| "Low Budget" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by The Kinks | ||||
| A-side | "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" | |||
| Released | January 1979 | |||
| Recorded | January 1979 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 3:36 | |||
| Label | Arista | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Ray Davies | |||
| Producer(s) | Ray Davies | |||
| The Kinks UKsingles chronology | ||||
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| The Kinks USsingles chronology | ||||
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| Low Budget track listing | ||||
11 tracks
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"Low Budget" is the sixth track from The Kinks' album of the same name. It was written, produced and sung by Ray Davies.
"Low Budget" was recorded in January 1979. [1] It describes a man giving up his "expensive tastes" in order to save money. Like many of the tracks on Low Budget , it applies to the economic troubles occurring during the time that the album was released, such as strikes in Great Britain. [1] [2] However, AllMusic's Richard Gilliam claimed that the track's theme could "easily apply to just about any modern recession". [3]
Although "Low Budget" refers to economic problems of the times in general, it also refers to some of Ray Davies' own personal concerns. [4] In the song, Davies mocks his own fear of not having money and his frugality. [2] [4] [5] The song also references Davies' vanity. [4] The singer describes himself as once being well dressed and able to afford cigars, but now has to buy discount clothes and chew mints. [4] He describes himself as "a cut-price person in a low-budget land." [5] But despite being reduced to poverty, the singer expresses pride in his hair and his teeth. [4] Author Thomas Kitts notes that even the title, used in the refrain "I'm on a low budget" could refer to Davies keeping himself on a tight budget. [4]
When asked which guitar performance he was most proud of, The Kinks' guitarist Dave Davies noted "Low Budget," as well as "You Really Got Me," as a favorite. He said of this:
I like “Low Budget” [1979]. It’s wild. I like that kind of, almost country-style playing. It’s like a shape; I don’t even worry about what notes I play as I’m doing it. And if you catch a few open strings, you might get lucky with a weird clunk or a harmonic or something. I think all the best stuff is the stuff that happens before you’ve even realized what you’ve done. So “Low Budget” and, obviously, “You Really Got Me.”
— Dave Davies, Guitar World, 2014 [6]
When it was released as the B-side of "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," Trouser Press described "Low Budget" as being "raunchier" than its A-side, going on to comment on the rawness of Ray Davies' vocal and stating that "Ray's never been funnier nor Dave's guitar tougher sounding." [1] Music critic Robert Christgau describes the song as a "sloppy burlesque." [7] Critic Johnny Rogan praises its self-deprecating humor, calling the line "Don't think I'm tight if I don't buy a round" one of the best of Davies' career. [2] According to Davies, hearing the song on the radio in early 1979 helped inspire him to finish writing the rest of the songs for the Low Budget album. [5] The song also appeared on the compilation albums Come Dancing with The Kinks and Picture Book .
"Low Budget" became a popular song for the Kinks to play live in concert. [4] Of a performance in Binghamton, New York on February 18, 1979, the Binghamton University newspaper Pipe Dream noted that "'Low Budget' became an audience effort when Davies ceded his microphone to members of the front row during the chorus." [1] In 1980, a live version of "Low Budget" (recorded at Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island, on 23 September 1979) was released on the album One for the Road .
The Great Lost Kinks Album is a compilation album by the English rock band the Kinks. Released in the United States in January 1973, it features material recorded by the group between 1966 and 1970 that had mostly gone unreleased. The compilation served to satisfy Reprise Records after executives determined that the Kinks contractually owed them one more album, despite the band's departure from the label in 1971.
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in London in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. The band emerged during the height of British rhythm and blues and Merseybeat, and were briefly part of the British Invasion of the United States until their touring ban in 1965. Their third single, the Ray Davies-penned "You Really Got Me", became an international hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the Top 10 in the United States.
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The Kinks Greatest Hits! is a compilation album by the English rock band the Kinks. Released in the United States in August 1966 by Reprise Records, the album mostly consists of singles issued by the group between 1964 and 1966. The band's first greatest hits album, it remained on the Billboard Top LPs chart for over a year, peaking at number 9, making it the Kinks' highest charting album in the US. The album was in print for decades and was the Kinks' only gold record in America until 1980.
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"Picture Book" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks from their 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Written and sung by Ray Davies, the song's lyrics describe the experience of an ageing narrator flipping through a photo album reflecting on happy memories from "a long time ago". Recorded in May 1968, its cheerful sound is defined by the jangle of an acoustic twelve-string guitar and a disengaged snare drum. In continental Europe, the song was issued as the B-side of the album's lead single, "Starstruck", in November 1968. The same single was issued in the United States in January 1969, though it failed to appear in any charts.
"The Hard Way" is a song written by Ray Davies and first released by The Kinks on their 1975 album Schoolboys in Disgrace. It was also released on The Kinks live album One for the Road and on several greatest hits collections. The Knack covered the song on their 1980 album ...But the Little Girls Understand.
"(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" is a song written by Ray Davies that was first released on the Kinks' 1979 album, Low Budget. The song, inspired by Superman: The Movie, employs a disco beat and lyrics that describe the singer's wish to be like the fictional character Superman. The song's disco style was created as a response to Arista Records founder Clive Davis's request for "a club-friendly record," despite Ray Davies' hatred of disco.
"Catch Me Now I'm Falling" is a song written by Ray Davies and first released by The Kinks as the second track on their 1979 album Low Budget. Written as a criticism of America's allies, the song depicts the fall of Captain America as a symbol of the United States' dire circumstances at the time. The song features multiple solos on different instruments as well as a riff similar to "Jumpin' Jack Flash".
"State of Confusion" is a song written by Ray Davies and first released by The Kinks as the title track of their 1983 album State of Confusion. Although it was not released as a single in the United States, it reached #26 on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It was released as a single in Continental Europe.
"Sitting in My Hotel" is a song written by Ray Davies that was first released on The Kinks' 1972 album Everybody's in Show-Biz. It was also released on several compilation albums and as the B-side of the "Sweet Lady Genevieve" single. It is one of Davies' more introspective songs, musing about the cost of fame and stardom, and thus contributes to the album's theme of the difficulties of life on the road.
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"A Gallon of Gas" is the ninth track from The Kinks' album, Low Budget. It was written by Ray Davies.
"Starstruck" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks from their 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Written and sung by Ray Davies, the song was recorded in July 1968. The song was issued as the album's lead single in continental Europe in November 1968 and in the United States in January 1969. The European release was accompanied by a promo film shot in Waterlow Park, Highgate. The song failed to chart anywhere besides the Netherlands, where it reached No. 13 on the Veronica Top 40 and No. 9 on the Hilversum 3 Top 30.
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"Ducks on the Wall" is a song by the British rock band the Kinks. The song, appearing on the band's 1975 album Soap Opera, was written by the band's principal songwriter, Ray Davies.
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"Johnny Thunder" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks from their sixth studio album, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968). Written and sung by Ray Davies, the song was recorded in March 1968. Davies was inspired to write the song after seeing the 1953 film The Wild One, basing it on Marlon Brando's character Johnny as well as on a classmate Davies admired as a child. A rock song, its recording features a countermelody played by Dave Davies on electric guitar, wordless vocal harmonies and one of the album's few instances of a single-tracked vocal by Ray.
"Monica" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks from their sixth studio album, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968). Written and sung by Ray Davies, the song was recorded sometime between late 1967 and May 1968. The song features congas and a syncopated rhythm, indicating Davies's continued interest in calypso music. Its lyrics are a serenade for a prostitute and were partly inspired by Dylan Thomas's radio drama, Under Milk Wood (1954), though Davies kept the lyrics deliberately subtle to avoid a radio ban. Retrospective commentators have disputed the song's level of thematic cohesion with the others on Village Green.
"Big Sky" is a song by the English rock band the Kinks. Written and sung by Ray Davies, it was released in November 1968 on the album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Ray has typically avoided providing a direct answer on the song's meaning, but commentators often interpret it as describing God as unsympathetic towards the problems of humans.
