The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset (Drum Cover)

Known as one of The Kinks’ greatest songs, “Waterloo Sunset” was released as the final song on the September 1967 release “Something Else by The Kinks” and as a May 1967 single with the B-side exclusive “Act Nice and Gentle”. A “masterpiece” according to The Who’s Pete Townsend, and “the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era” from Stephen Thomas Erlewine at Allmusic, “Waterloo Sunset” was ranked at number 42 on Rolling Stones “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2004, and the repositioned at number 14 in the updated 2021 list. And it really is one beautiful song. This is the song that puts The Kinks on the same level musically and lyrically as The Beatles. It’s that great of a song. The song has been covered by Cathy Dennis, The Jam, Def Leppard, David Bowie and many others. Truly a classic song!

The song was recorded on April 3, 10, and 13 in April of 1967 at London’s Pye studio and was the first Kinks recording to be completely produced by Ray Davies, with no involvement from Shel Talmy, though some tracks on the album were produced by Talmy. The song was originally titled “Liverpool Sunset”, but was changed after the release of The Beatles “Penny Lane” with a similar theme. The song is narrated by an individual who observes two lovers named Terry and Julie as they cross Waterloo Bridge, and meet at Waterloo Station every Friday night. Despite the complex nature of the song, the sessions for “Waterloo Sunset” lasted about ten hours and featured Ray Davies on vocals, acoustic guitar, and piano, Dave Davies on electric guitar and backing vocals, Peter Quaife on bass and backing vocals, and Mick Avory on drums. The song also features sister Rasa Davies on backing vocals.

Nothing too difficult about Mick’s drum part. It’s rather hard to hear what he is playing due to how the drums were recorded but using the Moises app, I isolated the drum track and played what I heard. The song is driven by Mick’s open hi hat groove as he switches from quarter notes during the first half of the verses and then switches to an eight note groove that is swung just slightly during the rest of the verses. Each fill he plays involves the snare and rack tom. The song ends with a fade out on the final chord with quarters on the snare and hi hat.

I decided to have this video up for today because today is also Sir Ray Davies 79th birthday, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate his birthday than playing what some consider to be his greatest song. Happy birthday Ray, here’s to many more!

Last Kinks song on the channel for now. After this, I’ll be returning to The Beatles’ once again with the next video being a song from my personal favorite Beatles album. Anybody want to guess what it is? Hint, it is an album that has not been represented on this channel at all. July is also a birthday month for somebody and I’ve got some videos planned throughout the month of July to honor this particular person. You all know who I’m talking about.

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