Uneasy Listening - A short, ill-informed history of Scott Walker
I first "discovered" Scott Walker many years ago, when something in Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll made Mr. Daroga find some and bring it home. Or maybe it was on the CD that came with the book, I don't remember. But you may remember this oldie from his first band, teenie-bopper bait The Walker Brothers:
I've known this song forever and didn't actually think it was hot until he started pointing, around 1:23. Hmm.
ANYWAY. These (American) guys were big hits in Britain, with the screaming girls, torn clothes, all that stuff. And yet, what's the first song I was introduced to, not ever having heard of the Walker Brothers? This one:
Seriously, listen to the whole thing, and don't let the over the top 60's orchestration put you off. But don't listen to it at work, unless you've got headphones or VD is an acceptable subject for your workday music. If you're not intrigued, you don't have to read any further. [lyrics]
I was bowled over. I didn't really know who Jacques Brel was, either, though I'd heard the name. And I was instantly in love with anyone with that voice who would sing a song with those lyrics and wrap it in loungey schmaltz in the 60s. It was beautiful. It was arresting. That's from Scott 2, an album of Brel covers, other covers, and a few of his own songs, and it's great. (For the record, I tend to like his songs and Brel's the best--many of the others feel much more conventional and like filler or insurance.)
Walker made Scott through Scott 4, the last coming out under his own name and not doing so well despite being all original material that shows his growth as a songwriter. (His subsequent albums contained no original material for years.) His songs, though at first listen they seem middle-of-the-road and nothing I'd think twice about, are full of bizarre imagery and interesting arrangements. Take "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" from Scott 2:
You've become a stranger
Every night with the boys
Got a new suit
That old smile's come back
And I kiss the children good night
And I slip away on the newly waxed floor
I've become a giant
I fill every street
I dwarf the rooftops
I hunchback the moon
Stars dance at my feet
Leave it all behind me
Screaming kids on my knee
And the telly swallowing me
And the neighbor shouting next door
And the subway trembling the roller-skate floor
If you weren't listening to the lyrics, you could easily be fooled into thinking it's a 60s movie theme. Then again, he did write a retelling of The Seventh Seal that has some Morricone flavor to it. The same album has a song called "Hero of the War" that starts:
He's a hero of the war
All the neighborhood is talkin' 'bout your son
Mrs. Reiley get his medals
Hand them 'round to everyone
Show his gun to all the children in the street
It's too bad he can't shake hands or move his feet
As the albums went on, he only got stranger. The arrangements on Scott 4, though not his per se, are less conventional and have more dissonance than on the first album, weird choral stuff, and in fact the awesomest bass sound I've ever heard, both displayed in "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" (which, incidentally, reminds me of The Last Shadow Puppets' "My Mistakes Were Made for You", I think intentionally).
So as you can see, there are strange images creeping into this MOR teen/lounge idol stuff, interesting choices both of material and arrangement, and it's already a far cry from the studio-imprinted "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine"--which he didn't write, anyway.
It turns out, Walker--whose name is really Noel Scott Engel, since none of the "Walker Brothers" were either--seems to have been singularly ill-equipped for this sort of life. He was publicly scrutinized, mobbed, and every look was cataloged by the British press. Despite several successful solo albums, he didn't take it well, and the common view is that he went a little nuts and lived in a monastery once and is now a recluse.
The next thing I heard from him, after becoming fascinated with the 60s stuff, was this:
Give it a minute. It starts slow. The album has are definite tracks with different, surprising things on them, so it's not all soft and slow. But it's all creepy.
Yeah. Between 1969 and 1995, what happened? There's that voice, but the dissonance has taken over, and the arrangements are bizarre and the whole thing is bludgeoning and disconcerting and like nothing I've ever heard. And I think I wouldn't like this stuff without the intro I had, and I wouldn't like the earlier stuff nearly as much at this point if I didn't know where it was going. And at the same time, I don't really understand. I don't really know what he was doing, or why it took 11 years for his next album, The Drift, to come out. Or why it has the sounds of someone punching meat. But I am fascinated, and hearing this and then going back to the other stuff makes the strange elements pop, makes the "parent music" aspect fade.
It turns out there is a transition you can hear. In the 70s he and the not-actually-Walker Brothers got back together to record Nite Flights, the title track of which David Bowie covered and has bizarre harmonies and lines like "the dark dug up by dogs/the stitches torn and broke/the raw meat fist you choke" and is just weird. Um, yeah. That sun? Ain't shining. Brian Eno's a fan, too.
And then Walker went off on his own again, recorded Climate of Hunter, and then, again, disappeared for eleven years before emerging with Tilt. Listening to Climate of Hunter now, I can definitely see it as a transition between the two, and there are links between all of it. But I'm still fascinated by the fact of him, by the trajectory and the mystery of how he got from A to wherever he is now. And it makes every part of his catalog more interesting to me than it was before. Curiously, a recent documentary called 30 Century Man provides a good overview of his career but totally fails to explore what makes him so interesting for me--though I do appreciate the interviews with him where he comes off as entirely reasonable, just shy and not interested in fame. I'm just not interested in millions of interviews with unrelated musicians about how he's great.
I think part of what I like about the 60s stuff is I do really like the over the top orchestrated stuff, the bombastic film music, and all that, but it's usually treacle. And maybe that's what this sounds like to others, but something in the strange combination of vocals/lyrics/arrangement that makes it accessible to me. So maybe what I like about the weirder stuff, which I normally wouldn't pick up, is having the voice and something like songs to encompass the weirdness, which I think is something my brain needs.
I'd link a whole bunch more music here, but it's hard to know what to recommend. If you're interested, I'd say check out Scott 2 and 4 and if you're brave and stuff, Tilt, and go from there. There's also an album that collects his Jacques Brel covers, and several other compilations out there. And a lot of it's on youtube.
"I've become the Orson Welles of the record industry. People want to take me to lunch, but nobody wants to finance the picture...I keep hoping that when I make a record, I'll be asked to make another one. I keep hoping that if I can make a series of three records, then I can progress and do different things each time. But when I have to get it up once every 10 years... it's a tough way to work." -in an interview for The Independent, April 1995.
Click to viewI've known this song forever and didn't actually think it was hot until he started pointing, around 1:23. Hmm.
ANYWAY. These (American) guys were big hits in Britain, with the screaming girls, torn clothes, all that stuff. And yet, what's the first song I was introduced to, not ever having heard of the Walker Brothers? This one:
Seriously, listen to the whole thing, and don't let the over the top 60's orchestration put you off. But don't listen to it at work, unless you've got headphones or VD is an acceptable subject for your workday music. If you're not intrigued, you don't have to read any further. [lyrics]
I was bowled over. I didn't really know who Jacques Brel was, either, though I'd heard the name. And I was instantly in love with anyone with that voice who would sing a song with those lyrics and wrap it in loungey schmaltz in the 60s. It was beautiful. It was arresting. That's from Scott 2, an album of Brel covers, other covers, and a few of his own songs, and it's great. (For the record, I tend to like his songs and Brel's the best--many of the others feel much more conventional and like filler or insurance.)
Walker made Scott through Scott 4, the last coming out under his own name and not doing so well despite being all original material that shows his growth as a songwriter. (His subsequent albums contained no original material for years.) His songs, though at first listen they seem middle-of-the-road and nothing I'd think twice about, are full of bizarre imagery and interesting arrangements. Take "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" from Scott 2:
You've become a stranger
Every night with the boys
Got a new suit
That old smile's come back
And I kiss the children good night
And I slip away on the newly waxed floor
I've become a giant
I fill every street
I dwarf the rooftops
I hunchback the moon
Stars dance at my feet
Leave it all behind me
Screaming kids on my knee
And the telly swallowing me
And the neighbor shouting next door
And the subway trembling the roller-skate floor
If you weren't listening to the lyrics, you could easily be fooled into thinking it's a 60s movie theme. Then again, he did write a retelling of The Seventh Seal that has some Morricone flavor to it. The same album has a song called "Hero of the War" that starts:
He's a hero of the war
All the neighborhood is talkin' 'bout your son
Mrs. Reiley get his medals
Hand them 'round to everyone
Show his gun to all the children in the street
It's too bad he can't shake hands or move his feet
As the albums went on, he only got stranger. The arrangements on Scott 4, though not his per se, are less conventional and have more dissonance than on the first album, weird choral stuff, and in fact the awesomest bass sound I've ever heard, both displayed in "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" (which, incidentally, reminds me of The Last Shadow Puppets' "My Mistakes Were Made for You", I think intentionally).
So as you can see, there are strange images creeping into this MOR teen/lounge idol stuff, interesting choices both of material and arrangement, and it's already a far cry from the studio-imprinted "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine"--which he didn't write, anyway.
It turns out, Walker--whose name is really Noel Scott Engel, since none of the "Walker Brothers" were either--seems to have been singularly ill-equipped for this sort of life. He was publicly scrutinized, mobbed, and every look was cataloged by the British press. Despite several successful solo albums, he didn't take it well, and the common view is that he went a little nuts and lived in a monastery once and is now a recluse.
The next thing I heard from him, after becoming fascinated with the 60s stuff, was this:
Give it a minute. It starts slow. The album has are definite tracks with different, surprising things on them, so it's not all soft and slow. But it's all creepy.
Yeah. Between 1969 and 1995, what happened? There's that voice, but the dissonance has taken over, and the arrangements are bizarre and the whole thing is bludgeoning and disconcerting and like nothing I've ever heard. And I think I wouldn't like this stuff without the intro I had, and I wouldn't like the earlier stuff nearly as much at this point if I didn't know where it was going. And at the same time, I don't really understand. I don't really know what he was doing, or why it took 11 years for his next album, The Drift, to come out. Or why it has the sounds of someone punching meat. But I am fascinated, and hearing this and then going back to the other stuff makes the strange elements pop, makes the "parent music" aspect fade.
It turns out there is a transition you can hear. In the 70s he and the not-actually-Walker Brothers got back together to record Nite Flights, the title track of which David Bowie covered and has bizarre harmonies and lines like "the dark dug up by dogs/the stitches torn and broke/the raw meat fist you choke" and is just weird. Um, yeah. That sun? Ain't shining. Brian Eno's a fan, too.
And then Walker went off on his own again, recorded Climate of Hunter, and then, again, disappeared for eleven years before emerging with Tilt. Listening to Climate of Hunter now, I can definitely see it as a transition between the two, and there are links between all of it. But I'm still fascinated by the fact of him, by the trajectory and the mystery of how he got from A to wherever he is now. And it makes every part of his catalog more interesting to me than it was before. Curiously, a recent documentary called 30 Century Man provides a good overview of his career but totally fails to explore what makes him so interesting for me--though I do appreciate the interviews with him where he comes off as entirely reasonable, just shy and not interested in fame. I'm just not interested in millions of interviews with unrelated musicians about how he's great.
I think part of what I like about the 60s stuff is I do really like the over the top orchestrated stuff, the bombastic film music, and all that, but it's usually treacle. And maybe that's what this sounds like to others, but something in the strange combination of vocals/lyrics/arrangement that makes it accessible to me. So maybe what I like about the weirder stuff, which I normally wouldn't pick up, is having the voice and something like songs to encompass the weirdness, which I think is something my brain needs.
I'd link a whole bunch more music here, but it's hard to know what to recommend. If you're interested, I'd say check out Scott 2 and 4 and if you're brave and stuff, Tilt, and go from there. There's also an album that collects his Jacques Brel covers, and several other compilations out there. And a lot of it's on youtube.
"I've become the Orson Welles of the record industry. People want to take me to lunch, but nobody wants to finance the picture...I keep hoping that when I make a record, I'll be asked to make another one. I keep hoping that if I can make a series of three records, then I can progress and do different things each time. But when I have to get it up once every 10 years... it's a tough way to work." -in an interview for The Independent, April 1995.