Gavin B.

As I said in the previous post don't take me too seriously. My own philosophy is in constant fluctuation and I was yanking at your chain with my own personal history, all of which is true but not nearly as traumatic my own humorous accounts of it.

I do believe in karma and the rule of karma inevitably demands a payment of dues from those who want to sing the blues. Every artistic accomplishment is born in the state of sufferation. Sufferation is West Indian patios for the price one pays for their social station in life. Blues and jazz musicians believe that those who fear or avoid the pain of suffering don't have a soul, which is about the strongest statement you can make about someone's lack of spiritual status.

You're right about Waterloo Sunset it may be the greatest Kink's song and one of the most poetic songs of the rock and roll era. The song connected with me in a way the none of the Beatles songs did.

I beg to differ with your theory that Waterloo Sunset wasn't composed in a state of sadness. One of my passionate enterprises is uncovering the meanings of the popular songs that shaped my own worldview along with the worldview of my peer group. I can't help myself... I have a Bachelor degree in Critical Theory and an MEd in Clinical Psychology, so I'm always looking for the subtext beneath words the shape a great song.

I was always curious about the meaning of Waterloo Sunset until songwriter Ray Davies publicly commented on the song for the first time a few months ago. I'll get to his comments in a minute.

Ray Davies worked on the song for several years before the Kinks recorded it and spent a lot of the time reshaping the meaning of the song. Davies rarely writes a song that doesn't have a double edged meaning to it. For instance Victoria is a thinly veiled denunciation of British provincialism that initially sounds like an anthem in praise of the colonial age of Queen Victoria. Kinks fans know that Well Respected Man is a song about a man who is the pillar of conservative British society but beneath his veneer of respectability is a man who also has lecherous designs on the girl next door.

There is a melancholy message in the lyrics and Ray's vocal on Waterloo Sunset is a wee bit too somber to be simple song about a person claiming that he's in paradise when he gazes at the sunset over Waterloo Station in London. An urban subway station in the middle of London is hardly a tourist destination of those who love breathtaking sunsets.

Some people still think the two lovers in the song, named Julie and Terry were actors Julie Christie and Terrance Stamp and that Davies was concealing some sort of privileged information about a 1965 romantic tryst between them. The NNDB website which is an extensive and reliable source of biographical data still says the Christie/Stamp affair was the subject of Waterloo Sunset on Julie Christie's profile. Look toward the bottom of the page for the info.


My own idea was that Waterloo Sunset was a wry commentary on how the poisonous nitrogen gases from air pollution, mix with oxygen to create spectacular scarlet colored sunsets in the many polluted urban areas. That would explain the melancholy manner in which the song is sung. The lyrical content of the song matched up very closely to my harebrained theory, which turned out to be wrong.

Earlier this year, Davies finally settled the matter by revealing his inspiration for the song. Davies told Uncut magazine, Davies said the song's characters Terry and Julie are in fact Ray Davies' older sister and his boyfriend who are now married. Ray, himself, is the third character in the song, who is the narrator of the story. Ray is the one who gazes at this lover's rendezvous at Waterloo station while the world passes him by as he lies his hospital sick bed. His coping mechanism for his loneliness is sense of assurance that the Waterloo sunset is his own paradise and he doesn't need romantic relationships or friends like other people do.

John Donne said,” No man is an island unto himself" but Davies seems to be offering the counter argument which is, "John you idiot, all people are islands unto themselves, and creating a fantasy Waterloo sunset paradise may help human beings cope with the existential isolation confronts our lives."

At the end the song even Julie, her boyfriend Terry and the millions of people swarming like flies in the Waterloo Underground are just like him and being part of a crowd on the same island will never immunize people from the pain of isolation. The paradox is that loneliness is the universal bond that unites us all to the human condition. Man for all of his conceptual intelligence has created a social system that dehumanizes him on a daily basis.

What makes the song brilliant is Davies' talent for telling a very involving story with so few words, and ultimately he leaves it up to the listener to figure out the existential sadness of the story he's telling.

All of that being said I copied the lyrics to Waterloo Sunset for your further consideration:

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Rickenbacker

I believe that Davies' true genius was that as the narrator contemplates existence from a hospital bed, he leaves the listener to realize the innocent beauty of not loneliness, but being alone and feeling happiness. Maybe once the narrator felt lonely, but at the point of narration, he has indeed reached a state of happiness in his separation from society.

And that, my friend, may be the saddest thing of all.

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