June 26, 2024 • 28 mins
The Kinks were heading into uncharted territory in the Sixties. The London rockers blew up in the early days of the British invasion, topping the charts with violently rowdy bangers like “You Really Got Me.” But Ray Davies began to explore a new kind of introspective songwriting, telling stories of everyday heartbreak. “Waterloo Sunset” is his artistic triumph: the delicate 1967 ballad of a lonely man by a train station, watching lovers from his window.
This one-time cult favorite has become The Kinks’ most beloved classic, setting a standard that all kinds of songwriters aspire to reach. On this week’s episode hosts Rob Sheffield and Brittany Spanos are joined by their Rolling Stone colleague Kory Grow, to explore the mystery of how such a quiet song has just kept growing more beloved and influential over the years.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanos and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the
greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So, Rob, what song are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Song?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Very Near and Dear to my Heart Waterloose Sunset by
the Kinks.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And this song was at forty two on the original
list in two thousand and four and jumped up to
fourteen and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Mind blowing.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, there was one of very many moments going through
the list when seeing the new vote totals and seeing
the reaction for the list and seeing the Waterloo Sunset?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Was this high? Just a beautiful, beautiful thing?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Was the song on your list at all?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It was?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And I love so many songs by the Kinks, but
this one is so special.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I love this song. I feel like I know
kind of a lot of the bigger songs by the Kinks.
There was also a well respected man I've always really
liked his was in Juno.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, it seems very well and you know but yeah, Like,
I feel like there's so many different facets of the
Kinks sound that it's kind of fascinating that's all the
same band, you.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Know, Yeah, the hard rock Kinks and then the delicate
introspective Kinks.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, and it's so.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well that they're the the ultimate brother band, right. It's
like there's Ray Davies, who's the shy, introspective, bookish one
who's writing these incredibly delicate lyrics, and then there's brother Dave,
the guitar solo guy, and such opposite personalities. And no
brother band ever made more out of hating each other.
(01:43):
Over the years, they made, you know, the Gallagher brothers
look like one big, happy family. They would just routinely
gush blood on stage from fisticuffs, and that was something
they were doing in the sixties when nobody was doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We don't really have brothers doing that anymore. I kind
of wish we did. We need we need a new
pair of brothers to fight on stage.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yes, awesome, we need sisters to open out this.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We need time to get if.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
You have any issues you want to work out on
sta on stage.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yes, while you're all like doing the joint drumming moment
like's let's get some blood.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It was shocking to me that Waterloo
Sunset was so high up on the list, given that,
you know, it's never been a radio hit. It's never
been a song that you hear in the deli, it's
never been a song that gets synced in movies or
TV shows, and so really for its entire history, it's
(02:41):
been sort of a cult favorite song. It's very comparable
to pet Sounds, I think, in terms of the way
Pet Sounds never blockbuster, but every generation discovers it and
once you hear it, it's in your soul forever.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I don't remember why I first heard it. I'm I
might have honestly been from the original list, like it
might have been from reading the two thousand and four
list and finding music from that, just because like I
feel like every other really big Kink song I have
very distinct like my shron in Reality bites and like
you Really Got Me the Van Halen cover and like
listening to that and like you know, I mean, Lola
was just like always played on radio and stuff like that.
(03:19):
So I feel like this song, I can't really remember
why I first heard it and why I love it
so much. I honestly do think it might be from
the original list and from listening that's so interesting, like
it feels like appropriate for kind of how long I
feel like I've known this song and where it probably
came from.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's just so delicate and vulnerable. I remember hearing it
on the radio as a little kid, yea, and it
was terrifying for me, just how vulnerable it was that
here's this guy, and I knew in my head that
he was the same guy who's sang you Really Got
Me and all Day and all of the Night and
all these bangers, and of course I knew and loved
(03:57):
Lola and so many any of Ray Davies' songs were
so funny, and some of them were so rowdy, and
I hadn't yet heard his quiet, introspective, fearful side, and
just this incredibly intimate portrait of just a man living alone,
looking out his window and following people day today, and
(04:22):
knowing this couple who meet at the subway station every
Friday night, and just rooting for them, and even though
he's got no friends and no love of his own,
he totally takes pleasure in this life that they're having
there's no other.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Song like it. It's really amazing and you hear its.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Influence and songwriters now from Lord to Taylor Swift to
even Drake. I think Drake has a lot of Waterloo
Sunset energy in his songs. Yeah, Waterloo Sunset. It's so
quiet and almost defenseless sounding, but just overwhelmingly joyful too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
When I was reading about the song and like the
history of it, it was really like how ray I felt
so felt almost too vulnerable to share it with the band, Yeah,
which is such like a striking thing about just kind
of how intimate it felt, and also the fact, I
mean it was originally going to be Liverpool Sunset and
then a Peen Waterloo Sunset. But there's also like his
(05:15):
history with that particular tube station in London, and how
there's a hospital he was hospitalized as a teen really
close today. Just like all those little connections to it
are really fascinating to learn about it.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, London is a city, you.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Know, Well, you become a regular in London and it
loves you. I do listen Waterloos. I like to listen
to songs of the cities that I'm going to when
I go to them, just to get into little method traveling,
you know. But I do listen to Waterloo Sunset every
time I go to London.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah. Also it changes a song so much when you
see the train station, which is not a romantic.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Places truly horrendous. I mean I can't imagine romanticizing a
single tube station in London, but especially the Waterloo stations
easy in there.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yes, it's giant, it's impersonal. It's better now than it was,
you know in the eighties when it was totally dump
and in Ray Davies's time, it was you know, he
really loved singing songs about London and it's when it
was the big Black smoke because he loved to sing.
He loved to sing songs about the seediest, crampedest, least
glamorous parts of the city and to find romance there.
(06:21):
But yeah, Waterloo Sunset really captures that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I mean watching a sunset on river times is very,
very beautiful, I will say, in spite of the station
itself being kind of chaotic, you know, it is a
there is a lot of beauty in that sort of
scene no matter what. So I'm like I could see why.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I remember I was in London interviewing Lily Allen, the
ultimate London girl you know from Clapham like and because
she is so quintessentially London, and I was like, I'm
here for a couple of days. What should I go see?
What should I do? What kind of London experience? And
she was like, to go to Waterloo Station and I
(07:02):
was like really, And She's like, everything you think about
the song is totally different when you see the station
and you see the river and you know, he says
it's dirty, old river. It's dirty, it's old. Yes, And
to have this beautiful story that's set in such an
unglamorous urban environment, and that's the way he liked to
(07:25):
tell his stories. Yeah, it's funny that this song, like
you said, he meant it to be Liverpool Sunset and
he's changed his mind after the Beatles did Penny Lane.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It's funny because.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Penny Lane is such a Ray Davies kind of song,
and Paul McCartney was really the only other songwriter like
Ray Davies at the time who's writing these songs about
women in this really empathetic way that was completely unusual
for male songwriters at the time. That these aren't romantic objects,
and they aren't sexualized in any way, and they aren't
glamorized in any way. But when Paul sings about the
(07:58):
nurse and Penny Lane and he's just like wondering what
she thinks about, how she feels as if she's gonna play.
Their characters have interior lives in a way that just
makes other male songwriters of the era sound just really silly.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah. Yeah. And the kind of like voyeuristic element, I
mean kind of you know, kind of beautiful sort of
witnessing of a love story unfold who reminds me so
much of heroes as well, And like, of course David
Bowie covered Waterloo Sunset and has a great version of it,
but it always reminds me of that. The idea of
like kind of looking through a window and seeing these
lovers and kind of seeing it unfold in front of you.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
That's such a brilliant comparison. That's absolutely right on. Yeah,
it's very similar stories in a very ugly, unromantic, dirty
unromantic kind of place to have this beautiful romantic moment
that somebody witnesses. But you know, Terry and Julie that
of course, like herrying it as a little kid. I
didn't realize that they were named after you know, famous
(08:56):
movie stars at the time symbolize swinging London for people,
Terence dam and Julie Christie. Just the idea of this
old man. It's funny that I have such a vivid
picture of a character and Waterloo sunset, and I picture him,
this old guy, this really vivid narrow apartment and this
narrow window that he's peaking through and seeing people walk by,
(09:17):
and he's just happy that they have their lives and
he doesn't feel bitter that he doesn't have that love
and romance in his own life.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, really amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, I mean even just the way that he sings
and I Am Not Afraid is so heart wrenching, Like
it's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I feel like, Yeah, and both those songs are kind
of witnessing these like this love and romance unfold. There's
so much optimism, obviously, you know, this is Bowie and
Berlin and kind of singing about the optimism of the
future and like our hopes for it. And then of
course this is like just just watching a mundane kind
of day and seeing a lot of beauty in that
is very striking in both.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yes, absolutely and weird. There was such a commercial flop
at the time. Yeah, and that's something that's as with
Pet Sounds. It's like easy part of the story. I mean,
Pet Sounds is such a classic now, it's weird to
think that it was a total flop that almost destroyed
the Beach Boys when it came out. And the same
is true with something else of the Kinks, that they
had all those great earlies when they were like just
(10:14):
you know, the ultimate London garage band, and you really
got me is so great all day and all of
the night. Like you said, there's a lot of hope
and optimism in a song that you know, it's very
like coming from a very sad place in some ways,
but you know you could definitely hear that. I love
his wife's vocal on the song. He's always said that
he meant it to be a Liverpool song, and then
(10:35):
he thought, wait a minute. I've been a Londoner my
entire life. I was born here, I grew up here.
Why am I doing Liverpool song? London is my place?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And he had his.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Wife come in and sing, and she's doing those beautiful
like vocal harmonies and you know, he's with his brother
and they're getting along great that day. And it's funny
that this song was made in an atmosphere of joy
and community when the song is about feeling very alone
but like you said, not feeling afraid.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah. And why do you think it jumped up so
much on the list in between?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I partly think it's because there's so many songwriters now
who are trying to do this kind of song. And
Waterloo Sinse that was very unique kind of song. But
I still remember as a little kid hearing it for
the first time, yea, being really shocked. I was like, wait,
he doesn't need any friends. Wait, why is he out
there trying to make friends? Isn't that how what usually
(11:27):
happens in a song is somebody has an emotional problem
and they learn something, they get over it whatever. I'm like, No,
this guy begins a song very sad and alone, and
he ends very alone, but he takes joy in other
people having their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And that was a lot of process for me as
a little kid. And I think because songwriters are now
so interested in stories like that. You know, we mentioned
Taylor Swift and Lord and Drake, but there's certainly a
lot more. The song is sort of a template for
kind of songwriting that people are more ambitious about trying now.
And I remember that song. I remember when the two
(12:08):
thousand and four version of a list came out. I
was so surprised it was so high then, And I
was so glad to see it so high, because you know,
it was never any kind of hit or radio staple.
But something about the bravery of the song, that it's
a song about a very shy person speaking up and
telling the story of their life. I think that really
speaks to people. I don't know what to make of this,
(12:29):
but the fact that the balloting for this list was
done in the spring of twenty twenty, when a lot
of people were feeling this way. I wasn't in the
mood at all to listen to Waterloo Sunset. In the
spring of twenty twenty, the pandemic started, we all thought
it would be. It took everyone by surprise not to
get into the whole story of it. But at that moment,
(12:51):
a song like Waterloose Sunset was speaking way too much
to like how I was feeling. That was part of
my surprise seeing it so high in the list. I thought,
you know, are people just feeling this way?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You could feel so much of that in a lot
of songs in the way that things like shook out
in terms of the voting, where you can tell people
were literally going to their comfort songs in a lot
of ways, and going to the songs that like bring
them some sort of like warmth or like sometimes hope
or sometimes kind of just like letting them kind of
sit in whatever sadness or anger they were feeling at
the time.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Absolutely, Ray Davies, He's got so much in common for
me with Smokey Robinson as a singer and songwriter and
someone who is able to like type into emotions that
other songwriters at the time were just terrified of going
anywhere near, and that they both had this really forlorn
quality in their voices, and yet there's so much wit
(13:43):
and humor and playfulness in their songs. But I think
of Ray and Smokey as two songwriters that were had
a lot in common but very different from what anybody
else was doing at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, Ray Davies.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Something I love about Ray Davies that I love so
many things about Ray Davies, but the fact that he's
always surprised by which songs of his striking nerve with
people over the years, and he's often expressed surprise that
Waterloo Sunset means so much to people. It's funny that
he did all these lofty, theatrical concept albums in the
(14:16):
seventies The Kinks Present a soap Opera or preservation Act too,
and that he thought of those at the time as
his major works of the period. And it was always
so funny for him that people attached to Kink's deep
cuts and B sides. It was really wild that for
a long time he was in a couple with Chrissy
Hind from The Pretenders when she was like the coolest
(14:41):
punk rocker in the universe, and it was so wild
that she was into all these songs that were Kink's
B sides. She's saying I Go to sleep and stop
your Sobbing, which were total deep cut yeah songs, and
that Van Halen did. Of course, they're huge version of
you Really Got Me, But they also did this incredibly
(15:02):
obscure Kinks by side where of all the good Times Gone.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
He has so many.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Songs from this period that people will hear and they're like, nope,
that's my song. So songs that were totally obscure and
forgotten just became touchstones for people.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I love that there are multiple Van Halen the Kinks
like connections. I didn't realize there's a second song that
they also.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
You mentioned David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and of course he did a beautiful version of
this song after being a fan of it his whole life.
It's fairly in two thousand and three with reality, But
the connections between Ray Davies and David Bowie are so interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, yeah, I love his version of it a lot.
I didn't hear that until later. Honestly, I don't think
I heard reality until like much later, But I do
love that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Very underrated, Oh my god, great period for Bowie. But
Bowie always cited Ray Davies is one of his best influences,
not just as a songwriter but as a singer. That
they both were very into doing the London accent without
toning it down to explain where it sounds really funny
to American ears, like yeah, but you know, Bowie did
(16:11):
wear of All the Good Times Gone on his Pin
Ups album, and he really played up the sort of
you know, cartoon London schoolboys sort of accent. But yeah,
the connection you made between Waterloo Sunset and Heroes is
so fascinating because they were both so interested in these
kind of love songs that take place with people who
(16:32):
are misfits from the rest of the world and they
just have nothing but each other, but that's enough for them.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I mean just kind of the sort of like
witness scene of a scene in pop music is always
such an underrated kind of vehicle in singing about something
like I just I love that sort of kind of
that window into something else that a great pop writer
could really yeah do where they kind of go outside
of themselves and they're like, here's what I'm witnessing right
in front of my eyes of this beautiful scene and
(17:00):
kind of adding these kind of making up these characters
in the same way that a person does when they're
listening to a great song.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Anyway, absolutely, I remember in the eighties Bob Geldoff did
a sequel to Waterloo Sunset where.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Really where Terry and Julie.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Got married and then got divorced, and I remember thinking, like,
Bob Geldoff, this is not your this is not your story. Yes,
you don't have to break I get now that this
is you know, like people hear different parts of their
story in this song. But I remember I was appalled, like,
you know, like when Bob Geldoff did this and I was,
you know, a teenager, and I was like, you can't.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Have Terry and Julie break up.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
There was the whole purpose, yes, But it's funny that
to me Waterloos, since I was in a song identified
with so much when I was nineteen and I thought, Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is me.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I'm the guy in this song. I felt so old
at nineteen that I was like, yep, this is me.
This is how the rest of my life will be.
And it's funny that a few years later I've felt
much more like Terry and Julian, And I thought, isn't
that weird that when I was a teenager, I was
so sure that I was the Ray Davies guy in
this story, and a few years later I was like
(18:12):
back to like feeling like Ray Davies again, and a
few years later is back to feeling like Terry and
Julian again. Like, it's really funny that this is a
story that we're all part of, from different areas, from
different parts of the story, from different perspectives, and it's
just a song that changes as you love it over
the years. And the way he says very beautifully in
(18:32):
the song, the social anxiety he talks about in such
a matter of fact way, you know, like I'm so lazy.
I don't like to wander. I stay at home at night.
And I thought he liked Terry and Julie because they
leave the city behind and go home. It's like, no,
they're not going home. They're going out, probably to the
same bar and soho where Lola is hanging out. It
really kind of changed the song that his selfless joy
(18:55):
in the life that they have. It's just astonishing, what
a generous song it is. It realids, you have a
Beatles song that I know you love as much as
I do. She loves you? Yea where Paul who's narrating
the song, if we can call it Paul. It sounds
like Paul to me. But he's like, look, she loves you.
She doesn't love me, she loves you. I think she's
wrong about this. I think she's an idiot to love
(19:17):
you so much. But you two have each other. You
should be glad about this, and you should make things
right with her. It's really amazing, Like how generous that
song is that the narrator is very like, Yeah, you
screwed it up with this girl. You need to make it,
you need to fix it up because you're very lucky.
And the narrator of that song is so just something
so selfless and generous about that. And there's a lot
(19:38):
of that in Waterloo Sunset too. He's not watching them thinking, well,
where's my Turry, where's my Julie. Yeah, he's just so
happy to see how much they love each other.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, he's just just pleasantly watching and witnessing their love.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's so nice, right, And it's funny because, like, you know,
the way we're describing the song, it seems like there's
no way you should be a to get away with it.
It should end up being like sentimental in modeling.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and it's so joyful.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yes. Robert Chris Gaut called it memorably in his famous words,
he called it the most beautiful song in the English language. Yeah,
and when I hear it, I think Robert Christgau is
absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It really is one of a kind.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It's a kind of beauty that isn't even a more
beautiful version of other songs. It's the only one like it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, we are joined now by Rolling Stone senior writer
Corey Grow. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Thanks for having me, Thanks Scry, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And of course the song clocks in at number fourteen
on the list. Were you surprised to see it ranked
so highly?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I was pleasantly surprised to see it rank so highly.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I think it's ranked higher than I Want to Hold
your Hand and lower than give Me a shelter, which
is weird that it's a rare error right there. But yeah,
I was. I was surprised, you know, especially since it
wasn't really a hit here. Yeah, you know, it speaks
to its influence with the way that resonated with people,
you know, songwriters and people who actually like listen to
(21:04):
music beyond the radio.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, And what do you think kind of brought it?
I mean, for so many voters to rank the song
so highly or included in their ballots, Like, what do
you think it is about this song that for this
twenty twenty one list, the song was so enduring that
so many people voted for it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I think it's just it hits you with this sentimentality
you didn't. I mean, I guess there were a lot
of bands that did a lot of that sentimentality back
in the sixties, especially the late sixties, but there's just
some nostalgic aspect of that song that I think reaches people,
and just that melody, it just it just keeps you.
You know, you want to hear it again, You want
to hear it again and again again. I was listening
to what's his name from the old ninety sevens Rhett Miller. Miller,
(21:43):
he did a live recording of it, and he says,
this is the greatest song ever. I wish I could
have written this, And like you know, there's so many
different covers of it from like def Leppard that a
really weird hard rock version of it, and Bowie covered
it and all sorts of people. But there's just something
about it that's got this nostal too that just hits
everybody from all different walks of life.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, David Bowie was the last song he sang on
stage in his entire life, which wasn't planned that way,
but such a perfect song for him to sign off with,
and that there's so much emotion and yearning in the
melody and such an intensely like gritty, real visual story
(22:25):
and seen through the eyes of this character. And you know,
we learned so much about him just staring him talk
about these people.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
If you analyze the literature of the song, it's really
fascinating because here's this sort of voyeuristic look at these
two lovers from some unseen space. That's he's hiding up
high and looking at them, and he's got this sort
of Shakespearean son at one thirty lust for this train station.
(22:53):
It's like he loves Waterloo Station the way that only
lou Reid could love New York, you know what I mean,
Because it's just so like Bend to Waterloo Station and
they gets gross and dirty, and he even likes he
talks about people moving around like flies in Waterloo sunset.
But you don't notice it because it sounds so beautiful.
But you know, if you actually were to like analyze
(23:14):
the lyrics, there's some really kind of weird grittiness to it.
It gets hidden in there. But going back to Bowie,
one of my favorite things that I was reading, I'd
read an interview with the Raid where he was talking
about how when he and Bowie did it together at
Carnegie Hall, and three they tried to sing like each
other and that was their their challenge that like Ray
wanted to sing like Bowie, and Bowie wanted to sing
(23:35):
like Ray. If you listen to it online, it's really
fascinating to hear it from that perspective. They're tossing it
at one another.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
There.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Wow, I never knew that, but they obviously such a
huge influence on Bowie. Yeah, and just that really kind
of vulnerable, quavery sort of voice.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And you've interviewed Ray before. What kind of stands out
to you about him as a songwriter and performer, especially
in comparison to his peers of that time.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
A couple of things. One is he's unapologetically British. He
loves to be English, you know. Obviously Village Green Preservation
Society is him. He even you know, not in the
sense of political, but he says it's a conservative album
because he wanted to conserve the England that he grew
up with. So even like Waterloo Sunset, like you know,
I compared it to lou Read before, like the only
(24:24):
other artists that I could think of that loves his
locality as much as Ray loves England would be like
Lou with New York, you know what I mean, to
the point that it's anti commercial, to the point that
it really kind of in some ways just stymy to
his career where he's this great songwriter that could have
been so much bigger if he had written about other
places or things rather than just England does his big news. Yeah,
(24:45):
and that's how Lou was too. Lou, didn't you have
big hits other than you know, Walking the Wildside. But
the other thing that strikes me about Ray is just
how much he sort of cloaks himself and hides and
sort of evades things. And you can hear that a
bit in Waterloo Sunset, because like the Terry and Julie characters,
you know, he originally said that they were Terrence Stamp
and Julie Christie, who were dating at the time, and
(25:06):
then later said that Terry was based on like just
the name of his nephew, and that Rosie, his sister
who had moved off to Australia, was sort of the
Julie type character, and that he had just picked Julie
as a name. And there's so he changes these things,
and I don't know, have you read X Ray.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Have you read his memoir.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
You have you read that?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, it was written at a very strange time for
him in terms of like, yeah, getting his story straight.
It was really weird whether it was written when it
was written, and some of it he clearly believes in
some of it he clearly doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Love that title. Yeah, great title for a memoir, and.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
The book is like it's written from a perspective of
a character and he's liken it. He wanted it to
be his in abook of book and like unreliable narrator
and all this stuff. So it's just like he'll do
anything he can to sort of just hide his own
the truth or whatever it is. So it's like nobody's
ever really going to know the truth of Waterloo Sunset
because he's given so many different explanations of it over
(26:02):
the years too. But yeah, those are the things that
probably stand out to me most thinking about him.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, and they invented the brother band who hate each other. Yes,
Like in terms of you know, like the Gallagher brothers
had nothing on them when it came to just punching
each other out on stage, never having a kind word
to say about each other, but their brothers, and they
did in one of their nineties albums. They had that
great duet where they're saying hatred will keep us together,
and it's really like their story, you know, Like there
(26:28):
was that time, like a few weeks ago where they
posted photo of themselves watching the Arsenal game. I think
it was they were just watching the football together, and
like people around the world were like, oh my god,
like Y and Dave like watching football together. That was
so exciting to people, Like it's such a fascinating brotherhood.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Yeah, And I mean, but they're still not reuniting. You know,
the Stones are playing met Life on a couple of weeks.
Where's the Kinks tour? You know, that's that's the sibling rivalry.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm glad you Brob. The van Halen thinks they forgot
about that, and you're the perfect person to talk about
this with our as a resident metal expert. But like,
what was that connection for Van Halen to to the Kinks,
And like, you know, do they speak about it extensively
and kind of that influence that outside of that guitar
riff sort of inspiring so many bringing many genres.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Van Halen began as this backyard rock and roll party band,
and so they did covers, you know. I think what's
funny is they were originally called Rat Salad before they
were called Mammoth, and rat Salad's like it's an instrumental
break on a Black Sabbath record.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, but they they played.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Just whatever would get people moving, whether it was Sabbath
or the Kinks or whatever. So I think the Kinks
was just a hold over there.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
They did where have all.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
The Good Times Gone? Which is the that is the
apotheosis of David Lee Roth in a single song, Like
he just like owns that vibe of like where have
all the good Times gone? Especially at that time and
especially now, And it's just like, yeah, they were, they
were the party band. So I think I think that
it was just that it was just like, let's keep
the live thing going, like especially if you listen to
(27:58):
like old live record so that they would do it
like the Whiskey and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's just like, all right, everybody.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Knows the song, let's do it, you know. But yeah,
it's just amazing to think of how prolific he was,
you know, and that he would just dash off these
songs and probably forget them and they would be brilliant.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, thank you so much Corey for joining us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, I have real joy to hear you talk about
the Kinks.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
You are like you, Ray and Dave are probably the
living experts on the topic.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And Andy Green who should be here too.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by Rob Sheffield
and Brittany Spanos, Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale,
Christian Horde and Gus Winner, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Eric Siler.
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanos and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the
greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So, Rob, what song are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Song?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Very Near and Dear to my Heart Waterloose Sunset by
the Kinks.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And this song was at forty two on the original
list in two thousand and four and jumped up to
fourteen and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Mind blowing.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, there was one of very many moments going through
the list when seeing the new vote totals and seeing
the reaction for the list and seeing the Waterloo Sunset?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Was this high? Just a beautiful, beautiful thing?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Was the song on your list at all?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It was?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And I love so many songs by the Kinks, but
this one is so special.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I love this song. I feel like I know
kind of a lot of the bigger songs by the Kinks.
There was also a well respected man I've always really
liked his was in Juno.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, it seems very well and you know but yeah, Like,
I feel like there's so many different facets of the
Kinks sound that it's kind of fascinating that's all the
same band, you.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Know, Yeah, the hard rock Kinks and then the delicate
introspective Kinks.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, and it's so.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well that they're the the ultimate brother band, right. It's
like there's Ray Davies, who's the shy, introspective, bookish one
who's writing these incredibly delicate lyrics, and then there's brother Dave,
the guitar solo guy, and such opposite personalities. And no
brother band ever made more out of hating each other.
(01:43):
Over the years, they made, you know, the Gallagher brothers
look like one big, happy family. They would just routinely
gush blood on stage from fisticuffs, and that was something
they were doing in the sixties when nobody was doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
We don't really have brothers doing that anymore. I kind
of wish we did. We need we need a new
pair of brothers to fight on stage.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yes, awesome, we need sisters to open out this.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We need time to get if.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
You have any issues you want to work out on
sta on stage.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yes, while you're all like doing the joint drumming moment
like's let's get some blood.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It was shocking to me that Waterloo
Sunset was so high up on the list, given that,
you know, it's never been a radio hit. It's never
been a song that you hear in the deli, it's
never been a song that gets synced in movies or
TV shows, and so really for its entire history, it's
(02:41):
been sort of a cult favorite song. It's very comparable
to pet Sounds, I think, in terms of the way
Pet Sounds never blockbuster, but every generation discovers it and
once you hear it, it's in your soul forever.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I don't remember why I first heard it. I'm I
might have honestly been from the original list, like it
might have been from reading the two thousand and four
list and finding music from that, just because like I
feel like every other really big Kink song I have
very distinct like my shron in Reality bites and like
you Really Got Me the Van Halen cover and like
listening to that and like you know, I mean, Lola
was just like always played on radio and stuff like that.
(03:19):
So I feel like this song, I can't really remember
why I first heard it and why I love it
so much. I honestly do think it might be from
the original list and from listening that's so interesting, like
it feels like appropriate for kind of how long I
feel like I've known this song and where it probably
came from.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It's just so delicate and vulnerable. I remember hearing it
on the radio as a little kid, yea, and it
was terrifying for me, just how vulnerable it was that
here's this guy, and I knew in my head that
he was the same guy who's sang you Really Got
Me and all Day and all of the Night and
all these bangers, and of course I knew and loved
(03:57):
Lola and so many any of Ray Davies' songs were
so funny, and some of them were so rowdy, and
I hadn't yet heard his quiet, introspective, fearful side, and
just this incredibly intimate portrait of just a man living alone,
looking out his window and following people day today, and
(04:22):
knowing this couple who meet at the subway station every
Friday night, and just rooting for them, and even though
he's got no friends and no love of his own,
he totally takes pleasure in this life that they're having
there's no other.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Song like it. It's really amazing and you hear its.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Influence and songwriters now from Lord to Taylor Swift to
even Drake. I think Drake has a lot of Waterloo
Sunset energy in his songs. Yeah, Waterloo Sunset. It's so
quiet and almost defenseless sounding, but just overwhelmingly joyful too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
When I was reading about the song and like the
history of it, it was really like how ray I felt
so felt almost too vulnerable to share it with the band, Yeah,
which is such like a striking thing about just kind
of how intimate it felt, and also the fact, I
mean it was originally going to be Liverpool Sunset and
then a Peen Waterloo Sunset. But there's also like his
(05:15):
history with that particular tube station in London, and how
there's a hospital he was hospitalized as a teen really
close today. Just like all those little connections to it
are really fascinating to learn about it.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, London is a city, you.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Know, Well, you become a regular in London and it
loves you. I do listen Waterloos. I like to listen
to songs of the cities that I'm going to when
I go to them, just to get into little method traveling,
you know. But I do listen to Waterloo Sunset every
time I go to London.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah. Also it changes a song so much when you
see the train station, which is not a romantic.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Places truly horrendous. I mean I can't imagine romanticizing a
single tube station in London, but especially the Waterloo stations
easy in there.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yes, it's giant, it's impersonal. It's better now than it was,
you know in the eighties when it was totally dump
and in Ray Davies's time, it was you know, he
really loved singing songs about London and it's when it
was the big Black smoke because he loved to sing.
He loved to sing songs about the seediest, crampedest, least
glamorous parts of the city and to find romance there.
(06:21):
But yeah, Waterloo Sunset really captures that.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I mean watching a sunset on river times is very,
very beautiful, I will say, in spite of the station
itself being kind of chaotic, you know, it is a
there is a lot of beauty in that sort of
scene no matter what. So I'm like I could see why.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I remember I was in London interviewing Lily Allen, the
ultimate London girl you know from Clapham like and because
she is so quintessentially London, and I was like, I'm
here for a couple of days. What should I go see?
What should I do? What kind of London experience? And
she was like, to go to Waterloo Station and I
(07:02):
was like really, And She's like, everything you think about
the song is totally different when you see the station
and you see the river and you know, he says
it's dirty, old river. It's dirty, it's old. Yes, And
to have this beautiful story that's set in such an
unglamorous urban environment, and that's the way he liked to
(07:25):
tell his stories. Yeah, it's funny that this song, like
you said, he meant it to be Liverpool Sunset and
he's changed his mind after the Beatles did Penny Lane.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It's funny because.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Penny Lane is such a Ray Davies kind of song,
and Paul McCartney was really the only other songwriter like
Ray Davies at the time who's writing these songs about
women in this really empathetic way that was completely unusual
for male songwriters at the time. That these aren't romantic objects,
and they aren't sexualized in any way, and they aren't
glamorized in any way. But when Paul sings about the
(07:58):
nurse and Penny Lane and he's just like wondering what
she thinks about, how she feels as if she's gonna play.
Their characters have interior lives in a way that just
makes other male songwriters of the era sound just really silly.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah. Yeah. And the kind of like voyeuristic element, I
mean kind of you know, kind of beautiful sort of
witnessing of a love story unfold who reminds me so
much of heroes as well, And like, of course David
Bowie covered Waterloo Sunset and has a great version of it,
but it always reminds me of that. The idea of
like kind of looking through a window and seeing these
lovers and kind of seeing it unfold in front of you.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
That's such a brilliant comparison. That's absolutely right on. Yeah,
it's very similar stories in a very ugly, unromantic, dirty
unromantic kind of place to have this beautiful romantic moment
that somebody witnesses. But you know, Terry and Julie that
of course, like herrying it as a little kid. I
didn't realize that they were named after you know, famous
(08:56):
movie stars at the time symbolize swinging London for people,
Terence dam and Julie Christie. Just the idea of this
old man. It's funny that I have such a vivid
picture of a character and Waterloo sunset, and I picture him,
this old guy, this really vivid narrow apartment and this
narrow window that he's peaking through and seeing people walk by,
(09:17):
and he's just happy that they have their lives and
he doesn't feel bitter that he doesn't have that love
and romance in his own life.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, really amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, I mean even just the way that he sings
and I Am Not Afraid is so heart wrenching, Like
it's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I feel like, Yeah, and both those songs are kind
of witnessing these like this love and romance unfold. There's
so much optimism, obviously, you know, this is Bowie and
Berlin and kind of singing about the optimism of the
future and like our hopes for it. And then of
course this is like just just watching a mundane kind
of day and seeing a lot of beauty in that
is very striking in both.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yes, absolutely and weird. There was such a commercial flop
at the time. Yeah, and that's something that's as with
Pet Sounds. It's like easy part of the story. I mean,
Pet Sounds is such a classic now, it's weird to
think that it was a total flop that almost destroyed
the Beach Boys when it came out. And the same
is true with something else of the Kinks, that they
had all those great earlies when they were like just
(10:14):
you know, the ultimate London garage band, and you really
got me is so great all day and all of
the night. Like you said, there's a lot of hope
and optimism in a song that you know, it's very
like coming from a very sad place in some ways,
but you know you could definitely hear that. I love
his wife's vocal on the song. He's always said that
he meant it to be a Liverpool song, and then
(10:35):
he thought, wait a minute. I've been a Londoner my
entire life. I was born here, I grew up here.
Why am I doing Liverpool song? London is my place?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And he had his.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Wife come in and sing, and she's doing those beautiful
like vocal harmonies and you know, he's with his brother
and they're getting along great that day. And it's funny
that this song was made in an atmosphere of joy
and community when the song is about feeling very alone
but like you said, not feeling afraid.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah. And why do you think it jumped up so
much on the list in between?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I partly think it's because there's so many songwriters now
who are trying to do this kind of song. And
Waterloo Sinse that was very unique kind of song. But
I still remember as a little kid hearing it for
the first time, yea, being really shocked. I was like, wait,
he doesn't need any friends. Wait, why is he out
there trying to make friends? Isn't that how what usually
(11:27):
happens in a song is somebody has an emotional problem
and they learn something, they get over it whatever. I'm like, No,
this guy begins a song very sad and alone, and
he ends very alone, but he takes joy in other
people having their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And that was a lot of process for me as
a little kid. And I think because songwriters are now
so interested in stories like that. You know, we mentioned
Taylor Swift and Lord and Drake, but there's certainly a
lot more. The song is sort of a template for
kind of songwriting that people are more ambitious about trying now.
And I remember that song. I remember when the two
(12:08):
thousand and four version of a list came out. I
was so surprised it was so high then, And I
was so glad to see it so high, because you know,
it was never any kind of hit or radio staple.
But something about the bravery of the song, that it's
a song about a very shy person speaking up and
telling the story of their life. I think that really
speaks to people. I don't know what to make of this,
(12:29):
but the fact that the balloting for this list was
done in the spring of twenty twenty, when a lot
of people were feeling this way. I wasn't in the
mood at all to listen to Waterloo Sunset. In the
spring of twenty twenty, the pandemic started, we all thought
it would be. It took everyone by surprise not to
get into the whole story of it. But at that moment,
(12:51):
a song like Waterloose Sunset was speaking way too much
to like how I was feeling. That was part of
my surprise seeing it so high in the list. I thought,
you know, are people just feeling this way?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You could feel so much of that in a lot
of songs in the way that things like shook out
in terms of the voting, where you can tell people
were literally going to their comfort songs in a lot
of ways, and going to the songs that like bring
them some sort of like warmth or like sometimes hope
or sometimes kind of just like letting them kind of
sit in whatever sadness or anger they were feeling at
the time.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Absolutely, Ray Davies, He's got so much in common for
me with Smokey Robinson as a singer and songwriter and
someone who is able to like type into emotions that
other songwriters at the time were just terrified of going
anywhere near, and that they both had this really forlorn
quality in their voices, and yet there's so much wit
(13:43):
and humor and playfulness in their songs. But I think
of Ray and Smokey as two songwriters that were had
a lot in common but very different from what anybody
else was doing at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, Ray Davies.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Something I love about Ray Davies that I love so
many things about Ray Davies, but the fact that he's
always surprised by which songs of his striking nerve with
people over the years, and he's often expressed surprise that
Waterloo Sunset means so much to people. It's funny that
he did all these lofty, theatrical concept albums in the
(14:16):
seventies The Kinks Present a soap Opera or preservation Act too,
and that he thought of those at the time as
his major works of the period. And it was always
so funny for him that people attached to Kink's deep
cuts and B sides. It was really wild that for
a long time he was in a couple with Chrissy
Hind from The Pretenders when she was like the coolest
(14:41):
punk rocker in the universe, and it was so wild
that she was into all these songs that were Kink's
B sides. She's saying I Go to sleep and stop
your Sobbing, which were total deep cut yeah songs, and
that Van Halen did. Of course, they're huge version of
you Really Got Me, But they also did this incredibly
(15:02):
obscure Kinks by side where of all the good Times Gone.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
He has so many.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Songs from this period that people will hear and they're like, nope,
that's my song. So songs that were totally obscure and
forgotten just became touchstones for people.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I love that there are multiple Van Halen the Kinks
like connections. I didn't realize there's a second song that
they also.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
You mentioned David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and of course he did a beautiful version of
this song after being a fan of it his whole life.
It's fairly in two thousand and three with reality, But
the connections between Ray Davies and David Bowie are so interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, yeah, I love his version of it a lot.
I didn't hear that until later. Honestly, I don't think
I heard reality until like much later, But I do
love that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Very underrated, Oh my god, great period for Bowie. But
Bowie always cited Ray Davies is one of his best influences,
not just as a songwriter but as a singer. That
they both were very into doing the London accent without
toning it down to explain where it sounds really funny
to American ears, like yeah, but you know, Bowie did
(16:11):
wear of All the Good Times Gone on his Pin
Ups album, and he really played up the sort of
you know, cartoon London schoolboys sort of accent. But yeah,
the connection you made between Waterloo Sunset and Heroes is
so fascinating because they were both so interested in these
kind of love songs that take place with people who
(16:32):
are misfits from the rest of the world and they
just have nothing but each other, but that's enough for them.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I mean just kind of the sort of like
witness scene of a scene in pop music is always
such an underrated kind of vehicle in singing about something
like I just I love that sort of kind of
that window into something else that a great pop writer
could really yeah do where they kind of go outside
of themselves and they're like, here's what I'm witnessing right
in front of my eyes of this beautiful scene and
(17:00):
kind of adding these kind of making up these characters
in the same way that a person does when they're
listening to a great song.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Anyway, absolutely, I remember in the eighties Bob Geldoff did
a sequel to Waterloo Sunset where.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Really where Terry and Julie.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Got married and then got divorced, and I remember thinking, like,
Bob Geldoff, this is not your this is not your story. Yes,
you don't have to break I get now that this
is you know, like people hear different parts of their
story in this song. But I remember I was appalled, like,
you know, like when Bob Geldoff did this and I was,
you know, a teenager, and I was like, you can't.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Have Terry and Julie break up.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
There was the whole purpose, yes, But it's funny that
to me Waterloos, since I was in a song identified
with so much when I was nineteen and I thought, Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is me.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I'm the guy in this song. I felt so old
at nineteen that I was like, yep, this is me.
This is how the rest of my life will be.
And it's funny that a few years later I've felt
much more like Terry and Julian, And I thought, isn't
that weird that when I was a teenager, I was
so sure that I was the Ray Davies guy in
this story, and a few years later I was like
(18:12):
back to like feeling like Ray Davies again, and a
few years later is back to feeling like Terry and
Julian again. Like, it's really funny that this is a
story that we're all part of, from different areas, from
different parts of the story, from different perspectives, and it's
just a song that changes as you love it over
the years. And the way he says very beautifully in
(18:32):
the song, the social anxiety he talks about in such
a matter of fact way, you know, like I'm so lazy.
I don't like to wander. I stay at home at night.
And I thought he liked Terry and Julie because they
leave the city behind and go home. It's like, no,
they're not going home. They're going out, probably to the
same bar and soho where Lola is hanging out. It
really kind of changed the song that his selfless joy
(18:55):
in the life that they have. It's just astonishing, what
a generous song it is. It realids, you have a
Beatles song that I know you love as much as
I do. She loves you? Yea where Paul who's narrating
the song, if we can call it Paul. It sounds
like Paul to me. But he's like, look, she loves you.
She doesn't love me, she loves you. I think she's
wrong about this. I think she's an idiot to love
(19:17):
you so much. But you two have each other. You
should be glad about this, and you should make things
right with her. It's really amazing, Like how generous that
song is that the narrator is very like, Yeah, you
screwed it up with this girl. You need to make it,
you need to fix it up because you're very lucky.
And the narrator of that song is so just something
so selfless and generous about that. And there's a lot
(19:38):
of that in Waterloo Sunset too. He's not watching them thinking, well,
where's my Turry, where's my Julie. Yeah, he's just so
happy to see how much they love each other.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, he's just just pleasantly watching and witnessing their love.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's so nice, right, And it's funny because, like, you know,
the way we're describing the song, it seems like there's
no way you should be a to get away with it.
It should end up being like sentimental in modeling.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and it's so joyful.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yes. Robert Chris Gaut called it memorably in his famous words,
he called it the most beautiful song in the English language. Yeah,
and when I hear it, I think Robert Christgau is
absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It really is one of a kind.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It's a kind of beauty that isn't even a more
beautiful version of other songs. It's the only one like it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, we are joined now by Rolling Stone senior writer
Corey Grow. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Thanks for having me, Thanks Scry, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And of course the song clocks in at number fourteen
on the list. Were you surprised to see it ranked
so highly?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I was pleasantly surprised to see it rank so highly.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I think it's ranked higher than I Want to Hold
your Hand and lower than give Me a shelter, which
is weird that it's a rare error right there. But yeah,
I was. I was surprised, you know, especially since it
wasn't really a hit here. Yeah, you know, it speaks
to its influence with the way that resonated with people,
you know, songwriters and people who actually like listen to
(21:04):
music beyond the radio.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, And what do you think kind of brought it?
I mean, for so many voters to rank the song
so highly or included in their ballots, Like, what do
you think it is about this song that for this
twenty twenty one list, the song was so enduring that
so many people voted for it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I think it's just it hits you with this sentimentality
you didn't. I mean, I guess there were a lot
of bands that did a lot of that sentimentality back
in the sixties, especially the late sixties, but there's just
some nostalgic aspect of that song that I think reaches people,
and just that melody, it just it just keeps you.
You know, you want to hear it again, You want
to hear it again and again again. I was listening
to what's his name from the old ninety sevens Rhett Miller. Miller,
(21:43):
he did a live recording of it, and he says,
this is the greatest song ever. I wish I could
have written this, And like you know, there's so many
different covers of it from like def Leppard that a
really weird hard rock version of it, and Bowie covered
it and all sorts of people. But there's just something
about it that's got this nostal too that just hits
everybody from all different walks of life.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, David Bowie was the last song he sang on
stage in his entire life, which wasn't planned that way,
but such a perfect song for him to sign off with,
and that there's so much emotion and yearning in the
melody and such an intensely like gritty, real visual story
(22:25):
and seen through the eyes of this character. And you know,
we learned so much about him just staring him talk
about these people.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
If you analyze the literature of the song, it's really
fascinating because here's this sort of voyeuristic look at these
two lovers from some unseen space. That's he's hiding up
high and looking at them, and he's got this sort
of Shakespearean son at one thirty lust for this train station.
(22:53):
It's like he loves Waterloo Station the way that only
lou Reid could love New York, you know what I mean,
Because it's just so like Bend to Waterloo Station and
they gets gross and dirty, and he even likes he
talks about people moving around like flies in Waterloo sunset.
But you don't notice it because it sounds so beautiful.
But you know, if you actually were to like analyze
(23:14):
the lyrics, there's some really kind of weird grittiness to it.
It gets hidden in there. But going back to Bowie,
one of my favorite things that I was reading, I'd
read an interview with the Raid where he was talking
about how when he and Bowie did it together at
Carnegie Hall, and three they tried to sing like each
other and that was their their challenge that like Ray
wanted to sing like Bowie, and Bowie wanted to sing
(23:35):
like Ray. If you listen to it online, it's really
fascinating to hear it from that perspective. They're tossing it
at one another.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
There.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Wow, I never knew that, but they obviously such a
huge influence on Bowie. Yeah, and just that really kind
of vulnerable, quavery sort of voice.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And you've interviewed Ray before. What kind of stands out
to you about him as a songwriter and performer, especially
in comparison to his peers of that time.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
A couple of things. One is he's unapologetically British. He
loves to be English, you know. Obviously Village Green Preservation
Society is him. He even you know, not in the
sense of political, but he says it's a conservative album
because he wanted to conserve the England that he grew
up with. So even like Waterloo Sunset, like you know,
I compared it to lou Read before, like the only
(24:24):
other artists that I could think of that loves his
locality as much as Ray loves England would be like
Lou with New York, you know what I mean, to
the point that it's anti commercial, to the point that
it really kind of in some ways just stymy to
his career where he's this great songwriter that could have
been so much bigger if he had written about other
places or things rather than just England does his big news. Yeah,
(24:45):
and that's how Lou was too. Lou, didn't you have
big hits other than you know, Walking the Wildside. But
the other thing that strikes me about Ray is just
how much he sort of cloaks himself and hides and
sort of evades things. And you can hear that a
bit in Waterloo Sunset, because like the Terry and Julie characters,
you know, he originally said that they were Terrence Stamp
and Julie Christie, who were dating at the time, and
(25:06):
then later said that Terry was based on like just
the name of his nephew, and that Rosie, his sister
who had moved off to Australia, was sort of the
Julie type character, and that he had just picked Julie
as a name. And there's so he changes these things,
and I don't know, have you read X Ray.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Have you read his memoir.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
You have you read that?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, it was written at a very strange time for
him in terms of like, yeah, getting his story straight.
It was really weird whether it was written when it
was written, and some of it he clearly believes in
some of it he clearly doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Love that title. Yeah, great title for a memoir, and.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
The book is like it's written from a perspective of
a character and he's liken it. He wanted it to
be his in abook of book and like unreliable narrator
and all this stuff. So it's just like he'll do
anything he can to sort of just hide his own
the truth or whatever it is. So it's like nobody's
ever really going to know the truth of Waterloo Sunset
because he's given so many different explanations of it over
(26:02):
the years too. But yeah, those are the things that
probably stand out to me most thinking about him.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, and they invented the brother band who hate each other. Yes,
Like in terms of you know, like the Gallagher brothers
had nothing on them when it came to just punching
each other out on stage, never having a kind word
to say about each other, but their brothers, and they
did in one of their nineties albums. They had that
great duet where they're saying hatred will keep us together,
and it's really like their story, you know, Like there
(26:28):
was that time, like a few weeks ago where they
posted photo of themselves watching the Arsenal game. I think
it was they were just watching the football together, and
like people around the world were like, oh my god,
like Y and Dave like watching football together. That was
so exciting to people, Like it's such a fascinating brotherhood.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Yeah, And I mean, but they're still not reuniting. You know,
the Stones are playing met Life on a couple of weeks.
Where's the Kinks tour? You know, that's that's the sibling rivalry.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm glad you Brob. The van Halen thinks they forgot
about that, and you're the perfect person to talk about
this with our as a resident metal expert. But like,
what was that connection for Van Halen to to the Kinks,
And like, you know, do they speak about it extensively
and kind of that influence that outside of that guitar
riff sort of inspiring so many bringing many genres.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Van Halen began as this backyard rock and roll party band,
and so they did covers, you know. I think what's
funny is they were originally called Rat Salad before they
were called Mammoth, and rat Salad's like it's an instrumental
break on a Black Sabbath record.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, but they they played.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Just whatever would get people moving, whether it was Sabbath
or the Kinks or whatever. So I think the Kinks
was just a hold over there.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
They did where have all.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
The Good Times Gone? Which is the that is the
apotheosis of David Lee Roth in a single song, Like
he just like owns that vibe of like where have
all the good Times gone? Especially at that time and
especially now, And it's just like, yeah, they were, they
were the party band. So I think I think that
it was just that it was just like, let's keep
the live thing going, like especially if you listen to
(27:58):
like old live record so that they would do it
like the Whiskey and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's just like, all right, everybody.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Knows the song, let's do it, you know. But yeah,
it's just amazing to think of how prolific he was,
you know, and that he would just dash off these
songs and probably forget them and they would be brilliant.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, thank you so much Corey for joining us today.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, I have real joy to hear you talk about
the Kinks.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
You are like you, Ray and Dave are probably the
living experts on the topic.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And Andy Green who should be here too.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by Rob Sheffield
and Brittany Spanos, Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale,
Christian Horde and Gus Winner, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Eric Siler.
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