Waterloo Sunset

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"Waterloo Sunset" is a song released as a single by The Kinks in 1967, and featured on their album Something Else by the Kinks.

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Composed and produced by Kinks lead songwriter Ray Davies, many consider it one of his very finest works. The strikingly economical lyrics are from the point of view of a solitary man watching (or imagining?) the romantic encounters of a couple at the Waterloo Underground station, then crossing Waterloo Bridge, in London. Legend has it that the characters "Terry and Julie" in the song are named for the film stars Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, although Davies denies this in his 1996 autobiography X-Ray and instead 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 are because they're good friends of mine". 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. 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. Damon Albarn cites the song as his favourite of all-time.

[edit] Related works

Waterloo Sunset is also the title of an album by Barb Jungr, which features a version of the Kinks song.

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".

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.

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, though the track was released only as a bonus on the Japanese edition. 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.

Also the title of a 2005 short student film starring James English.

The song was also covered by Cathy Dennis as a CD single and on the album 'The Irresistible Cathy Dennis' (2000).
Also covered by famous German "Kölsch-Rock"-Band BAP for a live performance since leadsinger Wolfgang Niedecken is a great Kinks fan and BAP played a concert with The Kinks as support-act. The track is also featured on the BAP-movie "Viel passiert" directed by Wim Wenders.

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 narrarator wondering "Will I get away/will I see it through/On the return to Waterloo."