Waterloo Sunset

I know I normally chat about more independant groups, but today, i wanted to blog about a song by the Kinks that most people today have never even heard.

"Waterloo Sunset" is a song released as a single by The Kinks in 1967, and featured on their album Something Else by the Kinks. It was composed and produced by The Kinks lead singer and songwriter Ray Davies and is one of the band's best known and most acclaimed songs.

The lyrics are from the point of view of a solitary man on the south bank of the Thames watching (or imagining) the romantic encounters of a couple at Waterloo Underground, then crossing Waterloo Bridge. Davies, in his 1996 autobiography X-Ray, says the inspiration for the song came from an incident when he was hospitalized as a boy. On the BBC radio show The Davies Diaries, Davies stated that "I can't tell you who they are because they're good friends of mine". In a 2008 interview with Spinner Magazine, Davies stated "it was a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world and they were going to emigrate and go to another country."

The couple - "Terry" and "Julie" - mentioned in the lyrics are widely reported and presumed as being British film stars of the time Terence Stamp and Julie Christie but Davies, in a 2004 interview, denied this, saying: "No, Terry and Julie were real people. I couldn't write for stars."

The recording features Davies' first wife Rasa on background vocals. “When the record was finished and it was coming out", Ray Davies remembered, “I got my wife Rasa to drive me down to Waterloo Bridge to see if the atmosphere was right… I’ve never worked with a song that has been a total pleasure from beginning to end like that one”.

I have included two versions of the song for you to compare. The first a live performance by the Kinks and the other a cover from elliot smith, just to see the different interpetations........enjoy

La Roux and random thoughts

random thoughts first...........

well i saw the new terminator movie today and it was fairly good,ut not what i would call a mega blockbuster, but still good. to be honest though, Bryce Dallas Howards character is really not needed and if she had been left on the cutting room floor, nothing would have been missed. Shame though as I think she is a good young actress.




Here is the band I am talking about tonight......"La Roux"

Meaning "red-haired one" in French, La Roux is the synth pop project of flame-haired singer/songwriter Elly Jackson and keyboardist/producer Ben Langmaid. Before they collaborated, Jackson grew up listening to folk legend Nick Drake, and drew inspiration from his sound for her early music. Meanwhile, Langmaid went to school with Faithless' Rollo Armstrong, and the pair recorded as house duo Huff & Puff in the mid-'90s; Langmaid also recorded as Atomic and as one half of Huff & Herb for Armstrong's label, and was a songwriter for the group Kubb. Jackson and Langmaid began working together in 2006, when they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Initially, they called their project "Automan" and wrote largely acoustic music before scrapping that name and sound for the sleek, Prince, David Bowie, and the Knife-inspired style they pursued as La Roux. Their debut single, "Quicksand," was released by Kitsune in fall 2008, and earned the band acclaim from the BBC and the Guardian. La Roux supported Lily Allen on her 2009 U.K. tour and were expected to release their first album later that year.

Here is a video of their song Bulletproof.........enjoy