Kinky

Ray Davies of The Kinks wrote Waterloo Sunset about a childhood recollection of lying in his sickbed in St Thomas’s Hospital in London watching the comings and goings of rush hour commuters through the window. If Ray had been propped up in a hospital bed in St Thomas’s this week there’s a chance he might have been inspired to write another song by something he observed out the window; three little test tubes of my blood arriving. I don’t know whether they got there by courier, carrier pigeon or horse drawn carriage, all I know is three test tubes of my blood have been sent to St Thomas’s for tests. I think that’s worth penning a song about, don’t you? Sod all that Terry meets Julie schmaltz though; let’s get a bit of blood in there. Go a bit Marilyn Manson with it. That’s what the record buying public want. They don’t want pretty little vignettes about some bloke called Terry and his bird Julie. They’re baying for blood these days. And it may as well be my blood we give them. In the medium of song, of course. So I’ve had a bash at some new words to go with the tune to Waterloo Sunset. I kept Ray’s first two lines in, because they set it up quite nicely. (He’s not too shabby when it comes to lyrics, actually.) Anyway, see what you think. Ladies and gentleman, probably the world’s first song inspired by an ulcerative colitis sufferer’s blood arriving at hospital…

Waterloo Bloodfest

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling,
Flowing into the night,
Look at these test tubes, makes me feel dizzy,
All that blood gives me a fright,
But I think I’ll be okay,
As long as I don’t go and drop them,
Everything’s cushty.