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