Quote of the Day (Ray Davies, on Bands’ Creativity, Adrenaline and Downtimes)

“When ‘You Really Got Me’ dropped out of the Top 10, my record company said, ‘We need a follow-up.’ I wrote ‘All Day and All of the Night’ in a few minutes, and we recorded it in a day. Bands go through an adrenaline period where they have hits for a year or two, and then they have to assess things. It’s important to do that in any form of creativity. The secret is to know there’s going to be downtimes where you need to re-energize and refocus.”—English rock ‘n’ roll singer-songwriter and Kinks frontman Ray Davies, interviewed by Andy Greene, in “The Last Word: Ray Davies,” Rolling Stone, Apr. 6, 2017

Quote of the Day (Dave Davies, on the Rocky Genesis of a Kinks Classic)

“I never thought that song [“Dedicated Follower of Fashion”] would lead anywhere when he [brother Ray Davies] brought it along – it sounded overly frivolous to me, and we went through hell trying to finish a take. Ray couldn't find a way of realising the sound he had in his head, nor communicating what he wanted to the rest of us. We tried different combinations of guitars, and even a version with barrelhouse piano. But none of this satisfied Ray, and eventually we stumbled towards a solution through trial and error. The folksy mood of those earlier attempts did not necessarily make for a clean fit with Ray's sardonic lyric and it was decided that the guitars needed to be clanky and mechanistic, like George Formby's cheeky ukulele sound, then – bingo! It worked.”—Kinks lead guitarist Dave Davies, Living on a Thin Line: The Autobiography (2022)

Song Lyric of the Day (The Kinks, on What It’s Like to Be “Low Budget”)

“Millionaires are things of the past

We’re in a low-budget film where nothing can last

Money’s rare, there’s none to be found

So don’t think I’m tight if I don’t buy a round.”—“Low Budget,” written by Ray Davies, performed by The Kinks on their Low Budget LP (1979)

There are certain men—Andy Rooney among them—who claim they keep their old ties for years with the expectation that they’ll eventually come back in fashion. So it is for baby-boom fans of The Kinks, who suddenly find, 30 years to the day upon its U.S. release, that Low Budget has become more relevant than ever.

The original LP was issued immediately after the British electorate had turned the Labour Party’s James Callaghan out of office, and just as their American counterparts were about to turn irretrievably away from Jimmy Carter. (In another five days, the American President would deliver his much-discussed—and, in the end, disastrous—“Malaise” speech.) High gas prices and long lines at the pump were the order of the day.

Though “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” became the hit single, much of the rest of the album reflected the changed political and economic climate, with titles such as “Catch Me Now I’m Falling,” “Pressure,” “National Health,” “Misery,” and, inevitably, “A Gallon of Gas.”

Running like a thread through it all were the fiendishly clever lyrics of Ray Davies, lifting the group back to the commercial highs it had last known during the English Invasion of the Sixties. “Low Budget” is a good example why. Not only did the song have a near-irresistible hook (the kind, it seems to me, functioning best as a chorus in an English pubs), but, as the lyrics I’ve quoted demonstrate, I think, it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

In the transatlantic stripped-down regulatory environment that held sway not only under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan but even under their more liberal successors, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, many people acted as if the boom-and-bust cycle had been suspended for the duration. For them, “Low Budget” must have seemed at points like a nostalgia piece from the late Seventies, like disco and mood rings.

They should have known better that Ray Davies and his crew would have the last laugh—not only because you can’t disregard the laws of economics, but because the brilliance of The Kinks at their best remains undimmed, to help us through get through the current recession, as they did the last one, with some much-needed humor.

Song Lyric of the Day (The Kinks, on “Better Things”)

“Here’s wishing you the bluest sky,

And hoping something better comes tomorrow.”—“Better Things,” written by Ray Davies, performed by The Kinks, from the LP Give the People What They Want (1981)

Yesterday I heard this song, after a too-long absence (for me, anyway), on the radio again, and, as it never fails to do, it immediately lifted my spirits, as does another Davies-penned tune, The Pretenders’ “Stop Your Sobbing.” It seemed a good walk to start the workweek with this.

(The photo is another one I took at Edgemont Memorial Park in Montclair, N.J.)