the fact that Ray uses the term Gas instead of Petrol.... and I am not sure whether the UK was using Gallons or liters at this stage...
    I suppose someone could be cynical and say that he was pandering to the US market by using these terms, but in a rhythmic flow context, it works better. Also if Ray had been living in New York still, and the band were recording over there, then you often gravitate to the place you are in.... but anyway, I don't see it as any big issue.

    Since I was about ten years old we have been being told that oil is running out and we are all going to be dead in ten years, it seems like a control mechanism more than anything else, which isn't to say we shouldn't look after the environment... that isn't my angle there at all.... but in the late seventies there was a human caused shortage of fuel, and of course it caused a lot of problems. When the world is run on fuel for transportation, personal, business, farming ... I mean there is no part of society not touched by this, and Ray having a bit of fun with the idea takes it to the extreme with these lyrics.

    In the first verse Ray explains that he has finally bought himself a Cadillac, and in a typical turn of events now gas is so expensive that he can't afford the fuel to drive it. Even moreso, even if he could afford it, nobody has any fuel....

    In the second verse Ray deliberately refers to the petrol/gas station as his local dealer, but he is told that there isn't any available at the moment, so he will need to wait......
    On the other hand though, this guy has some red hot speed and some really high grade hash...


    To some degree it could be seen as Ray being a little risque and mentioning recreational drugs for some kind of shock effect or something, but I think it is actually more a case of making the fuel line up with some kind of addiction that can't currently be satisfied, so perhaps an alternate drug will get you by for now.... as distasteful as that may seem to some folks.... when you have walked in that world, that's quite often how it goes down.

    In the next section Ray expounds on that, and the basic message is that he can get us any drug that might fulfill a need, but that gas is nowhere to be found.

    Now this section coming up is interesting..... There are apparently a couple of mixes of this song, one with extra lyrics, and they are included in the kindakinks.net website .... on the sacd there is supposed to be both versions, but as Michael pointed out, they are both the same mix....
    Now I know all these lyrics, so assume the version on the sacd is the "long" version...
    Hopefully someone can fill us in on the whole story here.

    This song again, as has been the general leaning with this album, leans towards a sarcastic comedic type of lyric... I don't really think the Kinks were looking to be the Baron Knights, I just think Ray was looking at the world with a smirk and a smile, and rather than disappearing into being completely negative and morose, he decided to inject a little humour into the messages, much like he did, all through the sixties.... The wry humour of the Kinks is one of the things that always appealed to me.
    A verse like this doesn't need to be cut, for many writers it would be the best line they wrote.
    I love your body-work, but you're really no use
    How can I drive you when I got no juice?
    Because it's stuck in neutral and my engine's got no speed
    And the highways are deserted
    and the air smells unnaturally clean.
    I have always loved the "the air smells unnaturally clean", which seems like a bit of a nod to the idea that we have become so used to the unnatural, that the natural now seems foreign to us....

    Ray even manages to tie it into the Low Budget idea with the wonderful line
    And I'll be paying off the bank for 45 years or more.
    It should go 100 miles an hour,
    but it's never moved away from my door.

    I reckon the lyrics here are absolutely top notch. The sarcasm, and mild humour in the face of a crisis of sorts is a beautiful thing, and of course Ray didn't drive which kind of compounds the humour of it all for me.,

    This was the second single from the album, and I don't know if it was a good choice for a single or not, but I think it's a great track, and it sort of ties into Apeman -escaping the city and its pitfalls. It kind of ties into the Village Green, with the idea that work and community is so close together that vehicles are not necessary ... and that really kind of makes the song a kind of Ray poking his tongue out at the modern world and its reliance on oil, as if it is some kind of essential drug to get through the day.
    A beautiful piece of writing that contains all the subtleties that we expect from Ray Davies and the Kinks.

    Musically we get this super cool, tight, but slowish blues... like it is mimicking the fact that we are stuck in neutral waiting for the gas station to open and we aren't going anywhere fast.

    The arrangement is really tight. When we open we have the guitars accompanied really tightly by the piano.
    The pulse of the rhythm section is spot on.....

    I don't know how good Ray is on the keys... in the studio it comes across fine, but it is easy to record for the studio.... I can play plenty of instruments well enough to record with them, but I would never pick them up on a stage and try and play them lol .... unless it was some kind of avant garde drug party or something...

    Again Dave's guitar is excellent. Not just the tones and the leads, but his choices.
    That held chord at the beginning is super effective, and we get plenty of nice lead licks that, again, are placed perfectly and add all that you could hope for in a short moderate to slow blues track.

    The main chord set up is the Hoochie Coochie Man/ Mannish Boy/ Bad to The Bone etc etc chordal riff .... and I suppose that some folks aren't particularly inspired by standard traditional blues progressions, but for me it is the meat and potatoes of most rock bands, particularly prior to the eighties.
    It doesn't just sit there though.
    We get a couple of nice change ups that add enough flavour to lift it out of being too typical.

    Again, from my perspective, the Ray and Dave show makes this a great track.
    I personally find the lyrics pretty funny, and Ray is proving his ability to excel at sarcasm, and I think there are so many layers of sarcasm here that it is beyond being some little dig at having a car and no fuel....
    I think Ray delivers the vocal perfectly, and again we have Dave there in support mode adding some really nice texture to the vocal side of things, and yea, like I said, some great guitar.

    We have nice dynamics, great lyrics, great playing, some fun .... what's not to like about this track? nothing really.

     
    Wondergirl, Smiler, Brian x and 18 others like this.
  9. pantofis

    pantofis Senior Member

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    A short catch-up of the last 3 tracks:

    Low Budget - Don't like it too much musically. Reminds me of "Money Talks" which is a much better tune.

    In A Space - Great melody, instantly infectious and the way Ray and Dave sing it always bring a smile on my face. Nice goofy synths again. Not too keen on the rhythmic shake-up though.

    Little Bit Of Emotion - A weird inclusion on this album. It looks back ("Misfits") and forward ("Art Lover", "Now And Then" and others) in time simultaneously, and doesn't really share the "street" feel of the album. Overall a track I tend to skip or drift away from, as the melody doesn't impress me too much.
     
  10. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    We’ve started a year ago but it’s only when the world’s entering a full-on energy crisis that we get to this song… I have a hard time with the "even more relevant now" or “prophetic” notion about songs or any art, because it's only proof that some of the problems repeat themselves over and over again, and that as a species, when it comes to economics and foreign policy, we’re really slow learners (if able to learn anything anyway). The Kinks appear to be very proficient in the blues idiom. Actually, more than proficient, they sound at home. I'll admit preferring prefer almost any other Kinks incarnation to blues Kinks, vaudeville Kinks, rock’n roll Kinks, theater Kinks, whimsical Kinks, hard rock Kinks and melodic Kinks, but this tune manages to be vaudeville, rock'n roll, whimsical, theater, hard rock and quite melodic, in its own blues way… The backing vocals are really excellent, it seems we're back with a musical number from the Preservation era, like it's RCA all over again. As a song, it’s ok. As a stage number, I think it would’ve been a blast. The lyrics work brilliantly, showing the vanity of like… everything.
     
  11. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    "A Gallon Of Gas" - musically this is right in my wheelhouse. It's a straight-up blues with some really nice guitar fills from Dave. I suppose this song has dated itself somewhat because it was a topical song for 1979. There were world-wide shortages of petroleum (real or manufactured - I don't really know) leading to people actually lining up in order to get gasoline. Heck, in the United States, they even imposed a national speed limit of 55mph (I was always with Sammy Hagar on this). But the context does not really matter - I still like it a lot. As a fan of various performers' live shows, "A Gallon Of Gas" was a great crowd pleaser for the Kinks in the late 1970s into the 1980s. The lyrics are brilliant satire in my view and the song just has a real intelligence to it - besides if gasoline prices keep on rising then Ray will have to update this song and make it about not being able to afford a gallon of gasoline.
     
  12. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Hey, in just another 2 years Ray will have paid off the bank!

    Didn’t he already take his Cadillac back in 1964?

     
  13. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Live 1982 (not 1977 as the description says! )

     
  14. pantofis

    pantofis Senior Member

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    A Gallon Of Gas

    This title is becoming relevant these days again what with oil prices posing an existential threat yet again. A couple of weeks ago I took up driving again, after 22 years of abstinence (hadn't driven after getting my license). And I feel the pain right now with the rising prices, as I do have fun driving around. Hence I can relate to the lyric a bit more.
    Apart of that I've always found "A Gallon Of Gas" a drag to sit through. This kind of blues immediately turns me off. I don't really know who does it really well, but the Kinks sure don't.
    But it does seem to be a popular track, what with being featured as a bonus track on the CD, and is included in the "Come Dancing" compilation. Just not my type at all.
     
  15. croquetlawns

    croquetlawns Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    I disliked this track for quite a while, but eventually the humour of the lyric won me over. It's still far from a favourite, but I no longer skip it!
     
  16. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "A Gallon of Gas"

    I like this one - it starts off as if it's going to be a straight blues, but Ray throws in enough variations of pattern and chord sequences to keep it interesting. The lyrics are amusing and endlessly relevant, and we get some more Ray/Dave vocal combinations. Again, this is one where I've never heard a longer version, and I'm pretty sure I'd have no need of a longer version of it. The lyrics in the short version are enough to nail the subject. It's not a personal favourite or anything, but it's entertaining and very well put together.

    N.B. I think we were still using gallons in the UK in 1979. It was probably some time in the 80s that the magic £1 per gallon mark was reached, and this was a major news story.
     
  17. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    A Gallon Of Gas:
    A well-played blues (thankfully, considering how they didn’t exactly have the touch back in the day) with clever lyrics.

    There’s no way I would have selected this as a single…but the scarcity of gas may have been a component that was factored in when making the decision. But, still, to put this out after Superman and leave Catch Me Now I’m Falling for later? No, not a good or logical decision in the ‘ol choose-a-single department.

    Personally, I put this in the indifferent category so I’m at 7-0-2 (with three selections for my playlist).
     
  18. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Maybe you need to see an audiologist to look into this issue??

    I kid. :winkgrin:
     
  19. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Ah yes. I saw this a few days ago. Love it. I think the interviewer must have been cute as Ray in particular is acting like a silly schoolboy.
     
  20. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    Yes, so the original vinyl album and first CDs had the 2:42 version in the video Mark posted in his write up that was in the track running order of the album, the shorter edited version. The full length 3:48 version was issued as a single in the US. It's the same mix so nothing to note there, just longer.
    Note the UK did not get this as a single. Moving Pictures was issued there instead.

    When Velvel issued their 1998 CD and later SACD reissues with bonus tracks they rightfully included this full US single version as a bonus track (track 12) but then they mistakenly put this same long version as track 8 in the album itself so the shorter edit from the original album is missing here. No biggie.

    Here is the full length US single version available on the Velvel CD twice.

     
  21. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    There is an alternate mix however, issued on the 2008 Picture Book box set. It's a rougher mix or even a monitor mix as it has some chatter at the start, is missing some vocals towards the end, and it's in mono(!). The thing that will stick out for everyone here is: No Guitars at all in this mix!
    But that opens up the other elements for better observation despite the mono sound. It says previously unissued and mono in the liners so they did get that part right, but it's not called out as an alternate mix.

    A Gallon Of Gas (Alternate Mix) from the 2008 Picture Book box set:
     
  22. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Another great writeup.
    I will offer another purpose for the drug lines.
    I always thought that was in there to present the irony that it was now easier to score controlled substances in a dangerous black market that to get what had always been a basic open market commodity. It just adds emphasis to how hard it is to get a gallon of gas!
     
  23. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    The drug references in this number definitely sound like they are coming from someone who does not use drugs.
     
  24. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    A Gallon of Gas
    I think Ray's lyrics really suit the blues backing, which is done very well. And the vocals and musicianship are all top notch. I don't see that much of a parallel to today's high prices. It was a different sort of oil crisis back then - I'm sure I read about John Denver building his own gasoline storage tanks on his rural property such was the paranoia about not being able to fill up. As a further tangent, I note that no-one seems to stockpile the illicit (in most places) drugs Ray sings about - arguably a sign that users don't worry about not being able to score. That's one market that always seems to work. Back to the mainstream, since the pandemic started we've had some commodities which briefly couldn't be bought for any amount of cash - starting with toilet paper two years ago and moving now (so I've heard) to cream cheese in parts of the US north-east. To Ray's credit, A Gallon of Gas sure makes for a better song topic than A Roll of Toilet Paper or A Tube of Cream Cheese :D
     
  25. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    My 1979 story; a tale I haven’t thought of in umpteen decades: during my short sojourn in western Michigan I had a friend who offered to sell me a Cadillac for a steal (likely literally!). I won’t say the price because no one will believe me but I just laughed because he didn’t have the title and the outsize vehicle got, if I recall correctly, 6 miles to the gallon.
     
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