Edit 2 for headphones. Source cd is the 1967 album "Something Else By The Kinks" (2011 DeLuxe Edition). A no.1 hit in Holland in 1967, no.2 in the UK. A top 10 hit in Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe. Failed to chart in the United States (too busy with Elvis & Priscilla's marriage?).
WATERLOO SUNSET
(Raymond Douglas Davies) *
dirty old river, must you keep rolling flowing into the night
people so busy, makes me feel dizzy tTaxi 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
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
millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground
but Terry and Julie cross over the river where they feel safe and sound
and the don't need no friends
as long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset they are in paradise
Waterloo sunset's fine
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*
One morning in February 1967, Ray Davies rolled out of bed in his little semi-detached house in North London, and there was a song waiting for him. "Waterloo Sunset came to me in a dream," Davies tells. "I woke up and it was there."
But the song began as a love letter to a different city altogether.
"Originally I wanted to call it Liverpool Sunset," Davies reveals. "I loved Liverpool and Merseybeat. I knew London better than I knew Liverpool. So I changed it. "Waterloo was a pivotal place in my life," he continues. "And I saw several Waterloo sunsets. I was in St. Thomas’ Hospital there when I was really ill as a child, and I looked out on the Thames. Later I used to go past the station when I went to art college on the train. And I met my first girlfriend, who became my first wife, along the Embankment at Waterloo."
As Davies free-associated on memories of his youth, two names spilled out unexpectedly. "As soon as I sang "Terry and Julie"," he recalls, "it seemed that they didn’t need description. With records, I like to let the listener do some work and conjure up some images in their own way. If everybody could draw a picture of Terry and Julie, they’d all draw a different picture, according to people they knew."
At the time, many were convinced that the names referenced one of Swingin’ London’s "it" couples: actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie. Ray Davies, who has always been protective of the song’s mystique, denies the connection, commenting: “I think the characters have to do with the aspirations of my elder sisters, who grew up during the Second World War and missed out on the 60s. I was thinking of the world I wanted them to have."
Ray played it to his brother Dave. "I had a feeling it was going to be a hit," the younger Davies wrote in his autobiography, Kink. "It had a wonderfully hypnotic descending bass line contrasting magically with rising vocal harmonies, gentle but stirring textures. Immediately, we started ad-libbing vocal parts around the chorus."
On March 12 the band gathered to tackle the backing track for Ray’s new song, and recorded it live to four-track. But exactly who produced the session has long been the subject of debate. During the making of 1967’s "Something Else" album, The Kinks and Talmy ended their partnership. Ray has said that he wasn’t happy with early takes of "Waterloo Sunset" so he produced it himself. Talmy disagrees: "It’s my record, and I don’t know what else to tell you. All the records in which I was listed as the producer, I produced."
Whatever the truth, there’s no disputing that the band’s performance, which Davies calls "sparse but tightly arranged", was magical. After Ray added his lead vocal he overdubbed a cascading choral arrangement of "ooh"s that featured Dave, bassist Pete Quaife, and Ray’s wife Rasa. But there was still one final touch needed.
Of this Dave Davies wrote: "We messed around with various guitar ideas and sounds before we finally tried working the guitar part through a tape delay. It worked like a dream."
