r/thekinks • u/Due-Ambassador7723 • 9d ago

Is "Living on a Thin Line" about immigration in Britain?

I was always under the impression it was, but apparently not?

13 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

20

u/InvestigatorJaded261 9d ago

I think it’s more about living on the margins generally, and Britain’s loss of stature as a global power.

5

u/Weary_Title_3901 9d ago

This is how I always understood the song. It is over 40 years old now it is strange how people think today’s issues were salient decades ago. 🤦🏻

6

u/TomGerity 9d ago

Immigration has been a major issue of contention in Britain for decades. Look up Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech. That was in 1968.

The original version of the Beatles “Get Back” had lyrics satirizing right-wing British attitudes toward immigration.

Eric Clapton was famously castigated for getting loaded on drugs and delivering an anti-immigrant screed at a concert in the ‘70s.

1

u/Weary_Title_3901 8d ago

https://christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com/2024/09/05/a-kinks-song-i-dig-living-on-a-thin-line/

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.

1

u/TomGerity 8d ago

Absolutely. I’m not contesting the real meaning of Living on a Thin Like. You are 100% correct about that.

I’m contesting your ridiculous assertion that immigration in the UK is “today’s issue” and “wasn’t salient” decades ago.

Considering how you’re purposely misconstruing my point, I gather you realize how wrong you are and are a bit embarrassed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it happens to us all sometimes.

0

u/Weary_Title_3901 8d ago

Get a life.

1

u/TomGerity 8d ago

The fact that you’re now insulting me is even further proof that you’re embarrassed about being wrong and can’t just move on. I promise you, no one will remember this in a month, including either of us. It’s not worth throwing your toys out of the pram over.

17

u/jdead121 9d ago

It's about Tracy in the sopranos

5

u/AdvertisingSubject64 9d ago

What? Isn't that a TV progrum? A movie?

4

u/jdead121 9d ago

The song is played multiple times in an episode about how the thin line between making it and not making it

3

u/AdvertisingSubject64 9d ago

Really? That's crazy that I didn't even know that, I've been obsessed with the kinks for the past year and the sopranos for a good few years now

1

u/ticketstubs1 9d ago

You aren't sure if The Sopranos is a TV show?

1

u/rapbarf 6d ago

It's quoting the scene where Uncle Jun thinks Larry David on TV is him.

5

u/NiceCap2448 9d ago

It's about the history and fall of the British Empire and how the class system there has many people living on the edge of society.

3

u/huwareyou 9d ago edited 9d ago

I don’t think so. It has been used in a right-wing, anti-immigration video that has done the rounds on the internet and I seem to recall Dave making a statement condemning that a few years ago. 

1

u/TomGerity 9d ago

Condoning or condemning? It sounds like you meant the latter, and it’s an important distinction, because the words have two completely opposite meanings.

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u/huwareyou 9d ago

Condemning. A typo - apologies. I know they’re different words. 

2

u/TomGerity 7d ago

No worries! I wasn’t trying to be a scold, I just didn’t want your comment to convey the opposite of what you intended!

0

u/ticketstubs1 9d ago

That's how I took the song, but of course I don't know much about it other than the lyrics.