Tag: Living On A Thin Line

Kinks – Do It Again

Standing in the middle of nowhere
Wondering how to begin
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
Between now and then

Great riff and rock song by the Kinks. It starts with a chord reminiscent of the A Hard Day’s Night intro.  I was in high school when it was released, and it was great to hear a guitar-driven song at that time on the radio. I remember our band following another band, and they did this song. I was jealous we didn’t get to it first. Do It Again was released in 1984 as the opening track on their album Word of Mouth. Written by lead singer Ray Davies

The band had a resurgence in the late seventies and early eighties with 3 straight albums in the top 20. They also had a top ten hit off of State of Confusion with Come Dancing. I bought my first real-time Kinks album in 1980 with Give The People What They Want. 

Working on their twentieth album Word of Mouth, conflicts between drummer Mick Avory and guitarist Dave Davies led to Avory’s leaving during the recording of the album. As a result, Avory played drums on just three tracks: Missing Persons, Sold Me Out, and Going Solo. The remaining tracks featured Bob Henrit on drums. Dysfunction seemed to fit this band and others like The Who and The Replacements. It made them who they were. Another song off of this album is the Dave Davies song Living On A Thin Line. The song grew in popularity when played repeatedly in The Sopranos third season episode University.

Ray Davies wrote this about the stressful working schedules the Kinks were going through. The song peaked at #41 on the Billboard 100 in 1984. I saw this line on a review of the song in Rolling Stone: The record kicks off with “Do It Again,” a tune that’s a love letter to every poor bastard out there grinding their teeth to dust in this cruel little hamster wheel of existence. I thought that fit well with this song. 

Ray Davies: The saddest day for me was when Mick left. Dave and Mick just couldn’t get along. There were terrible fights, and I got to the point where I couldn’t cope with it anymore. Push came to shove, and to avoid an argument I couldn’t face. … we were doing a track called “Good Day” and I couldn’t face having Mick and Dave in the studio, so I did it with a drum machine. Dave said he wanted to replace Mick, and … I took Mick out, and we got very, very drunk. We were in Guildford, and after about five pints of this wonderful scrumpy, Mick said if any other band offered him a tour, he wouldn’t take it, because he didn’t want to tour. And I remember him getting the train back – because he was banned from driving; it was a very bad year for Mick – and he walked to the station and disappeared into the mist.

Do It Again

Standing in the middle of nowhere
Wondering how to begin
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
Between now and then

And now we’re back where we started
Here we go round again
Day after day I get up and I say
I better do it again

Where are all the people going
Round and round till we reach the end
One day leading to another
Get up go out do it again

Then it’s back where you started
Here we go round again
Back where you started
Come on do it again

And you think today is going to be better
Change the world and do it again
Give it all up and start all over
You say you will but you don’t know when

Then it’s back where you started
Here we go round again
Day after day I get up and I say
Come on better do it again

The days go by and you wish you were a different guy
Different friends and a new set of clothes
You make alterations and [a fact in you knows]
A new house a new car a new job a new nose
But it’s superficial and it’s only skin deep
Cause the voices in your head keep shouting in your sleep
Get back, get back

Back where you started, here we go round again
Back where you started, come on do it again

Back where you started, here we go round again
Day after day I get up and I say, do it agaiiinnn
Do it again
Day after day I get up and I say, do it again

Kinks Weeks – Living On A Thin Line …christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com

Christian and I share a lot of the same musical tastes. It’s odd because neither one of us grew up with The Beatles in real-time or that great 60s generation. We both grew up in the 80s but share a lot of the same likes. He has a very cool informative site that is a must if you are a music fan. He goes over older music and newer music much more than I do. Go see him at https://christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com/

A Kinks Song I Dig: Living on a Thin Line

When Max, who writes the great PowerPop blog, came knocking to see whether I’d like to participate in a song series dedicated to The Kinks I replied, ‘sure!’ After all, next to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, they are my favorite ‘60s band.

I also knew right away what my pick would be, which may seem a bit strange. After all, the British group has many great songs. As an ‘80s song, it’s also not the most obvious choice, especially considering I tend to favor the band’s ‘60s output over what they released in subsequent decades: Living on a Thin Line.

One distinct feature of Living on a Thin Line is that it was written by Kinks lead guitarist and backing vocalist Dave Davies instead of his older brother Ray Davies who penned most of the group’s songs. The track first appeared in November 1984 on the Kinks’ 21st studio album Word of Mouth. Two months later, it was also released separately as a 12-inch promotional radio single in the U.S., backed by Ray Davies track Sold Me Out.

Living on a Thin Line, one of two songs Dave wrote for the album, was a reflection on the Kinks’ long and difficult career, as well as his disdain for politicians, he noted in his 1997 biography Kink. Another influence was what he viewed as the deterioration of English identity in the 20th century and a sense of nostalgia for the old days.

In a July 2022 interview with UK paper The Independent, conducted in the wake of Dave’s memoir that’s also titled Living On a Thin Line, he gave a more narrow explanation of the song. “Living on a Thin Line is about us,” he said, meaning The Kinks. For context, the story notes at the time he wrote it, Dave had started to worry The Kinks had become Ray’s backing band and, quoting the article, poured his feelings about how their relationship had become an uneasy tightrope into lyrics ostensibly about the decline of England.

Here’s a live version of the song, which apparently was captured in 1984 during the Word of Mouth Tour in Frankfurt, Germany. Setlist.fm documents a concert The Kinks played at the city’s Festhalle on November 23, 1984. Damn, I wish I would have been there!

Living on a Thin Line has received praise from critics as one of the best songs written by Dave Davies who also penned some other Kinks songs, most notably the great Death of a Clown. “In ‘Living on a Thin Line’ – a dark variation on Ray’s own death-of-England’s-glory songs – brooding, goose-stepping chords and moping Pink Floyd synths underscore the desperate effectiveness of Dave’s nervous croon,” opined Rolling Stone’s David Fricke. Even Robert Christgau had something nice to say about the song, calling it the second-best on the Word of Mouth album after Come Dancing.

Living on a Thin Line also gained some exposure on TV. It was featured three times in a 2001 episode of The Sopranos titled University. According to Wikipedia, producer Terence Winter said it was the series’ most asked-about song. Living on the Thin Line was also used during the credits in the finale of HBO series Vice Principals.

Sources: Wikipedia; The Independent; Setlist.fm; YouTube