"Yesterday" or "Waterloo Sunset"

Really love both, but it´s "Waterloo Sunset", really great piece from the greatest Kinks-album IMO. I think this is little bit unfair to Beatles when putting against their song from 1965 to Kinks song of 1967. But on the other hand if you had put here Yesterday vs Tired Of Waiting For You, I have voted also Kinks, because that´s also my big faves from them.

Yesterday....

Both brilliant pieces of work but went for Waterloo Sunset. For me Yesterday is really a solo Paul number with a George Martin string arrangement while the Kinks tune is a real collective group performance. Although the prevailing wisdom has both it and Yesterday as paeans to a preferable past, Ray Davies' 60's classic actually started life somewhat ironically as 'Liverpool Sunset' and the source of his nostalgia is ambiguous: he looked out on the River Thames from his hospital bed at St Thomas's hospital while seriously ill as a child, the train he took to Art School took him past it and he met his first wife along the Embankment at Waterloo. The place clearly has a very strong pull for the song's author. As a slightly tongue in cheek aside, the lyrics can also be read as that of a soul in limbo, unable to pass over peacefully into the afterlife and destined to haunt forever this commuter location (as long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise)


Edited by ExittheLemming - June 06 2020 at 23:24

"Yesterday".  I like some things by the Kinks but I'm not their biggest fan.

I'm not understanding the comparison. Yesterday is basically an acoustic solo number from 1965, while the Kink's number is a full band composition from 1967. By the time 1967 came around, The Beatles had completely morphed from where they were in 1965. If you were going to choose a Paul McCartney composition that would be a direct one-to-one comparison to Waterloo Sunset, it would be Penny Lane, and that would include the memory and reminiscence aspect you mentioned.

Edited by The Dark Elf - June 07 2020 at 10:39

The Anders wrote: Yesterday by a mile. Waterloo Sunset is a great song, but in all honesty I was never really intrigued by The Kinks. I also think the musical emotions in Yesterday go much deeper.