The Kinks have a catalog of great songs. Their best might be “Waterloo Sunset.” Rolling Stone ranked in #42 of the 500 greatest rock songs of all time. It’s a love song, although not of the expected kind.
“Dirty old river, must you keep rolling,
Flowing into the night?”
It’s a love song to the muddy Thames river, flowing through the city of London. Ray Davies, who wrote the song, imagines himself looking out over the river to Waterloo Train Station with the lights and horns and boots and hats; the commotion taking people everywhere (and nowhere).
“People so busy, makes me feel dizzy.
Taxi light shines so bright.
But I don’t need no friends.
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset,
I am in paradise.”
He is content to have his river and his sunset. That is paradise enough. He feels no need to rush off somewhere else. The last three lines of the song sum it up, “Waterloo sunset’s fine.” That is not a line of resignation or weariness, but gratefulness.
These were the years of the British Invasion. Band after band coming from England and trying to make it in the American market. The Animals, the Who, the Hollies, Cream, Donovan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles . . . and you could lump the Kinks in here, after all they had huge early hits on both sides of the pond (here’s two: “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night”). But when other bands started to flirt with America, the Kinks started to write love letters home. What band writes a song called, “The Village Green Preservation Society”? The Kinks. When others started to turn against the Victorian age and the idea of the British Empire, Davies wrote a song to the late queen. Guaranteed you’ve never heard a better song to a monarch than “Victoria.” But before those songs, he wrote “Waterloo Sunset” and as Davies sings, he didn’t need any extra friends. He doesn’t need the glamour and beauty of America.
Davies never wanted to escape the land that he loved. If it was unlovable and dirty to others, that made no difference to him. Something in him always leaned back toward that muddy river and that crowded city. As for me, my reach doesn’t extend beyond that vision. To gratefully hold those things we’ve been entrusted with, that is enough for me. Maybe it’s the muddy water of the Thames river. Maybe it’s the burning summer of a flat Texan field (that is, my lawn!). Dear God, I love it. It is enough for me. Waterloo sunset’s fine.
Tom+