Ray Davies Didn’t Really Plan To Release “Waterloo Sunset” With The Kinks

He Wanted It To Be For His Family Only

In a new interview with MOJO, Ray Davies revealed that he never wanted to release “Waterloo Sunset” and he originally only wanted to share it with his family. He said, “I got my family together – my sister was over from Australia and there was Jackie my niece and a couple of my nephews – and I played them the acetate of it about 20 times.”

It was released as a single back in 1967 and was also featured on The Kinks fifth studio album “Something Else by the Kinks.” It became one of their most popular and enduring hits.

He explained, “I said, ‘That’s for us and I don’t want it to come out’. It was so important to me I didn’t want it to come out. Shows I’m not a very good businessman. I just wanted it to be ours.”

Even while he wanted it to be private, he has no regrets whatsoever about its release saying that he was “pleased that people connected to it in the right way.”

He also added, “It’s incredible when someone says, ‘Did you write that mister? I’d love to have written that.’ The reward for writing is not how much money it makes, the sales, it’s recognition from other people, that it resonates.”

He even admitted that if he hadn’t written the classic, then “what an empty place my life would be.”