favorite song friday: low budget

I've been listening to the Kinks album Low Budget lately and am struck by how Ray Davies's songs about how times are tough all over still resonates today — maybe even more strongly than when it was originally released in 1979.

Brothers Ray (L) and Dave Davies of The Kinks

I'm shopping at Woolworth and low discount stores
I'm dropping my standards so that I can buy more

...

Art takes time, time is money
Money's scarce and that ain't funny
Millionaires are things of the past
We're in a low budgetville 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

I'm on a low budget
What did you say
Yes I'm on a low budget
I thought you said that
I'm on a low budget
I'm a cut price person in a low budget land

The entire album is great, but "Low Budget," "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," "A Gallon of Gas," and "Misery" are favorites.

favorite song friday: vinyl makes a reappearance

Going through a closet the other day I found some old 78 records of my mom's and probably her mom's. Most of them are recordings of historic events, like coronations (my mother was born in England and she and my grandmother lived there for the first five or six years of her life). I realized I had nothing to play them on, and picked up a turntable that can also convert them to digital files, if I wanted.

As I was showing my daughter how to play a record on the turntable I realized that I really missed my old record collection. I gave them to my cousin years ago, when I moved from DC to NY. Through the years I have replaced a lot of them on CD and now those have been replaced digitally. But there are some whole chunks, like my Kinks collection, that have never been replaced. I realized the other day that I don't want to buy digital Kinks. I'd really like to hear some of those albums, scratches and all. Watch them spin on a turntable. So I guess I need to start hitting garage sales ...