Condition: New
Scott Walker - Scott 4
Label: 4 Men With Beards
Catalog#: 4M152
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
New
180 gram
Country: US
Released: 2008
Genre: Pop
Style: Vocal
Tracklist
A1 The Seventh Seal
A2 On Your Own Again
A3 The World's Strongest Man
A4 Angels Of Ashes
A5 Boy Child
B1 Hero Of The War
B2 The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalinist Regime)
B3 Duchess
B4 Get Behind Me
B5 Rhymes Of Goodbye
Scott Walker, born Noel Scott Engel on January 9, 1943, to German parents, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and the former lead singer of The Walker Brothers. Despite being American born, Walker's chart success has largely come in the United Kingdom, where his first four solo albums reached the top ten. Walker has lived in the UK since 1965. He continues to release solo material and is currently signed to 4AD.
Originally championed by Eddie Fisher in the late 1950s, Scott appeared several times under his real name on Fisher's TV series as a teen idol in the vein of Fabian or Frankie Avalon.
Walker was among the first to adopt the electric bass guitar, mastering it to a proficiency to win regular session work in Los Angeles studios while still in his teens.
Walker's music is frequently fervid and ardorous (if not always in style and presentation, certainly in substance). Take "The Seventh Seal" for example. The driving rhythm and the slightly "Mexican" horns make the track seem almost cartoonish at first. Is this the work of a lounge singer? Well, no. No it is not. The lyrics of the song consider the famous chess game between the knight and "Death" in Ingmar Bergman's film of the same name. Why would Walker place so formidable a theme within these lyrical and odd melodious confines? I can't answer that question but I would contend that he is trying to make you listen harder, even trick you. I find that this song, with each listening, bores a hole larger and larger in me and the melody and imagery are rather dogged.
But if I need a break from this blitzkrieg I can turn my attention to "Hero of the War" or "The Old Man's Back Again," two tracks that are as close to rock as he ever came on his solo recordings of the period. But wait! What's this? "It's a shame how you almost died of pain when he was born/too bad you didn't have your husband right beside you through it all/ Ring the bell when you get hungry or you fall" (Hero of the War). I was struck by the lyric in the same song, "It's the emptiness of heroes like your son." Was this an attack on the parapalegic medal-bedecked veteran he sings of, or a recognition that this young man of high purpose was stripped of his vitality and integrity by a conflict as destructive and inconclusive as World War I? Hard to say. But this young man is abandoned and people are more interested in looking at him in his wheel chair and admire the medals he won than in associating with him. Even the girl next door doesn't come to see him but, Walker tells us, "Once you couldn't keep that whore from hanging round."
Do you see what I am getting at? The candor in these songs belies their winsomeness or their dulcet mantle. Walker is stabbing at you with razor-point acuity in his observations of the lives of people you may or may not have ever met. This work is his finest because it does not cease to look long and hard at each of its subjects throughout the entire ten track cycle. And the best part is, every song is his own.
From romantic country ballads to epic Ennio Moricone jams, this has it all. This was Scott's first album of all original material and it's easily his best. "Old Man's Back Again" and "The Seventh Seal" are just knockout works of passionate drama; nothing in excess, just great, creative musicianship. "Duchess" and "Rhymes Of Goodbyes" are such gorgeous slices of gospel country...Scott at his most soulful. "Angels Of Ashes" has to have the most beautiful lyrics ever writtern, while "Boy Child" has to have the most beaitufl strings ever arranged for a pop song. This is Walker showing off. All in all, a total classic.
Scott Walker - Angels of Ashes
weird song.. really a grower
its just like the same hook over and over for nearly five minutes with epic lyrics
Scott Walker - The Seventh Seal
Scott Walker retells Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece in just under 5 minutes.
we are mesmerized with such vocal technique, emotion, vocal cords and talent
Scott Walker - Duchess
Scott Walker - The World's Strongest Man
1969
Seems to me, from my limited point of view, that the old and the new (from Mr Walker) comes from the same place. Beautiful, sensual, human expression. Can't imagine what more people want from their artists.
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