Everything about Waterloo Sunset totally explained
"
Waterloo Sunset" is a
song released as a single by
The Kinks in
1967, and featured on their
album Something Else by the Kinks. It was composed and produced by Kinks lead songwriter
Ray Davies.
The lyrics are from the point of view of a solitary man on the south bank of the Thames watching (or imagining) the romantic encounters of a couple at
Waterloo Underground, then crossing
Waterloo Bridge. Davies, in his
1996 autobiography
X-Ray, says the inspiration for the song came from an incident when he was hospitalized as a boy. On the
BBC radio show
The Davies Diaries, Davies stated that "I can't tell you who they're because they're good friends of mine". In a 2008 interview with Spinner Magazine, Davies stated "it was a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world and they were going to emigrate and go to another country."
The couple - "Terry" and "Julie" - mentioned in the lyrics are widely reported and presumed as being
British film stars of the time
Terence Stamp and
Julie Christie but Davies, in a 2004 interview, denied this, saying: "No, Terry and Julie were real people. I couldn't write for stars."
The recording features Davies' first wife Rasa on background vocals. “When the record was finished and it was coming out", Ray Davies remembered, “I got my wife Rasa to drive me down to Waterloo Bridge to see if the atmosphere was right… I’ve never worked with a song that has been a total pleasure from beginning to end like that one”.
The record reached number 2 on the British charts in mid
1967 (it failed to dislodge the
Beatles' "
All You Need is Love" from the number 1 position). Davies considered the song a professional milestone, where he managed to blend the commercial demands of a hit single with his own highly personal style of narrative songwriting. The elaborate production was the first Kinks recording produced solely by Davies, without longtime producer
Shel Talmy. In subsequent arguments with Kinks management over the direction of the band, Davies would say "I've done 'Waterloo Sunset', now I want to do something else".
A London FM radio poll in
2004 named this the "Greatest Song About London", while
Time Out named it the "Anthem of London".
It holds spot #42 on
List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Paul Weller and
Damon Albarn cite the song as their favourite of all-time.
Ray Davies included the song in his live set at Camden's
The Roundhouse for the BBC
Electric Proms in october 2007, featuring the
Crouch End Festival Chorus.
Influential pop music journalist
Robert Christgau has called the song "the most beautiful song in the
English language."
Allmusic senior editor
Stephen Thomas Erlewine concurred, citing it as "possibly the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era."
References to the song Waterloo Sunset in other works
- A 1987 Bob Geldof song Love like a Rocket tells of Terry and Julie's romance having gone cold twenty years on. In it, "the Waterloo sunset won't work for her anymore".
- "4 am", a song written by Mike Barson and Graham McPherson, recorded first by Suggs on his 1995 album The Lone Ranger and then by Madness on the 1999 LP Wonderful, also picks up the story of Terry and Julie some years later.
- John Wesley Harding wrote the song In Paradise which included Terry and Julie. One version of the song also includes the chorus of Waterloo Sunset.
- In 1985 Ray Davies released an album entitled Return to Waterloo, a soundtrack for the movie of the same name. The song "Return to Waterloo" and its accompanying video seemed to reference the struggles an aging person has returning to the world of their youth, with the narrator wondering "Will I get away/will I see it through/On the return to Waterloo."
- Ray Davies also wrote a collection of short stories called 'Waterloo Sunset' The Stories revolve aroung an aged Rock Star called Les Mulligan and a cynical promoter planning his comeback. All Stories are named after Kinks/Ray Davies songs and it's said in the book that Les Mulligan wrote the song 'Waterloo Sunset'
Covers
- Waterloo Sunset is also the title of an album by Barb Jungr, which features a version of the Kinks song.
- The song was covered live on several occasions by late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.
- David Bowie recorded a cover of the song during the sessions for his 2003 album Reality, the song was the bonus track of the special 2 discs (silver cover) limited edition of its Reality album. Bowie and Davies duetted the song at the Tibet House Benefit gig at Carnegie Hall, New York City on February 28, 2003.
- Def Leppard also covered the song and released it on their album Best of Def Leppard in 2004. It also appeared on the Def Leppard album Yeah! in 2006.
- The song was also covered by Cathy Dennis as a CD single and on the album 'Am I The Kinda Girl' (1996).
- Also covered by German "Kölsch-Rock"-Band BAP for a live performance since leadsinger Wolfgang Niedecken is an avowed Kinks fan and BAP played a concert with The Kinks as a support-act. The track is also featured in the BAP-movie "Viel passiert", directed by Wim Wenders.
- Also covered by the indie rock band, The Village Green
- The band Islands occasionally perform a cover of this song live.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Waterloo Sunset'.
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