Tag: Waterloo Sunset

Kinks Weeks – Waterloo Sunset … musiccitymike.net

I’ve known Music City Mike for a while and I met him through hanspostcard. I can always count on Mike commenting when I post someone not on the beaten path… guys like Garland Jefferies, The Records, Joe Ely, Robert Earl Keen, and many others. He has worked with some artists and is very knowledgeable…You can find him at https://musiccitymike.net and his YouTube site is HERE. 

“Waterloo Sunset” – The Kinks

A few years back, I was a guest blogger along with some fellow music writers where we conducted a draft to pick and write about our top ten favorite songs of all time. The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” would have made it high on my list had it not been for someone else drafting it ahead of me. Given the chance to pick a Kinks’ song to write about, my choice was easy.

Why? Well, the only way to say it is that this song is perfect. And it’s not just me that feels this way! I have seen countless lists where people include “Waterloo Sunset” as one of their favorite songs. And I have also seen quite a few who boldly claim it to be the best song ever written. I have no trouble seeing their point. It’s the “Over the Rainbow” of the Rock era.

Now what makes a song perfect? First off, it grabs you the first time you hear it, you follow every word, and the melody gets implanted into your brain. There also is a simplicity to it that allows you to easily sing along. Better yet, if you are a player, said simplicity makes it easy to learn and while it allows for alternative musical arrangements, it would be sacrilege to mess with its basic structure (i.e., no jamming or extended guitar solos). Importantly, there is a poignancy to its lyrical content – not life changing, but more than just a carefree love song. All these things are packed together tightly in a nice box to make it perfect.

Some other examples of modern perfect songs in my opinion are Elton John’s “Your Song,” James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” Gram Parson’s “Brass Buttons,” The Replacements “Achin’ to Be,” and Squeeze’s “Up the Junction.”

What happens to me with “Waterloo Sunset” is that I hear either the original version or one of its countless covers, and I start and can’t stop listening to it over and over again. My latest incident occurred  with Robyn Hitchcock’s cover of the song for his forthcoming 1967 LP release of songs he loved from that year. I recently got to see Robyn perform the song live in front of a small crowd and the song filled the room with smiles and collective singing of the “sha-la-la’s.” And what do you think I started listening to as soon as I got to my car?

My favorite hearing of the song though was in 1989 while I was riding on Will Birch’s “Rock Tour of London” bus. The song played over the PA as we crossed the Waterloo Bridge over the river. Even without there being a sunset over the Thames, I became overjoyed hearing the song in this setting.

“Waterloo Sunset” cinematically captures an endearing sentimentality. The song’s narrator recalls this beautiful sunset that makes him say  “I don’t need no friends.” He also sings of two lovers, Terry and Julie, who are also so taken in that “They don’t need no friends.” Whether these are excuses for just being loners or just an analogy to how happy they feel doesn’t really matter. He and they “are in paradise.”

And while it’s not totally clear, I think that the narrator’s preference of nature over the hustle-bustle of nearby Waterloo Station comes from two perspectives – his view of the gorgeous sunset as well as seeing the two young lovers enjoy its splendor as well.

Musically, the song has an instantly recognizable and infectious opening riff. Dave Davies’ sharp staccato guitar intro leads into a precise plucking of notes that foreshadow the upcoming tune of the song’s lyrical refrain, a truly memorable melody. Lyrically, the writing is compact with nary a wasted word.

Ray Davies performed “Waterloo Sunset” at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics which was a crowning achievement for the song.  Plain and simple, Sir Raymond Douglas Davies penned and produced a masterpiece that people will be listening to hundreds of years from now.

Maybe someday I will return to London and take the time to witness my own Waterloo sunset.

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Max Picks …songs from 1967

1967

This year contained the Summer of Love and psychedelia was everywhere. This year alone had many of my favorite songs I still listen to. I want to start with a song that I think is one of the best of the sixties. The Kinks Waterloo Sunset.

People ask me my favorite Beatles song all of the time. Usually, I say A Day In The Life but this one comes really close. The Beatles released Sgt Peppers this year but also released one of…if not the best single ever with Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane. Strawberry Fields was credited to Lennon/McCartney but Lennon is said to have written most of it.

Speaking of favorites…this is one of my top songs from the 60s and ever. Procol Harum with a Whiter Shade Of Pale. Gary Brooker and Keith Reid were credited with writing the song but Matthew Fisher the former keyboard player in the band sued for partial writing credit and won on July 24, 2008. Now the song’s writing credit is Reid-Brooker-Fisher. Gary Brooker and Fisher wrote the music and Reid wrote the lyrics. This was the first song Procol Harum recorded.

Another landmark song…The Doors in Light My Fire. The organ intro to this song by Ray Manzarek is one of the most iconic intros in rock. I first heard this song as a kid and automatically loved it. It is the song that the Doors are most known for. I like the album version that is longer and has more of a solo.

The four band members were credited for writing this song Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, and Ray Manzarek.

This one is a no-brainer…the one and only Aretha Franklin with Respect…and I have plenty of it for her. It was written by the great Otis Redding.

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Kinks – Waterloo Sunset

One of the great Kinks songs. The song peaked at #2 in the UK Charts but failed to chart in America.

Ray Davies brought this to the band while they were in the middle of recording the album. He was reluctant to share the lyrics because they were so personal. In a Rolling Stone magazine interview, his brother (and Kinks guitarist) Dave Davies said Ray felt “it was like an extract from a diary nobody was allowed to read.”

From Songfacts.

Written by Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, he called this “a romantic, lyrical song about my older sister’s generation.”

Waterloo Bridge is in London, and the lyrics are about a guy looking out of a window at two lovers meeting at Waterloo Station. Davies used to cross Waterloo Bridge every day when he was a student at Croydon Art School.

It is often claimed that the line, “Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station every Friday night” is about the relationship between actor Terence Stamp and actress Julie Christie. However, Ray Davies denied this in his autobiography. He subsequently revealed that 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.”

According to Kinks biographer Nick Hasted, Terry was Ray’s nephew Terry Davies, whom he was close to in early teenage years.

Further confusing the matter, Davies told Rolling Stone in 2015 that Julie and Terry were “big, famous actors at the time.” The actors had been dating since the early ’60s and starred together in the film Far From the Madding Crowd, which is often cited as the direct inspiration for the song, but the film didn’t come out until six months after the single’s release.

 

Waterloo Sunset

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night?
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright

But I don’t need no friends
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)

Terry meets Julie
Waterloo station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don’t want to wander
I stay at home at night

But I don’t feel afraid
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)

Millions of people swarming like flies ’round
Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And they don’t need no friends
As long as they gaze on
Waterloo Sunset
They are in paradise

Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)
Waterloo sunset’s fine