But I don’t need no friends, as long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise. -Waterloo Sunset, The Kinks
... after glimpsing a colorful boy running down the streets. The boy was chasing a large red ball that was propelling itself down an alleyway and away from a grubby mob of French-spouting children. The boy was the balloon’s friend, but the other children were jealous and chased the balloon and tried to harm it by throwing stones. Eventually the red balloon meets a crowd of other Technicolor balloons and together they float away in silent concert to the top of the sky.
That was the first time I saw Albert Lamorisse's 1956 The Red Balloon (Le ballon rouge.)
Yet, this is my personal account of a sentimental attachment to a work of art—the love of a spectator. I am a pedestrian, a student, an amateur photographer and an audience member. What is more interesting to analyze is the indissoluble and unexplainable relationship between an artist and their creation. Just as I have found my connection to The Red Balloon to be extraordinarily rare, it is the same for artists.
...It’s the artworks that are never completed to satisfaction, or never seen shown before the death of an artist that have the most significance in one's life.
...Ray Davies songs are short, at around 2:30 and combine definitively '60s British electrified-rock with head-bobbing pop rhythms. His work uses personal narrative to capture the smallest, but most enjoyable moments in of life: the scenes we witness from a window, meeting a mysterious woman, getting over a lover or watching the daily rush hour traffic when you are not a part of it. These songs are in fact stories about the small minutes of happiness, infatuation and nostalgia that make up our lives.
“Waterloo Sunset” is written from the point of view of a man staring out the window onto the Waterloo Bridge connecting the East and West sides of London over the River Thames. Davies sings, but I don’t need no friends, as long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise. He spies a young couple, Terry and Julie, and everything in the world seems to be at peace as long as they are in love, as they are in that moment.
By the end of the song we do not learn who Terry and Julie are, or if they are even real. It is not necessary to know the identity of the lovers in order to understand the bliss of their meetings. Davies has offered many contradicting identities for Terry and Julie, recorded in interviews and his autobiography. ...But the song is widely thought to be about Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, British film stars that were once a high profile romantic couple—even Christie acknowledges that the song is about her and Stamp. Could be the mystery that preserves this song as a timeless story about finding connection in the London’s swarming metropolis? If so, is Ray Davies doing a service to his work by protecting the subject’s true identities?
The cynic might hear “Waterloo Sunset” as a mundane observation of everyday urban traffic patterns. But the song has been proclaimed “a masterpiece” by The Who’s Pete Townshend and "the most beautiful song in the English language" by music critic Robert Christgau. ...In 1985, Return to Waterloo, a soundtrack to a self-directed and written film of the same name was released by Davies. The title is a direct reference to the 1967 song, but the story takes a more dystopian perspective on London street life, while still playing on public voyeurism, imagination, exploring a relationship to the city of London. Davies’ song "Return to Waterloo" concerns the struggles an aging man’s dreams of a return to the world of his youth. Another 15 years later, in 2000, Davies published Waterloo Sunset Stories, a collection of short stories titled exclusively after Kinks songs. The autobiographical stories revolve around an aged rock musician, Les Mulligan, and a cynical promoter planning his comeback.
...I have experienced unexplainable echoes of art, film, and literature—a result of what I can only assume is a deep personal connection to a work. Such as my love for an old French children’s movie about a boy chasing a balloon, or the songs that stick themselves to the insides of all our heads, or the books we continue to read over and over. Artists have similar relationships to their own work, as there are enduring forces that connect the creator his creation. For some, a particular story is perennially created, expanded, destroyed, and redigested over an entire career. Artists are able to dedicate themselves to a story with many endings, just as Davies is connected to “Waterloo Sunset”. ...
