Intro. This is quite a nice little atmosphere setting track. We have some synths and some reverse tape effects, with a sweet vocal melody in a bed of reverb "ooh, ooh-ing" in there, and close out with a bass synth giving us a sort of opening pulse sound/feel. This is a just a very short intro, and so there isn't really too much to say, but I do think it is very effective.
Return To Waterloo. Look at all the people around me, Same old faces joining the queue. For return to Waterloo, Return to Waterloo. Started off this morning as usual, Checkin' out the mail and all the bills to pay. Maybe something special's gonna happen, Maybe this is my lucky day. The forecast says heavy weather, So take your umbrella just in case. Will I get away, will I see it through, On the return to Waterloo. Return to Waterloo. Return to Waterloo. Somehow you feel that the world's been passin' you by. Can't help thinkin' somehow they're living a lie. Now I'm asking questions, I never thought I'd ask them before, Like "why" or "how" or "what am I doing it for?" Will I reach my destination, Or will I get off along the way? Will I reach my destination? Will I reach my destination, Have I stopped or am I only going slow? Have we got a couple more stations, Or is this as far as we all go? The headlines cry out from the papers, "Inflation," "murder," "wars," who really wants to know? If I return to Waterloo, It'll cost me more in 1992. Will I get away, Will I see it through? And come back home to you, On the return to Waterloo. Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Davray Music, Ltd. In some ways this song as the intro to the movie, essentially, takes one of Ray's ever present concepts and just nudges it a little, and merges it with other Ray concepts. We have the idea of Repetition/Predictable/Do It Again, but it is offset with the singer wondering how this day is going to go..... Is he going to remain in the status quo, or will he perhaps get off the train he is on and take a different path, get on a different train.... The opening verse is just a scene setter. When I look around I see all these people, and they are the same people I see every day, as all of us are caught in this cycle, and our days are controlled by the clock on the wall, so although none of us know each other, we are all caught in the same cycle and unless out alarm clock breaks, or we happened to stay home sick, we all end up in the same place at the same time every day, to follow this same routine. As someone mentioned a while ago, routine can be a healthy thing in many ways... Regulating the body to function in a certain way, and therefore causing less stress to the body, as it regulates into a perpetual motion machine that knows what it is doing and where it is going.... but by the same token it can be a torture for the mind, that needs to be challenged to function, or it shuts down, and we become sad, hollow drones and the mind ceases to work, unless we find outside stimulus to slide into this soul destroying routine... good for the body, but devastating to the mind and soul, and living forever isn't really much use if we are souless, mindless robots, merely functioning as a cog in the wheel of industry and commerce. The second verse essentially states that the morning has started as normal, and I followed my routine, but behind that was a flickering flame of hope that something special might happen today. The idea of something a bit special happening, or perhaps the notion of a lucky day appearing out of the abyss to spice up the day.... Then with the third verse we have the weather introduced, and it comes in almost as a regulatory insert.... The radio weather has told me that perhaps it might rain, so like a good little soldier I should get my umbrella, and follow the prescribed directions given to me by a system I don't really understand, but participate in ... indefinitely. We have this theme of returning to Waterloo .... but it isn't really the romantic notion that I initially had in my head about returning to the hotel room and seeing if we could see Terry and Julie wandering around ... and find that beautiful melancholy that we once had gazing out of that window (and writing what most of the world sees as our masterpiece)... Now I find myself as one of the millions of people swarming through Waterloo Underground. Should I have crossed the river with Terry and Julie? Should I have taken that "other" path that removes me from the cyclical spiritual suicide? Is there really a better path I could have taken? Sometimes in life we are in a situation where we have a fork in our road, and although it is important to make a decision which way we should go, and of course we should make an informed choice, where possible, it's not a good idea to sit at the fork too scared to make the wrong decision. We may never move on again, we may end up stuck, sitting in this fork forever, and never move on from it to see what the path/s hold for us. Yes , we should look before we leap, but at some point we need to leap, because stalling out of fear is worse than making a wrong decision.... and are there actually any wrong decisions? If we take the wrong path and find ourselves somewhere we didn't want to be, what exactly is the problem with that? Absolutely nothing. Whatever the case we learn something about ourselves, or life, or the world.... There are no wrong decisions really... There are certainly bad decisions, but the most devastating ones are pretty obvious really, and we really know what they are before those paths have been taken.... I mean, if we decide to cheat on our partner, we know exactly the likely scenarios that will unfold. If we decide to start taking heroin, we know the likely paths that will unfold ... deciding whether to work for this or that company, or deciding to go for a walk in the park, or a ride in the country, instead of returning to the Waterloo station to go to our job for once, may have consequences, and I guess they may be negative, but not generally in any devastating sense. If we have been being good little robots and following all the rules and doing a good job, it is extremely unlikely that we will be fired for calling in sick, but really going for a walk in the mountains or something.... anyway, I followed a train of thought again, so I probably better come back lol Anyway, it is at this point that Ray starts asking questions. What will really happen if I get off the train? What will happen if I start asking questions that lead me in a different direction? Is the world going to end if I don't get off at Waterloo station and follow my usual routine today? We move into this idea of "will I reach my destination?". Have I come to a stand still.... am I just dawdling along here?.... The news is always the same "Inflation," "murder," "wars," ... in light of these things, and knowing that realistically I could die at any moment, is this how I want to spend my life? These are easy thoughts for a single man or woman, with nobody to be too concerned about. Married people, and parents have a whole other series of concerns, because once we take on responsibilities, we need to be responsible.... it just goes with the territory... So, to some degree, the rules change once you have taken on a responsibility..... but that was one of the forks in the road you already took... and there is something to be said for sharing your life with someone, and there is something to be said for having and raising children... So decisions from that point on need to take that into consideration... Anyway, like always Ray has me thinking about a thousand things here. He doesn't want to read about Inflation, Murders and War... Then we get this really interesting line If I return to Waterloo, It'll cost me more in 1992. We could take this at face value, and say "yes ticket prices will have gone up by then".... but is that really the angle here? If I return to Waterloo, and stay on this path, what will it cost me? The first thing that comes to mind for me is that it will cost him another 8 years.... If we look at the average age as being 80, that means it will cost him a tenth of his life, and is that how he wants to spend this, the most valuable commodity we have? There is also something else extremely odd and a bit quirky about this line..... and it is probably just BS, but I find it really interesting. For the most part, the Kinks are pretty much done by 1992.... Phobia was recorded in 90 and 91, and 92 seems to be a bit of a dead zone... they played 8 gigs, didn't really record much as far as I can tell.... Phobia was released in 93, and did pretty much nothing. The band did more tours and release To The Bone... in fact, 1993 the Kinks did more concerts than they had since 1966, but it doesn't seem like these were glory filled concerts. Looking at the stats it seems more like a desperate measure to try and get in the public's mind again, to try and get them to give the new record a try.... So in some weird way 1992 seems almost like the end of the band in many ways, and everything that came after was merely "returning to Waterloo", and the guys finally got off the train, so to speak and got off the train at a different station deciding to embark on solo careers... but that is just another weird little thought that came to mind... We end with another really interesting line Will I get away, Will I see it through? And come back home to you, On the return to Waterloo. I'm still up in the air. I don't know if I am staying on the train and following my prescribed pattern, or if I am going to do something crazy and disappear into another direction. Will I escape? Get Away? Or will I dutifully return home to you after I complete my particular form of groundhog day.... and for a lot of us it is the returning home "to you" that makes all the difference in the choice we will make. The speculations of this song do have consequences, and those consequences directly effect someone else. It is a really interesting lyric, and although it touches on some Ray things we have seen before, it has a certain poignancy. We have an older man with some miles on the clock, speculating about circumstances and consequences, and I will be very interested to read folks' thoughts about this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The video from the movie. The opening verse has the main male character, seemingly following a pretty girl, and has Ray as a busker in the subway. The girl passes by, but when the man passes by Ray really hones in on him, and watches him very closely as he walks past. The music fades away, and we stay focused on the man following the pretty girl. The girl takes a seat at a sign that signifies she is at Waterloo station in the tube. The man and the girl make eye contact, and there is a sort of sinister air about what is going on here. After a brief pause, he walks past and goes to a vending machine just past her. Then she gets up and walks past him, and stares him out as she walks around the corner and down another corridor in the subway. The vending machine doesn't work for the man, and he gets angry and gives it a slap in anger, and makes an annoyed noise, that echoes via a delay, and we scan various parts of the station, which are all empty, until we get to an old lady on a bench. The man has that kind of intense psycho killer look on his face, and the train is coming, and the old lady looks up, as if at him. We flash back to the man and the train, and then a series of thoughts seem to flash across the screen, as if they are flashing through his mind. They are scenes that are yet to come as far as I can tell, and then we get the close up side view of his eye, and hear the weather forecaster on the tv and he turns his head and we see the tv in the background. The song comes back in here and we see a lady sit next to the man on the bench.... Interestingly, her keys have an Abbey Road tag on them. We see a shot of the man's family in a picture, and him having breakfast with his wife. Also interestingly they are watching the same weatherman, and we also go back to the picture and it is made obvious, and there is a focus on his daughter, who is not too dissimilar looking to the girl he was seemingly following at the beginning. He and his wife sit, somewhat bored, somewhat routinely, and the obligatory kiss goodbye. He gazes back as he walks out, and we get this interesting shot after he walks out, that has them both in shot again. She is in the window looking a little concerned about something, and his reflection is in the window. We see a kid run down the road under a sign that says New Century lol We get this interesting series of shots that show following the directions of the walk/don't walk sign. Stopping at a shop window to look at a suit, then seeming satisfied that he either has that suit, or his is better or something, and he ends up coming to the tube station ticket booth. An attractive woman stops and obviously look at him and he sees her reflection and turns around, and they both head into the station. He walks along and goes in a different direction to her, but sort of seemingly sneakily goes back around and walks past her at the newsstand and he looks at her and she catches him looking. He goes to buy the paper, and the front page is an article about a rapist.... and the sketch looks a little like our guy.... They get on the train at the same time, different doors, same carriage, and exchange glances again. The song finishes and we're left seeing different passengers, but the focus is on these two characters. He looks at the article on the front cover of the paper he bought... the rapist.... he looks a bit like the rapist.... he folds the paper in half concealing the headline and picture...... This is a really interesting opening.... and I can't help feeling that we have another Art Lover scenario here, or a variation of it. It seems like the little clues being dropped in here are baits, to put a picture in our minds of what is going on here.... but we'll see where it goes ..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I actually really like this song.... The first verse comes in as a solo acoustic styling, and Ray has this really nice pleasant folk singer kind of tone. It ends on the last return to Waterloo, and then horror of all horrors it has those eighties handclaps... those digital nasties that I have always disliked. The drums come in and we get a synth swell, and then a nice staccato synth riff and a pulsing bass sound. We also get some nice little guitar spikes and arpeggios. The initial horror at the digital handclaps fades away, as the song becomes beautifully melancholy and the sound, although extremely eighties, is very engaging and it is melodically excellent, and the styling although seemingly very different for Ray/The Kinks, sounds really good in the context of this song. "Somehow you feel that the world's been passin' you by." comes in a s really nice intense sounding bridge. Then we get a change again, and it is almost like a second bridge, and it is extremely effective. Then we return to the verse as prior. Personally I really like the arrangement here, and I actually like the music, although it seems like a big step outside of what Ray and the band would normally do. I do dislike the handclaps, but even though we close out with them, the rest of the song is really very very strong in my opinion and I can look past the handclaps, and after my initial repulsion, the song is so strong it drags me past that point and I end up enjoying it a lot. A great opening track, with one little thing I really don't like, but can ignore.
Return to Waterloo I really love this song, which Ray sings splendidly, and I think it's more enjoyable without the context of the movie. It's hard not to think of the two characters in Waterloo Sunset, which Ray could have dispelled if he wished - though Return to Paddington could have caused problems with a certain bear . The lyrics convey a strong sense of regret. I think Mark explores the issues wonderfully in his paragraph "Sometimes in life we are in a situation where we have a fork in our road.....". The only mild negatives for me are the handclaps (which I don't think were necessary) and the reference to 1992 which I suspect Ray only included because it rhymed. Pretty much all the songs from last century (sigh) that I like which referenced a future year now sound out-of-date (e.g. 1984, 1999, Disco 2000). My advice - don't mention a year in song unless it's so far in the future that no-one will be able to do a fact check.
The 1992 line is somewhat enigmatically specific, as Mark observes. I always wondered if/kind of assumed that it was in reference to the projected founding of the EU with the Maastricht Treaty that year, which Ray would later write an entire anticipatory song about with ‘Down All The Days’ in 1989, so it was definitely the kind of thing he would have on his mind, but I’m also not sure if the treaty was on the drawing board as far back as 1983 when todays song was presumably written: Maastricht Treaty - Wikipedia
Return to Waterloo This isn't a song that I know well, given that I only own it within the movie and I've probably only watched the movie twice. Whereas the likes of "Sold Me Out" and "Going Solo" are self-contained songs which can live outside the movie (although they gain more from context), this one feels more fluid, less obviously structured, as though it's built to dip in and out at various points during a scene, which is kind of what it does. Not much of it seems to repeat from one section to the next. As regards the lyrics, it's almost a compendium of Ray Davies subjects all in one package. No lines really stand out for me as all of them are really covered in other songs which I know better. Musically it's very much of the early-mid 80s with the synths, handclaps and the tinny drum sound. If I had the soundtrack album I'd no doubt know this song a lot better and have a lot more appreciation for it, but as it is, it's just sitting a bit out of reach at the moment. I'll have a look at the movie section later and see if I can offer any comments on that.
Great work this morning, mister Headmaster, impressive breakdowns of both the song lyrics and the movie scenes. To me, this has to be one of the best Ray songs of that whole decade. A real lost treasure, and for many reasons: it wasn’t the Kinks, it’s barely known even in Kinks circles, it’s not in print nor on streaming platforms, and it doesn’t have a 100% satisfying “definitive” version, at least for me. I must confess loving the digitalized handclaps and the march vibe of the film version. This is an eighties sound that I find powerful, angst driven, cold and almost hard, oppressive, as opposed to the decorative synths flourishes that I generally don't care for. Weirdly, a lot of those flourishes are added in the LP version, which has always frustrated me. My guess is it's the same take, but a widely different mix ? Let's wait for confirmation from our drummer mix expert friend. The alternate version from Songs of Ray Davies (listen below) more acoustic and “in good taste” (very little synth) is lacking the handclaps and that mysterious robotic unescapable alienation that works so well with the images. So the best take/mix for me is the film one, but it's hardly complete, and with background noises. Lyrically, it’s a superb tale of a suburbs guy getting on the daily alienating routine and also in the existential train of life, always a useful metaphor (check out We Shall Live Again by the Felice Brothers, for a recent masterclass). But Ray adds layers. Waterloo is the famous battle, it’s the epicentric train & tube station, but it’s also a mental state and a poetic mindset familiar to all Kinks fans. For, me, Ray must've started from the same guy portrayed in the 1967 tune. He's 15 years older, he left London for the suburbs and returns every day for work, looking at the world with that same old reclusive autistic worldview of his. I'd say the 1992 line is good in that meta context (and even more so if you imagine the song being written somewhere in 1982). It makes you feel that there's a Ray Davies thread of time going on, and on, and on. Which this thread of ours proves almost every day… Anyway, meta or not, Ray constantly plays back and forth with those different layers of meaning, each line going from one to the next. It’s beautifully crafted. But it’s the music that does the trick for me, first we get the return of Ray the troubadour, then a chord sequence to kill for on the “maybe / this is my lucky day” and “or is this / as far as we all go?” lines. The chords themselves are not particularly original but it’s the subtle delays Ray creates that make the song. Note how all the verse lines linger on a little too long before a subtle pause on “maybe” pushes back the chord change a little bit more than you’d expect, generating impatience in the listener's ear, anxiousness for a release that proves ultimately heartbreaking, switching from hopeful to hopeless and sad. After that, the melody ascends and develops achingly, exquisitely sung by Ray. The bridge is perhaps a little less inspired, a bit too close to some Roger Waters Final Cut moments (Your Possible Pasts comes to mind), but it’s no big surprise, The Wall, as a record and a film, and Pink Floyd as a band were on everybody's mind then and must’ve impressed Ray no end. All in all, this is no doubt an important Ray classic that should’ve been, just waiting for it's definitive version. I'm sure a lot on the thread will prefer this alternate "handclaps free" version. But if @The late man could do one of his magic edits and add a bit of handclaps on it just for me, I’d be grateful!
Return To Waterloo The song itself is a little meandering, the melody quite faint and not really catchy, which is something that has been around for a while in Ray's songwriting. However it transpires that this time his heart is really into it, that there's a lot here at stake. And what exactly is the matter? A partly keen, partly apathetic observation on routine. Quite a contrast to "Rush Hour Blues", here there is no hurry, no hectic, it's a morning routine whose details seem to cancel out and only the differences will make an impression. Not even the sensationalistic news can get him excited, they're part of the routine. This is so obviously not the material which will cause a career peak or even re-evaluation, it's easy to shrug the song off. But as a listener I can relate to it so well that it's almost anthemic. I find it most poignant that the quick, perfunctory kiss with the wife occurs in the middle of her exhaling smoke.
I find it terribly disappointing that the cd is so expensive... I could get the record, but even there it's more than I want to pay for it, already having half the songs... I doubt it will happen, being somewhat of an outlier, but it would be nice if there was some kind of reissue.
I didn't see one less than $35 plus shipping. About $50 on Amazon with the shipping. I'm just not that flush with funds at the moment to blow it on a sort of mini album, that I have a large portion of already
Return to Waterloo: I knew this was great from the moment I heard it. And I can understand Ray's quandary. Had he included this in Word of Mouth, it would have been the keynote song and become the album's theme. But he already had this film project rolling (maybe the concept sprung from the song?) and needed to keep them separate. A shame, too, because this and two other songs replacing weaker tracks on Word of Mouth would have made that album even better. What I'm not quite understanding about Ray's lifelong, disdainful, sometimes condescending musings over routine, the status quo, etc. He was born and raised in the rubble of London in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In other words, a city that had been bombed flat and needed to rebuild itself. You don't do that by sitting around and wondering what it's all about: you just do it. Start rebuilding homes and business, highways, retail outlets for people to buy goods. You get up, and you go to work each day. Along the way, you experience extreme rationing, goods not being on shelves, blackouts as the power structure is being rebuilt, etc. Life is not routine. It was probably much harder than whatever we've experienced in our lifetimes, and it went on for over a decade in those post-war years. His disdain for the middle class has always felt like a luxury to me, one that I've never quite liked or understood. You want to break the routine and monotony? Go on. Go ahead and quit. The world will not be applauding your choice. No one will be there to greet you. Whatever immediate relief you feel will dissipate once you realize rent and bills still need to be paid. I suspect the problem is he may have been raised with and around that sensibility, but he never actually lived it himself as a breadwinning adult. Much as Springsteen never had a real day job working in a factory. Thus, this heightened, dramatic view of what for most of us is simply living, getting up every morning and going to work each day, God willing, unless you've been fired or laid off. He wasn't even 21 when he became a rockstar. How's he genuinely going to understand any of this (aside from imagining it in tropes like Soap Opera)? In any event, whether it's "Shangri La" or "Return to Waterloo," even when he's irritating me like this, it's usually in the service of a very good song!
"Return To Waterloo" - I love the self-referential aspects of this song as it clearly references the klassic 1960s song "Waterloo Sunset" in the title so it falls into territory of Bowie ("Space Oddity" to "Ashes To Ashes") or the Who ("My Generation" to "The Punk And The Godfather") to me. It is a good song that seems to communicate that important Ray theme of progress not always being as beneficial as we might think because we lose something in the process. This recording has elements of then-current production techniques but at its core, it is just a great song articulating a very important theme to the writer.
Now, here's where we run into a little transatlantic difficulty, when Americans say "middle class" it means something different to when British people say it. In the US it seems to mean what the British mean by "working class". Anyway, the Davies family, even though the father did go out and work, seems like it wasn't exactly an exemplar of the conscientious hard working salt-of-the-earth stereotype
It's interesting, but I've never really interpreted it that way. It has always seemed like he doesn't like the system, and what it does to people... The reality is, whether in an industrialized world, or whether as a hunter gatherer or farmer in a pre-industrialised world, there is no avoiding the necessity of repetition for survival... But a lot of utopian dogma has minimised realities for fantasies over the decades.... seemingly not understanding that no matter how technically advanced things get, someone needs to get dirty to get things done.... I think the direct criticisms he generally writes, are based around individuals, and merely observational anecdotes, rather than group attacks, or however we'd word it. It's pretty easy to find subject matter, whichever class we look at, people make it pretty easy to criticise people lol.... I could probably write a dozen albums worth of criticism of myself lol
That's a very interesting observation.... For interests sake, what would be the middle class in England.... I tend to think of myself in terms of lower middle class I guess .... but certainly come from traditional English working class, being from generations of coal miners. Do you think we have mistaken our modern (relatively) luxurious appointments as having changed the status in some way, but in reality we're still the same old working class drones, oiling the wheels of the wealthy.... When I think about it, it certainly seems like that.... damn I think I'm depressed now lol
The various recordings of the song "Return To Waterloo" are difficult to figure out as to when they were recorded, overdubbed, mixed, etc. There are at least two recordings done at different times with overdubs and remixing occurring a couple of times on the first version. 1. a. The first version comes from July/August 1983 and could be Ray's demo recorded at this point or maybe earlier. This version appears in the film itself. It's supposed to be Mick Avory on drums on this first recording, but it's so basic, just bass and snare with no fills and no cymbals, that I'm not sure. It might be Ray. If it's Mick, he hasn't learned the song yet, which would explain the awkward drumming at the "Somehow I feel" section where the 5/4 bar throws the timing off each time. 1. b. The reprise at the end of the film is also unique but seems to be based on this same first version/demo but mixed differently and with different drums that are probably Avory. They are similar and still awkward with the 5/4 troubles but he's learned the song a little more by now as there are a few more embellishments. Neither of these film versions have ever been released on vinyl or CD. 1. c. An alternate mix of this first version from 1983 described above was released in 1997 on The Singles Collection/The Songs Of Ray Davies Waterloo Sunset UK Castle 2 CD set. This seems to be the same basic demo as the film version but remixed and with additional overdubs again including different and much better drums, at least in part, which is certainly Avory. Some of the original drums may still be here like the bass drum only sections. Same lyrics to note as above. Much less bombastic production from the second version released on the original soundtrack album described next. This is the version in the video posted by @Fortuleo above. Note the lyrics in this film version and the alternate mix have these lyrics: "When I was young, the future was clear, it was easy to see. But now I'm here and I just want to be free." 2. The second version is from almost 2 years later in April 1985 with Robert Henrit on drums. This is the version that is on the Return To Waterloo 2005 Arista soundtrack LP and 2005 Koch CD. It has slightly different lyrics to the film version and the alternate version at the lyrical spot I note above. This version has the 1980s production choices to the fore much more than the first version and much more instrumentation. This is the version in the standalone video posted above by Mark. The new lyrics here replace those noted above: "Now I'm asking questions, I never thought I'd asked them before, Like 'why' or 'how' or 'what am I doing it for?' " One other lyrical note is this line in the printed lyrics: "Somehow you feel that the world's been passin' you by". It's actually "Somehow I feel that the world's been passin' me by". Ray never sings "you" in any of these versions. Subtle but significant. The lyrics printed in the official CD itself has the "you" lyrics, so I'm sure the online sites have gotten it from there. The original LP did not have the lyrics included.
I didn't even notice the handclaps, and didn't know they were synthetic. Avid @Fortuleo , I'd give it a try, but I don't have the songs, so I'd have to use the youtube audio and it might no be very pretty... Maybe when I get a minute, but minutes are scarce these days. Great song. I theoretically prefer the hanclapless clean mix, but it's true that something of the 80s frailty is lost. Seeing the beginning of the movie for the second time, I realize it's all a flashback after 3'59.
(which is the reason why we see all these images in rewind mode, even if I'm not sure they're sequenced chronologically. Or, he has flashes of his past just before jumping. Or, both).
