“High Hopes Low” starts the second side of 12 Bar Bruise (released September 7th, 2012) with a distinct electronic drum beat before leading into a rowdy garage rock song with very simplistic lyrics about expectations and intelligence.
In a track-by-track rundown of 12 Bar Bruise for Mess+Noise, Stu stated that the song is actually composed of two different attempts: “Recorded in two separate sessions a month apart. One was kinda hi-fi-ish, with all the instruments panned wide, and the other was really crunchy, with everything dead centre. Really different recordings. We spliced the two recordings up and now the song switches between the two. It sounds cool in headphones.” The unique opening is a reverberated recording of the “disco 2” preset from the Casio SK-5 Sampling Keyboard.
Some fans have noted the similarities between “High Hopes Low” and the Osees track “Grease 2” released on the 2008 album The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In. We know that King Gizzard took a ton of influence from the band in the early 2010s with Stu saying to Triple J “I don’t think we’ve developed a sound. We’re still just fucking around in the garage. I think we’re just making loud noises and passing it off as music. Basically I just took the best songs from the best Oh Sees records and added a Bo Diddley beat.”
The first confirmed performance of “High Hopes Low” was on 2011-12-09 and it would be played a number of times from 2011 to 2013. The final known performance was on 2013-02-23 at the Corner Hotel in Naarm (Melbourne). Based on available recordings, versions past 2011 feature the song’s intro.