The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Yes, it is, Avid Ajsmith. It's also Bloomsday and also the date in Stephen King's The Stand where the deadly virus started. Make of that what you will :laugh:.

    Happy Birthday to your daughter. May she have plenty of cake and toys and that her daddy's OK (well, as OK as a father of a two year old can be :laugh:).
     
  2. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Living On A Thin Line: I very much agree with @Fortuleo that this doesn’t “sound like” a Kinks song. Not one bit. And, furthermore, it doesn’t sound like a Dave Davies song.

    In terms of the latter point I’m quite happy as I had written Dave off as a songwriter. But here he comes up with a fully polished gem, complete with lyrics that aren’t a mishmash of gibberish. (Can he do it again? I don’t know as I haven’t listened past this album.)

    It’s 4 for 4 for me on the album and this will be my second track to make my playlist.
     
  3. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    Living on a Thin Line

    I'm nailing my colours to Team Dave today because woah! where did this song come from? Dave shunts aside his songwriting trajectory over the previous 14 years to come up with what I think is an absolute cracker. It’s musically sophisticated - no vocal or guitar histrionics - but it’s the lyrics that really grab me. I’d argue they are the equal of anything Ray wrote after the early 1970s.

    Dave says it was written about people living on the breadline (in poverty) but I think he sells himself short. Now I see change, But inside we're the same as we ever were. The “we” could be the people on the breadline; equally, it could be everyone. Some people can change, but collectively humanity seems destined to repeat the past or try to recapture it.

    Now another century nearly gone,
    What are we gonna leave for the young?
    What we couldn't do, what we wouldn't do,
    It's a crime, but does it matter?


    I love this verse. Dave’s writing as if it’s 1999 rather than 1985. He sees the clock winding down quickly. When I hear this today I think of climate change where Dave’s words capture the disappointment of the past twenty years. Dave was likely thinking of something else as climate change was only just getting a public profile in 1985 (though Carl Sagan’s testimony to Congress in 1985 was impressively prescient). Whatever Dave was thinking, it’s a brilliant way to make the listener consider issues around legacy and regret. And the older we get the more we think about such things.

    Dave reveals a couple of things about the song in his book Kink which show Ray in a less-than-positive light. First, when he told Ray that he wrote it for him to sing Ray “didn’t seem particularly interested.” Second, when Dave agitated for it to be released as the third single from the album (after Do It Again and Summer’s Gone) he was told there was a clause in the band’s publishing deal stating that the first three singles off the album had to be written by Ray. Who thinks of that degree of micro-managing? Poor Dave – he writes a classic and no-one cares.
     
  4. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    I know Western Australia likes to see itself as more advanced than the eastern states but could the memory be playing tricks here? The hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic was discovered in 1985. And there was no scientific consensus that man-made climate change was a thing before the mid-1980s. Admittedly I got those dates from Wikipedia but I did do some non-scientific work on climate change issues in the 2000s which gives me a little knowledge - a dangerous thing. :D
     
  5. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    "Poor Dave-he writes a classic and no-one cares."

    Avid Steve62, it was more like "Poor Dave-he writes a classic and Ray didn't give a s**t."
     
  6. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I got the ozone layer thing wrong....
    It was just climate change.

    I know, because I was arguing with my science teacher about it....
    It was actually 81... being the smartass I was I asked the teacher why we couldn't make a hole in the ozone layer to let all the toxic gases out.... hence me confusing the ozone layer part of the equation....
    He stated that it was impossible to make a hole in the ozone layer, yet ironically a few years later :) unfortunately it didn't let the toxic gases out though lol
     
  7. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Living on a Thin Line: I knew this song from back upon release. It also got a lot of airplay again in its live incarnation from The Road on Connecticut radio stations. I loved it then and I love it now. I have no idea what Dave is going on about, I seldom do, but what a melody, what a catchy chorus. I love the bass work at the end. Dave sounds great, I am surprised that he can sing this well and yet he doesn’t choose to do so more often. Anyway, you guys will tear apart the meaning, I just love the sounds. My second favorite track on the album.
     
  8. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Living On a Thin Line

    My wife isn't much into music in general, and certainly not much of a Kinks fan. I could probably count on just my hands (without needing my thumbs) the number of songs that have really grabbed her over the years. When one does grab her, it's usually some little hook filled here-today-gone-tomorrow pop ditty.

    But this is also one of them. Whooda' guessed that?

    (On a side note, Lola is another of the few)

    I also recall this getting a lot of airplay where I lived.... probably even more than Do It Again. I had no idea how limited it's release as a single was, because Southern Colorado was all over this song.

    I find this song fascinating for all the reasons my fellow Avids have already stated, musically, lyrically, sonically. A few have noted that ut doesn't sound like Dave. I will emphasize this in particular with regard to Dave's voice itself. To date, Dave has always exhibited a, shall we say "unique" vocal timbre. Here he sounds.... well.... I don't want to say "average" or "normai" as those might carry a pejorative connotation. But gone is that sort of strained sound to his voice, he is completely within himself, and what comes out may be less unique, but becomes easily his most listenable vocal and it serves this contemplative song beautifully, as do the backup vocals.

    Since I never really spent much time with Think Visual/UK Jive/Phobia, I tend to think of this as the last truly great Kinks song; the last one with any chance of making it onto a CD length constrained mix.
     
  9. Brian Kelly

    Brian Kelly 1964-73 rock's best decade

    Living On A Thin Line
    I remembered this as my 2nd favorite song on the album and, at least through the first four songs, that assessment seems correct. This is not just "a good Dave song", but a "good Kinks song". I would say it is probably my 3rd favorite Dave song behind Death Of A Clown and Susannah's Still Alive.
     
  10. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    I agree and wonder if it's because he was trying to sound like Ray. Dave says he wrote it for Ray to sing, so he had a certain vocal style in mind when he was forced to sing it himself.
     
  11. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    So that was you playing with the ozone layer!!!! What a silly experiment, Mark :D
     
  12. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    When you come to think of it, it's funny how Ray and Dave, from a very young age, managed to turn grumpy old men rants into rock anthems.
     
  13. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    So Living On A Thin Line was issued as a 12" promo single in the US right at the end of January 1985, right as Do It Again was peaking on the US charts. It quickly got added to AOR radio stations and went on an eight-week run rising to number 24 on Billboard's Rock Action chart. But no commercial 7" single appears.

    I've read the same thing in Dave's autobiography about how supposedly their contract had a clause about the first three singles from an album had to be Ray compositions. He says he was told this by their manager. And Dave never knew this? This seems a strange clause to have in their publishing contract considering there had never been a Dave A-Side released as a single credited to The Kinks ever and during the Arista period up to this point, Dave had exactly one song (Trust Your Heart) released under the Kinks name on an album and that was really a solo track added to that album as no other Kink appears on the recording. So who knows?

    Living On A Thin Line actually was released as a commercial 7" single.....in South Africa!

    What they couldn't do or what they wouldn't do is release this as a commercial single in the countries that really, really mattered.

    Whatever the reason, they missed the boat here and Summer's Gone is released as the second single in the US in March 1985.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2022
  14. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    If it’s the “band’s publishing deal” Dave ought to have reviewed this prior to signing off on it. That aside, yeah, that the primary (pretty much sole) songwriter for the band would insert that clause into the contract is incredible. Incredibly petty or having incredible foresight. And, finally, I’d think that, contract or not, Ray could have waived his “3rd single is mine, too’ right if the two blood brothers had talked it out.
     
  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Well I learned from about the age of 10 that everything that is wrong with the world was actually, personally, my fault... that's why I was drinking heavily at 15, and on drugs for the next 30 years after that.... I had to try and neutralise my apparenly inherent evil in some way :)
     
  16. fspringer

    fspringer Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Living on a Thin Line: I wasn't too nuts about this song at the time but later recognized it was a pretty good and reasonable Dave Davies song. Not shooting off in half a dozen different directions, focused. I can't say exactly why I have zero urge for Dave's solo albums but will usually find value in the songs he puts on Kinks albums. It seems like when he's left to his own devices, he over-indulges in the mysticism, and his songs have very odd and disjointed structures.

    I can't tell you how shocked I was to see it used in that Soprano's episode ... in a strip club no less! But David Chase also seemed to recognize the theme of the song pertained to the mafia way of life, and that "this thing" was always a tightrope walk from which one could fall at any moment. (Chase, or whoever chose the backing tracks for episodes, had immaculate taste in rock and pop.) "England is doomed" songs felt like a fairly popular trope with 70s recording artists from there. Of course, The Sex Pistols. Ian Hunter had an "England is dying" song on many of his albums. I somehow suspect when Ian dies, England will still be there. But not like it was! Yeah, well, nothing is ever like it was.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2022
  17. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Living on a Thin Line (additional thoughts left out in my haste this morning or triggered when I read others input):

    1. Perhaps I Am Deaf: Ok, I have a confession, I didn't know for the longest time that there were two singers in The kinks. I never picked up on that from my early Kinks listening with Granny (that's what I called her). She never really talked about the band personnel when we did our music listening. I guess she didn't care who made the tunes if the tunes were good. My first purchase, as documented here, was Misfits, and I oddly never picked up on the fact that Dave was singing Trust your Heart (a favorite track on that album for me). My next purchases in order wereSleepwalker (where I again didn't realize he was singing Sleepless Night, another favorite) then Low Budget and GTPWTW (where ol' Dave was totally absent on lead vocals). I was a bigger Stones and Zep fan during these periods, so I wasn't paying as much attention to the details and, of course, there was no internet then, just the liner notes and rock rags (most of whom weren't really giving the Kinks much attention). Anyway, not sure when I figured out that Dave sang some of the leads, probably not until I did another dive into some of the older stuff in the '90s, but pretty funny (....or embarrassing - what kind of music nerd would miss that obvious fact?) that despite my love for their songs, I just wasn't even picking up on that.

    2. Ray's Ego:

    How many bands have I watched commit commercial and artistic suicide as a result of the kind of hubris we are speaking of here? I mean Axl Rose was quite the unpleasant fellow back in the late '80s and early '90s(x 100), but even he was able to figure out he needed Slash and Duff before it was too late (though I'd argue he needed Izzy too, but that's a different thread). Ray is an amazing talent, perhaps arguably one of the very best, but does anyone on here want to argue that he would have been as popular without Brother Dave? How was this song not released as a single, especially when the rock radio play started? I love Ray's music, always have, and after this thread, the band has shot to the top for me over the Stones and Zep to #1 of the Brit Invasion artists, but boy is Ray a pig headed dude it seems. On a personal level, so what? I don't have to interact with him and I could always turn him off if it really bothered me. It does matter though on a commercial level and it impacted everyone involved with the band and even the way we as listeners assimilated their music (effectively we heard it less in the US because of the bans, the rock operas, the cymbal throwing, the in-fighting, etc.).

    Again, great point, how many hits did they whiff real time. Thankfully, the fans have reframed the discussion over time with soundtracks and the internet. I would argue the soundtracks aren't really enough (movies were often in and out of theaters in the blink of an eye), but the Internet for once delivered a good result: Blockbuster, then streaming video gave new life to many older movies and the internet lets us google who is singing a song on a soundtrack in real time instead of waiting for the credits(and then missing it anyway).
     
  18. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Living on a Thin Line

    I learned of this song thanks to the Sopranos. I don't have a deep history with it though. I never owned it or had it on any playlists. I will now, of course. This is just miles ahead of than anything on Dave's 80s solo records. I suppose it could be a testament to his respect for the Kinks, saving this jewel for a Kinks album? If that is the case, it is a damn shame if Ray had any role in preventing this from being issued as a single.

    The intro has this slow, churning epicness of that first couple bass notes and then I think that is Dave's guitar doing the rest of that opening riff.... and then then the swell into the chords/song proper starting. Dave's vocals are real, natural. The chords are beautiful, yet almost haunting. There's something almost Pink Floydish going on here. There is such a seriousness here. There is room for the gentle riffs at the end of each verse line... It's strange, it's over 4 minutes long but almost seems short to me. I get lost in this song and I feel it could go for an extra minute and a half and I would be totally fine with that.

    That Frankfurt 1984 live performance is interesting, because here it seems Ray seems fine with Dave getting the spotlight here. It's not a co-lead. Ray is in the dark, on the side, singing backing vocals. This is Dave-led all the way there. At least Dave got that. And I am glad this is now pretty much universally considered one of the best Kinks 80s tracks.

    Lyrically, I see "living on a thin line" as meaning that we are teetering on the edge. We have a choice to make. Are we going to repeat histories mistakes? "Blame the future on the past" is a great line, as are we just going to accept the way everything is, because that's how everything was, and how everything will be. What are we supposed to do to change our ways and provide a better future for our children. And yes, it really really matters.

    Great song.
     
  19. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    It is? :D I don’t think we, here, have crunched the numbers. Is this The Great Internet’s take?
     
  20. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    If anything can be considered "the Great Internet", this thread is it. So it is ordered!
     
  21. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    If it can make you feel better, I also mistook Dave's voice for one of Ray's various tones for quite a long time. Generally speaking, it's not that easy to tell voices from each other. Something you haradly remember once you've identified a voice and its various inflexions. Or is it me ? At least for a moment ? (I still have some difficulty to tell The Who's singers apart, by the way)
     
  22. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    (Sounds like a quiz question to me!)
     
  23. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    I've known people who couldn't tell John and Paul apart.
     
  24. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I have memories of when I was one of them. [EDIT: one of those who can't tell John and Paul apart, not one of John and Paul]

    You're not born a beatlemaniac, you become one!
     
  25. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    You're really up for this quiz aren't you?
    :)
     
    All Down The Line, markelis and Zeki like this.

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