By Angus Finlayson, 30 April 2013.
“By the age of 23, Scott Walker had had a more successful pop career than most could hope for in a lifetime.
“By the age of 23, Scott Walker had had a more successful pop career than most could hope for in a lifetime.
As one third of the Walker Brothers, a trio of Americans in self-imposed exile in the UK, he experienced a level of superstardom that briefly rivalled that of the Beatles. Mid-60s songs like ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More’ made Scott, John and Gary the clean-cut pin-ups du jour. But entertainment, as they say, is a fickle business, and the success wasn’t to last.
As The Walker Brothers disintegrated, Scott – real name Noel Scott Engel, and no relation to his two bandmates – would strike off on his own, producing a string of albums in the late 60s that, while largely overlooked at the time, are now considered among the finest of the decade. Again, though, Walker would quickly lose his way, slipping into MOR obscurity for the majority of 70s. From there, many would happily have fallen into a lengthy, royalty-funded retirement. Not Scott. In the early 80s he would reinvent himself again, emerging from the ashes of a faltering light entertainment career to become one of the most brilliant and distinctive voices of the pop avant-garde.
Walker is still very much active now (last year’s Bish Bosch was of a piece with his best work), and his music continues to captivate and confuse with a force rarely attained by any musician of any generation. And while he has long had a cult following, a renewed frenzy of discourse in the past decade – the most visible products of which are a documentary and a book, both excellent – has helped cement Walker’s status as an underground hero with few equals.
In recent times Walker’s knotty, uncompromising and utterly unique body of work seems to be resonating with people more strongly than ever, with the likes of Radiohead, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn and David Bowie singing his praises. But Walker’s is an imposing discography, and not an easy ride for the uninitiated. By way of introduction – and taking in love and loss, dead dictators and easily as much commercial failure as critical success – here are ten of Walker’s best.”
Scott Walker: ‘Orpheus’ (1967)
From the album Images by The Walker Brothers.
Well, I’m back to make your face
So it smiles once again
And harpoon you like a whale
With a bent and rusty nail
If your husband knew, he’d say
That you’re living in sin
Well, if grinnin’ is a sin
That’s the reason I’m here
Back with you, Mrs Blear
Sleep on, dear
Deep and easy, our night man is here
I’ll steal your dreams for my shiny gold chain
And you’ll wake with your eyes full of rain
Finding I’ve disappeared
I don’t think of yesterday
Merely drum out the sound
But forgetting you was hard
That’s why I’m back in town
And you had a loveless week
And the world’s let you down
But I’ll make it up somehow
There are ways, Mrs Brown
That’s why I’m back in town
Sleep on, dear
For the night wouldn’t dare interfere
And the ghosts of my cigarette play
On the ceiling, and time drifts away
With the burden it bears
Remember me
I’ve already forgotten you
And make your beds for me
For the things we ought not to do
Drive us all
‘Round the bend
Scott Walker Radio Interview 2013
A radio interview by Stuart Maconie for his BBC 6 radio show “Freak Zone”, conducted late 2012 and broadcast January 2013 in occasion of Scott Walker’s 70th birthday.
Ute Lemper: ‘Scope J’ (2000)
Written and produced by Scott Walker.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishing_Kiss
http://www.discogs.com/Ute-Lemper-Punishing-Kiss/master/237860
Lyrics:
The Russians are going
The Russians are going
Departing like merchants
dragging the contours
into the never settling
snow
Behold not a possum
Nothing to sneeze at
A rouble left
spinning
Rouble keeps
Spinning
Oh where is
a sombre reverie?
Fingered
but I won’t
be soiled
I won’t beg
or lift
my
voice
and I won’t
be soiled
The sun will never
rise
but I will see
it
spilling down
the slave ships
cross the bay
A tear will never
fall
but I will feel
it
gliding on the cheekless
gliding on the cheekless
Please
cut her to
ribbons again
long flowing
ribbons again
I’m wearing
the wire
(On the outside
grows the furside
on the inside
grows the skinside
so the furside
is the outside
and the skinside
is the inside
oneside likes the
skinside inside
and the furside
on the outside
others like the
skinside outside
and the furside
on the inside
if you turn the
skinside inside
thinking you will
side with that
side then the
softside fursides
inside which
some argue is
the wrong side
if you turn the
furside outside
as you say it
grows on that side
then your outsides
next to skinside
which becomforts
not the right side)
Where do the
sewers go?
They gotta go
somewhere
I know they
can’t empty
into the
sea
gotta go
somewhere
Wherever the
sewers go
that’s where
you’ll find
it
Soaring the
darkness of
a life
it is the
dagger
not the
knife
Fingered
but I won’t
be soiled
I won’t beg
or lift
my
voice
and I won’t
be soiled
Early birds
will not
resolve
the issue
As runners
leap to
fly
tree climbers
glide to
ground
Night without
a star
is what a
night is
And for me
a glass
to bring
the stars
around
At the
roadsides
carts are
piling up
with corpses
And breath
just keeps on
flowing
breath
just keeps on
flowing
Up ahead
in the
shadow
a bootleg
is hooking
Please
cut her to
ribbons again
the Russians
are going
the Russians
are going
I’m wearing
the wire
Fire
without
smoke
Smoke
without
fire
A twenty-minute TV documentary on Scott Walker from 1995 just after the release of Tilt. A lot of it sticks to the standard “hey he used to be a popstar, now he’s singing about dictators, wtf?” line, but there’s some good contemporary interview footage, and even some odd promo footage for Tilt I hadn’t come across before.
