The 1969 track David Gilmour wishes he’d written: “The perfect pop song”
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has built a unique career that has earned him legendary status within the music industry, leaving little room for regrets.
Considering everything that Gilmour has achieved, which goes way beyond even his own wildest expectations, he doesn’t stay awake at night pondering what could have been if he did things differently. After all, Gilmour is not only one of the most talented guitarists of all time, but also a songwriter of the highest order.
He’s still a music fan, though. Therefore, naturally, even Gilmour can’t help looking over his shoulder and wishing he had written other songs by other artists, with one song from 1967, in particular, standing out to him as the perfect piece of music.
In 1967, Gilmour was still yet to be a permanent part of Pink Floyd, and it wasn’t until December of that year that he began playing with the group amid Syd Barrett’s ailing health. Earlier that year, he’d been in France attempting to embark on a musical career, which had gone nowhere, before the lifeline from Pink Floyd arrived that proved to be life-changing.
While his early attempts in the music industry didn’t lead to vast acclaim, it remains a golden chapter of his life. It was a remarkable time for British music, and for Gilmour, there were few better bands around than The Kinks, who he credited as creating “the perfect pop song”.
The band are rightly revered as one of Britain’s finest, with Ray Davies able to act like a bristling bard of Carnaby Street, which paired beautifully with his brother Dave Davies’ joyful riffs. For Gilmour, nothing in their oeuvre matches ‘Waterloo Sunset’.
Gilmour has spoken about this track on a number of occasions, including on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2003, when he listed it as one of the eight songs that he couldn’t live without.
More than a decade later, Gilmour told Uncut in 2015 how it transports him home to London whenever he listens, no matter where he is in the world, explaining, “On a lovely warm beach, to listen to this in ‘somewhere else’ sunset, and missing London would be a wonderful moment.”
Meanwhile, in his concert special, Remember That Night – Live At The Royal Albert Hall, Gilmour spoke again about the special place that the song has in his heart, revealing:
“For me, the perfect pop song is ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by the Kinks. I would have loved to have written that.”
The track captures the unmatched brilliance of London on a wonderful summer day, which no song has come close to doing before or since. While the story behind ‘Waterloo Sunset’ has been hotly contested over the years, with Terry and Julie in the song reportedly inspired by the romance between British actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, it’s a love letter to London first and foremost.
The true spark to write the song actually came from Davies’ sister, who was planning on emigrating with her boyfriend, which put the songwriter in a wistful mood about London. He later clarified that it was “a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world, and they were going to emigrate and go to another country.”
Whatever sparked Davies to write ‘Waterloo Sunset’ is besides the point in the grand scheme of things; the meaning that the listener attaches to it is more important. Everyone has their own interpretation of ‘Waterloo Sunset’, even if they’ve never set foot in London, but have their own special place in mind that’s paradise to them, which is why it has such an everlasting appeal.
For Gilmour, no matter whether he’s in Pompeii or a beach in Barbados, he can listen to ‘Waterloo Sunset’, and suddenly, he’s back home with London’s glorious summer skyline in his vision. For that reason, it’ll always be the one song that Gilmour wishes he’d written, and any British songwriter, if they are being completely honest, would likely say the same.
