Editing Waterloo Sunset (section)

==History==
[[File:Waterloo Sunset. - geograph.org.uk - 123522.jpg|thumb|A sunset over [[Waterloo, London]], taken from the [[Victoria Embankment]] in 2001]]
Interviewed in May 1967, [[Ray Davies]] stated that he wrote "Waterloo Sunset" having had "the actual melody line in my head for two or three years".<ref name="exploitdave">{{cite journal |title="I should exploit Dave more..." |journal=The History of Rock: 1967 |date=September 2015 |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/New-Musical-Express/History-of-Rock/TheHistoryOfRock1967.pdf |access-date=4 December 2022}}</ref> He initially titled the song "Liverpool Sunset", but scrapped the Liverpool theme after the release of [[the Beatles]]' song "[[Penny Lane]]".<ref name="exploitdave"/><ref name="liverpool">{{cite web|title=Ray Davies: Waterloo Sunset was originally Liverpool Sunset|url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-entertainment/echo-entertainment/2010/05/14/ray-davies-waterloo-sunset-was-originally-liverpool-sunset-100252-26442323/|author=Jade Wright|date=13 May 2010|work=liverpoolecho}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/songlibrary/indepth/waterloosunset1.shtml|title=BBC - Radio 2 - Sold On Song - TOP 100 - Number 19 - Waterloo Sunset}}</ref>{{refn|group=nb|In a 2010 interview with the ''[[Liverpool Echo]]'', Davies elaborated: "[[Liverpool]] is my favourite city... ...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 Club|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 [[Scouse]]r. My heart is definitely there."<ref name="liverpool"/>}}

The lyrics describe a solitary narrator watching (or imagining) two lovers passing over a bridge, with the observer reflecting on the couple, the [[Thames]], and [[London Waterloo railway station|Waterloo station]].<ref name="AllmusicWaterloo">{{cite web|title=Waterloo Sunset|publisher=Allmusic|url={{AllMusic|class=song|id=t5593941|pure_url=yes}}|last=Maginnis|first=Tom|access-date=27 November 2009}}</ref><ref name="Spinner"/> Speaking in 2010, Davies commented "I didn't think to make it about Waterloo, initially, but I realised the place was so very significant in my life. I was in [[St Thomas' Hospital]] when I was really ill [when he had a [[tracheotomy]] aged 13] and the nurses would wheel me out on the balcony to look at the river. It was also about being taken down to the 1951 [[Festival of Britain]]. It's about the two characters – and the aspirations of my sisters' generation who grew up during the Second World War. It's about the world I wanted them to have. That, and then walking by the Thames with my first wife and all the dreams that we had."<ref>{{cite web |title=Ray Davies – How a lonely Londoner created one of the great Sixties |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/ray-davies--how-a-lonely-londoner-created-one-of-the-great-sixties-songs-2343826.html |date=23 October 2011|work=The Independent}}</ref> The two lovers in the lyric are named as Terry and Julie.<ref name="Telegraph">{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/03/sv_juliechristie.xml&page=2|title=Julie Christie: Still Our Darling|work=The Sunday Telegraph|date=3 February 2008|access-date=27 November 2009 |location=London |first=David |last=Jenkins}}{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Interviewed in May 1967, Davies stated in 1967 that "if you look at the song as a kind of film, I suppose Terry would be [[Terence Stamp]] and Julie would be [[Julie Christie]]", referring to the popular British film actors romantically linked at the time.<ref name="Rogan 18">Rogan, Johnny (1998). p. 18</ref><ref name="Variety 1">{{cite web|url=https://www.variety.com/profiles/people/Biography/29040/Julie+Christie.html?dataSet=1 |title=Variety biography of Julie Christie |access-date=27 November 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090422201702/http://www.variety.com/profiles/people/Biography/29040/Julie+Christie.html?dataSet=1 |archive-date=22 April 2009}}</ref><ref name="Telegraph"/> Latterly, Davies has refuted this connection; in 2008, he described the song as "a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world", referring to Rosy Davies, who moved to Australia in 1964.<ref name="Spinner">{{cite web |url=http://www.spinner.com/2008/03/27/the-kinks-ray-davies-serves-up-songs-at-the-working-mans-cafe/ |title=The Kinks' Ray Davies Serves Up Songs at the 'Working Man's Cafe' |author=Baltin, Steve |date=27 March 2008 |publisher=Spinner |access-date=8 December 2009}}</ref><ref name="Independent Well Respected">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-kinks-well-respected-man-545632.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090422205942/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-kinks-well-respected-man-545632.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=22 April 2009|title=The Kinks: Well respected man|work=[[The Independent]]|date=10 September 2004|access-date=27 November 2009 |location=London}}</ref>

The song was the first Kinks recording produced solely by Ray Davies, without longtime producer [[Shel Talmy]]; Talmy's contract with the band had expired in spring 1967.<ref name="kitts">{{cite book |last=Kitts |first=Thomas M. |title=Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else |date=2008 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781135867959 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RICQAgAAQBAJ |access-date=4 December 2022}}</ref> Because of its complex arrangement, the sessions for "Waterloo Sunset" lasted ten hours;<ref name="Kitts Waterloo">Kitts, Thomas (2007). pp. 86–87</ref> [[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."<ref name="Savage 87">Savage, Jon (1984). p. 87.</ref>