Scott 4

by

Scott Walker

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Walker inhabits a capricious realm in popular music. The unfortunate fact remains that he is little known in the United States and his music never seems to be mentioned by connoiseurs of "easy listening" or pop critics with wide readership. . . but upon consideration you can almost understand why. This realm is capricious because his passion balances on the knife edge of ardor and sensitivity and over-the-top cliched shmaltz. But he wins and does not let the cliches outflank him.

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.

Five stars. And worthy of each of them.