Great Scott
The first time I heard Scott Walker I was thirteen years old. It was a Saturday afternoon, late summer and while I was trying for the umpteenth time to persuade Alan Shearer to join Liverpool on an ancient version of Championship Manager. My Dad breezed into the room and drew my attention to the sound of the radio.
‘Listen to this; the lyrics are really good’.
As with most things parents try and turn you on to I instinctively got my back up, gave Pops my blankest of blank expressions and went back to my wheeler-dealing. It wasn’t until shortly before leaving for university that I actually listened to Scott and I made sure I yoinked Dad’s copy of Sings Jacques Brel before I made it out the door.
For a while I thought I had uncovered a hidden gem. A musical ‘Top Trump’ card I could lay down as and when a fellow music snob challenged my knowledge or questioned my opinion. Then I found out that every well-read fucker out there was already singing from the same hymn sheet.
The most shocking thing about Uncle Scott is when you realise that his mucky fingerprints are all over your record collection. The Phillips albums have spread their sumptuous gloom like butter all over The Divine Comedy, The Smiths, Blur and Richard Hawley’s scones. Nite Flights volleyed Bowie up the arse and into the direction of Berlin and Low and Heroes hell, let’s throw Iggy Pop’s Bowie produce album The Idiot in there as well. Given that most people cite that as one of the core texts of the Goth movement I guess we can slap that on Scott’s resume too.
Climate of Hunter may have featured Mark Knopfler and Billy Ocean but it was a big influence on U2’s The Joshua Tree. Oh shit, does that mean we have to blame him for Simple Mind’s, Big Country, The Mission et al?
Well bollocks to all that because here is where it gets interesting. Tilt marks the point at which Scott Walker threw down the gauntlet. The moment when the Ready Break eaters ran, blubbering to their Scott 1-4’s, their Stretch’s, where things made sense, when natural light was still allowed in the room. Tilt, an apt name for an album that signals the tipping of the balance into a new glorious, recklessly challenging, questioning and pitch-black realm. Well maybe not pitch-black yet - but more on The Drift later.
It’s a curious album, one that makes more sense now you can hear what came after it. As with all his albums it seems there are hints of the past; is Farmer in The City that far away from It’s Raining Today or Boy/Child? Are there not echoes of The Old Man’s Back Again in the slyly funky bass of the title track?
For me it’s his most frustrating album. I’ve never quite gotten to grips with The Cockfighter or Manhattan but I love Rosary and Bouncer See Bouncer.
Which leaves us with The Drift. Unquestionable a disturbing, at time terrifying album but I would never say depressing. You’ll hear about how difficult it is, about how horrific it is and, y’know perhaps it is. For me the closest comparisons would be the more nightmarish of David Lynch’s work (so more Fire Walk With Me than The Straight Story) and the fear and vulnerability of staggering through an unfamiliar house, on your own, looking for the light switch.
There are moments of euphoria to be found take, for instance, Clara. Arguably his masterpiece and as far down the spiral as it’s possible to go, I’d say, in Mr Walker’s world. Just when the tension is peaking and the squirming and stomach churning stars he starts bellowing about Mussolini’s arms and the storm clouds dissipate leaving nothing but sheer white light which dissolves, inevitably back into the darkness. This seamless folding and stitching of emotions is as powerful and intense as the ‘quiet/loud/quiet’ of anything on Surfer Rosa but you can’t imagine anyone else applying the science as well and reaping such rewards.
The Drift has been around for, what, four years? Opeth have tried to add a few ingredients from it’s spice rack but found it just doesn’t taste the same in their mixing bowl. Steve Wilson painted with a few of it’s colours on 2008’s Insurgentes bonus track Port Rubicon, a more noble effort but still lacking that indefinable something.
What is that something? Whatever it is it must come with time. Eleven years passed between Tilt and The Drift as eleven had passed between Climate and Tilt. In the few interviews you can find he emphasises the importance of ‘allowing the songs to come to you’. Apparently in the four or five years in between signing for Virgin records and making Climate of The Hunter he sat round in a log cabin in Scotland until he had the tunes. Scott Walker was 69 this year. I hope you’ll join me in praying that we haven’t heard the last of him.
Scott Walker - For Beginners
Amsterdam (Scott 1)
Farmer In The City (Tilt)
Big Louise (Scott 3)
Nite Flights (Nite Flights)
Jesse (The Drift)
Sleepwalkers Woman (Climate of Hunter)
Patriot (A Single) (Tilt)
Boy/Child (Scott 4)
Lullaby (By-By-By)* (Punishing Kiss/5 Easy Pieces)
A Lover Loves (The Drift)
*Written by Scott but performed by Ute Lemper and for my money his best song. Obviously with the exception of Clara. But I wouldn’t want to scare the shit out of you.
