"Waterloo Sunset" is a song by British rock band The Kinks. It was released as a single in 1967, and featured on their album Something Else by The Kinks. Composed and produced by Kinks frontman Ray Davies, "Waterloo Sunset" is one of the band's best known and most acclaimed songs.

History [link]

The lyrics describe a solitary narrator watching (or imagining) two lovers passing over a bridge, with the melancholic observer reflecting on the couple, the Thames, and Waterloo Station.^[1][2] The song was rumoured to have been inspired by the romance between two British celebrities of the time, actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie.^[3][4][5] Ray Davies denied this in his autobiography, and claimed in a 2008 interview, "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."^[2][6] Despite its complex arrangement, the sessions for "Waterloo Sunset" lasted a mere ten hours;^[7] Dave Davies later commented on the recording: "We spent a lot of time trying to get a different guitar sound, to get a more unique feel for the record. In the end we used a tape-delay echo, but it sounded new because nobody had done it since the 1950s. I remember Steve Marriott of the Small Faces came up and asked me how we'd got that sound. We were almost trendy for a while."^[8] The single was one of the group's biggest UK successes, reaching number two on Melody Maker's chart,^[3] and went on to become one of their most popular and best-known.

The record reached number 2 on the British charts in mid 1967 (it failed to dislodge the Tremeloes' "Silence Is Golden" 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".

In 2010 Ray Davies stated the song was originally entitled 'Liverpool Sunset'. In an interview with the Liverpool Echo he explained 'Liverpool is my favourite city, and the song was originally called Liverpool Sunset. I was inspired by Merseybeat. I'd fallen in love with Liverpool by that point. On every tour, that was the best reception. We played The Cavern, all those old places, and I couldn't get enough of it. I had a load of mates in bands up there, and that sound – not The Beatles but Merseybeat – that was unbelievable. It used to inspire me every time. So I wrote Liverpool Sunset. Later it got changed to Waterloo Sunset, but there's still that play on words with Waterloo. London was home, I'd grown up there, but I like to think I could be an adopted Scouser. My heart is definitely there.' ^[9][10]

Legacy and accolades [link]

Waterloo Station, London.

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 Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Paul Weller and Damon Albarn cite the song as their favourite of all-time. Pitchfork Media named it the 29th best song of the 1960s.

Influential pop music journalist Robert Christgau has called the song "the most beautiful song in the English language." ^[11] Pete Townshend of The Who has called it "divine" and "a masterpiece".^[12] Allmusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine concurred, citing it as "possibly the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era." ^[13]

References in other works [link]

• In 1979 the song featured in a BBC Play for Today by Barry Keefe called 'Waterloo Sunset', about an elderly woman living in a London housing project.
• The 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".
• Indie group The Willows wrote a song about Terry and Julie passing like ships in the night on Wandsworth Common in the early 90s. The song was called "South of the River" and is included on their album English Country Garden (Suddick 1993).
• The 2007 UK movie French Film features a version of "Waterloo Sunset" by the group The Rushes, which is played during the credits over scenes of a sunset filmed from Waterloo Station.
• 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 around an aged rock star called Les Mulligan and a cynical promoter planning his comeback. All stories are named after Kinks/Ray Davies songs.

Cover versions [link]

"Waterloo Sunset" has been covered by British dance-pop artist Cathy Dennis, and was the second single on her third album, Am I the Kinda Girl?. Cathy had been working with Ray Davies on tracks for the album.^{[citation needed]} The single was only released in the UK and charted No.11, March 1997.

In 2001, The Fastbacks recorded a version of the song for the tribute album Give The People What We Want: Songs of The Kinks (Sub Pop, 2001).

David Bowie recorded a cover of the song during the sessions for the album, Reality, in 2003. This version was released as a bonus track on the Japanese edition.

Def Leppard recorded a version for their 2006 cover album Yeah!.

Show of Hands recorded a version for their 2000 cover album Covers.

Peter Gabriel recorded a version of the song for his 2010 collection Scratch My Back. The album features a collection of songs by other artists, who in turn will reciprocate with a version of a Gabriel song. "Waterloo Sunset" did not make the final cut, and is currently only available as a bonus track with the special edition issue of the album.

Danish singer-songwriter Allan Olsen recorded a version of the song with Danish lyrics called "På Kanten af Vesterbro" for the album "Multi Importante" released in 2007.

Affairs Of The Heart re-made the song in a synth-pop dance version on Heartbeat Records, as Pulse 100 T. The 12" single is not dated, but it would have been mid to late 1984.

Bloomington based diy band Busman's Holiday covered this song on their release "Old Friends" in 2009.

Elliott Smith has recorded this song live.^[14]

Rhett Miller included a version of the song on his 2011 live cover album entitled The Interpreter Live at Largo. He describes the song as, "only the greatest song ever written by any human being."

David Bowie and The Submarines have also made covers of the song.

References [link]