Words / Waterloo Sunset

Waterloo Bridge - The Kinks, Monet, Cope and Film

I love The Kinks, always have always will but I wanted to share this one because of a, perhaps odd, obsession I have with Waterloo Bridge.  I don't know why but this particular bridge in London has always captured my imagination.  Its also captured the imagination of a great many musicians, poets and artists including Monet, The Kinks (as below), Mervyn LeRoy (the 1940 film Waterloo Bridge)  and Wendy Cope. 

Below is a video of The Kinks' classic with lyrics written underneath.  

Underneath this are some beautiful paintings by Monet.  Monet would often explore the same subject repeatedly, e.g. hay stacks, churches and finally water lilies.  These are known as his series paintings. We are lucky enough that in the early 20th century he chose to paint some of this captivating bridge.  

There are two films of Waterloo Bridge one produced in 1940 by Melvyn LeRoy staring Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh as well as an earlier version from 1931 staring Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery / Kent Douglass (Douglass Montgomery was a stage name).  Watch both.  They are very different but equally magnificent.  The leading men and women are very different and create very different characters from each other, not to mention the important plot differences.  They are also fascinating as cultural documents.  The original film is  set during World War I, then, in 1940 with Europe in another war the film was reprised to tell the tale of new but similar lovers, people cast out of place by large events finding one another. 

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night 
People so busy, make me feel dizzy, taxi light shines so bright 
But I don't, need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise 
Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time, Waterloo sunset's fine.

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night 
But I am so lazy, don't want to wander, I stay at home at night 
But I don't, feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise 
Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time, Waterloo sunset's fine.

Millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground 
But Terry and Julie cross over the river where they feel safe and sound 
And they don't, need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo Sunset, they are in paradise
Waterloo sunset's fine.

And here are the film posters to get your interest. 

As usual I do not own or have the rights to any of the music, images, paintings or words or anything else.  

ISBN / Sylvia Plath - Lady Lazarus

An incredible poem written the year before she committed suicide.

The image is of herself and husband, Ted Hughes.

Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath, 1932 - 1963

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap, 
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

23-29 October 1962