I suspect, when the moment came, when I had positioned myself in the middle of the bridge and leaned over the railing, I looked as if I might hurtle myself into the Thames, as if I were weighing up the strands of my life in the face of oblivion. But had any of the passers-by been blessed with preternatural hearing, they would have heard a soft male voice singing “Dirty old river, must you keep rolling…” He’s brutalising the melody, they would mutter to their companions as they passed. But (they would add) his mimicry of Davies’ peculiar dental consonants is quite remarkable. The sunset, for its part, provided in so majestic a fashion you might have assumed it had been computer-generated: a fiery orange glow rising behind the river-front, dramatic streaks of chalk-textured cloud, a darkening pastel-blue sky.
'Waterloo Sunset’, The Kinks’ soggy 1967 masterpiece, is practically the aural definition of Wistful. After an appropriate chromatic descent, the song settles into a sighing acoustic groove and we are introduced to our protagonist: a reclusive, sunset-loving voyeur. Though his perspective is frequently undercut by gently mocking backing vocals, he emerges a sympathetic figure; how could he be anything but in such achingly evocative surrounds? 'Waterloo Sunset' may not be so imperishable an achievement that it survives my impromptu rendition, or indeed subsequent description (I apologise if you observe a diminishing of its effects during your next listen), but it’s surely as close as any guitar-playing humans have managed. Below I have catalogued the pertinent details of the song as well as my success in observing them.
- Dirty old river (the Thames; observed)
- Busy people (London; observed)
- Taxi lights (London; observed)
- Window from which to view the world (my accomodation had a window; world was visible from it; observed)
- Chilly evening (London; observed)
- Terry and Julie at Waterloo Station (impossible to verify, but it’s plausible that I may have unknowingly observed a Terry and a Julie at the station)
- Millions of people swarming like flies round Waterloo Underground (peak-hour; observed)
- Terry and Julie passing over the river (again, impossible to verify and highly unlikely, but plausible; existence of Waterloo Bridge observed)
- Waterloo Sunset (paradise; observed)
When it was dark I caught the train back to Kennington and, I don't know, ate cheese in my room or something.
