Waterloo Sunset
Encyclopedia
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.
. The song was rumoured to have been inspired by the romance between two British celebrities of the time, actors Terence Stamp
and Julie Christie
. 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." Despite its complex arrangement, the sessions for "Waterloo Sunset" lasted a mere ten hours; 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." The single was one of the group's biggest UK successes, reaching number two on Melody Makers chart, 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.'
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.
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.
Influential pop music journalist Robert Christgau
has called the song "the most beautiful song in the English language." Pete Townshend
of The Who
has called it "divine" and "a masterpiece". Allmusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine
concurred, citing it as "possibly the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era."
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. 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). 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.
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.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
. It was released as a single in 1967, and featured on their album Something Else by The Kinks
Something Else by the Kinks
Something Else by The Kinks, often referred to as just Something Else, is the fifth UK studio album by English rock group The Kinks, released in September 1967. The album marks the final involvement of American producer Shel Talmy in The Kinks' 1960s studio recordings; henceforth Ray Davies would...
. Composed and produced by Kinks frontman Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
, "Waterloo Sunset" is one of the band's best known and most acclaimed songs.
History
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 StationWaterloo station
Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex. The station is owned and operated by Network Rail and is close to the South Bank of the River Thames, and in Travelcard Zone 1....
. The song was rumoured to have been inspired by the romance between two British celebrities of the time, actors Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
and Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
. 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." Despite its complex arrangement, the sessions for "Waterloo Sunset" lasted a mere ten hours; 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
Steve Marriott
Stephen Peter Marriott , popularly known as Steve Marriott, was an English musician, songwriter, and frontman of several notable rock and roll bands, spanning over two decades...
of the Small Faces came up and asked me how we'd got that sound. We were almost trendy for a while." The single was one of the group's biggest UK successes, reaching number two on Melody Makers chart, 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
Shel Talmy
Shel Talmy is an American record producer, songwriter, arranger best known for his work in London with The Who and The Kinks in the 1960s, with a role in many other English bands including Cat Stevens and Pentangle...
. 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.'
Legacy and accolades
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
. Paul Weller and Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
cite the song as their favourite of all-time. Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
named it the 29th best song of the 1960s.
David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
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.
Influential pop music journalist Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
has called the song "the most beautiful song in the English language." Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
of The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
has called it "divine" and "a masterpiece". Allmusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
concurred, citing it as "possibly the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era."
Cover versions
"Waterloo Sunset" has been coveredCover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by British dance-pop
Dance-pop
Dance-pop is dance-oriented pop music that originated in the early 1980s. Developing from post-disco, it is generally up-tempo music intended for clubs with the intention of being danceable or merely dancey...
artist Cathy Dennis
Cathy Dennis
Cathy Dennis is a British dance-oriented pop singer-songwriter, record producer and actress...
, and was the second single on her third album, Am I the Kinda Girl?
Am I the Kinda Girl?
Am I the Kinda Girl? is the third album by English dance artist Cathy Dennis. It was released in 1996. Dennis changed musical track: away from the dance-pop sound of previous releases, to a more traditional singer-songwriter approach...
. Cathy had been working with Ray Davies on tracks for the album. 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
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
Give The People What We Want: Songs of The Kinks
Give the People What We Want: Songs of The Kinks
Give The People What We Want: Songs of The Kinks is a 2001 tribute album to music of The Kinks by various garage, punk and indie artists from the Northwestern United States....
(Sub Pop, 2001). Def Leppard
Def Leppard
Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell...
recorded a version for their 2006 cover album Yeah!. Show of Hands
Show of Hands
Show of Hands is an English acoustic roots and folk duo comprising singer-songwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer. In recent years they have been accompanied on tour and in the studio by jazz double-bassist Miranda Sykes.-Origins:...
recorded a version for their 2000 cover album Covers.
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
recorded a version of the song for his 2010 collection Scratch My Back
Scratch My Back
-Singles:Gabriel originally intended to release Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours simultaneously. However, as completion of the latter dragged out, it was instead decided to release a series of double A-sided singles with one song from each album every new full moon during 2010 on iTunes...
. 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
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...
has recorded this song live.
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.