Prom 15 - 25.07.17: The Songs of Scott Walker (1967–70)

[teamsaint]

If you think his early stuff is MOR to be likened to Williams and Humpherdink/Dorsey, you should listen again. It is SUBVERSIVE easy listening, of the Jimmy Webb variety and in the 60s, he was working with some brilliant arrangers, who really seemed to understand what he was trying to achieve.

Yep, well put. The smooth exterior covers a darker deeper substance, with some some lyrical content , for example, that others would have fought shy of.
And you surely have to make some consideration of the field he is working in. His later music might not sound revolutionary in the context of some 1960's Avant Garde, but from somebody who spent much of his life in broadly mainstream pop music , it is at the edge of ambition and adventure I suggest. I think in part what matters here is the journey he has led some of his own listeners on, using his situation to show them what is possible.

[cloughie]

If you think his early stuff is MOR to be likened to Williams and Humpherdink/Dorsey, you should listen again. It is SUBVERSIVE easy listening, of the Jimmy Webb variety and in the 60s, he was working with some brilliant arrangers, who really seemed to understand what he was trying to achieve.

Nothing can be compared with Humperdinck, unless it is flat and dreadful, Williams had a good voice and interpreted a song well until his last couple of years. That aside I have not explored Scott Walker's post Scott 4 stuff - maybe I should - but I will avoid the Prom as it smacks of tribute band stuff, and singers not a patch on him doing copies. Back in the 60s Scott Engel (he revereted to his original name for a while but not doubt his 'advisers suggested he should not risk being was in a class of his own in terms of a great tuneful baritone voice and as an interpreter of good songs, literally in the case of Jacques Brel, he was second to none and Joanna was a pop song perfectly executed.

[french frank]

It is SUBVERSIVE easy listening, of the Jimmy Webb variety and in the 60s, he was working with some brilliant arrangers, who really seemed to understand what he was trying to achieve.

Could you give examples of what he was "trying to achieve" that was SUBVERSIVE in the 1960s?

[teamsaint]

Well for me, ( sorry, answering for Conchy, I expect he can give better examples) the incongruous combination of the smooth sound, big string orchestral arrangement, vocal approach, and the quite tough lyrical content , ( in one of his own songs)are the kind of thing that I would see as subversive of the genre, if subversive is a word one wants to use. Which seems fair enough to me.
In any event, it certainly sets him apart from more mainstream MOR crooners, I would have thought.

The little clock's stopped ticking now
We're swallowed in the stomached rue
The only sound to tear the night
Comes from the man upstairs

His bloated belching figure stomps
He may crash through the ceiling soon
The window sees trees cry from cold
And claw the moon

But we know don't we
And we'll dream won't we
Of Montague Terrace in blue

The girl across the hall makes love
Her thoughts lay cold like shattered stone
Her thighs are full of tales to tell
Of all the nights she's known

Your eyes ignite like cold blue fire
The scent of secrets everywhere
A fist filled with illusions
Clutches all our cares

But we know don't we
And we'll dream won't we
Of Montague Terrace in blue oh in blue

[Maclintick]

Take a look at the Youtube link given above by french frank.

Thanks, RB. Indeed, "Epizootics" is darkly subversive fare very different from what we got in the Prom -- an interesting trajectory. Walker's baritonal crooning is I suppose the connective tissue binding the Hawaiian dream/nightmare elements with the frantic boppish
fanfares & percussion, with an elliptical resolution to the lei-infested view of an Hawaiian paradise in the final echo of Crosby -- maybe here an element of self-mockery of Walker's own 60s baroque balladeer persona. Further listening required on my part.

[Conchis]

Well for me, ( sorry, answering for Conchy, I expect he can give better examples) the incongruous combination of the smooth sound, big string orchestral arrangement, vocal approach, and the quite tough lyrical content , ( in one of his own songs)are the kind of thing that I would see as subversive of the genre, if subversive is a word one wants to use. Which seems fair enough to me.
In any event, it certainly sets him apart from more mainstream MOR crooners, I would have thought.

The little clock's stopped ticking now
We're swallowed in the stomached rue
The only sound to tear the night
Comes from the man upstairs

His bloated belching figure stomps
He may crash through the ceiling soon
The window sees trees cry from cold
And claw the moon

But we know don't we
And we'll dream won't we
Of Montague Terrace in blue

The girl across the hall makes love
Her thoughts lay cold like shattered stone
Her thighs are full of tales to tell
Of all the nights she's known

Your eyes ignite like cold blue fire
The scent of secrets everywhere
A fist filled with illusions
Clutches all our cares

But we know don't we
And we'll dream won't we
Of Montague Terrace in blue oh in blue

Yes, teams, that's exactly what I meant. :)

Another example is this (probably my favourite S.W. song), a lush, opulently orchestrated ballad about a mid-life crisis, composed when its author was all of 24 years' old:

https://youtu.be/JFXuMljSY7g

[french frank]

Yes, teams, that's exactly what I meant. :)

Another example is this (probably my favourite S.W. song), a lush, opulently orchestrated ballad about a mid-life crisis, composed when its author was all of 24 years' old:

https://youtu.be/JFXuMljSY7g

Right. I was querying what you were implying by 'subversive'. Was the orchestration SW's idea or was it their idea of how to arrange it to 'fit the words'? 'Subversive' would suggest that he asked for an arrangement which seemed somehow at odds with the words. How do you set words like that? It seems like an almost minimalist backing until the words: "But we know don't we" when it crashes like the sound "tear[ing] the night".

I think you could say that by 1969 he was beginning to find an individual voice (poetically) but his singing voice seems no more than how he sang. If 'subversive' means moving on from pop ballads, well, maybe.

[Conchis]

Nothing can be compared with Humperdinck, unless it is flat and dreadful, Williams had a good voice and interpreted a song well until his last couple of years. That aside I have not explored Scott Walker's post Scott 4 stuff - maybe I should - but I will avoid the Prom as it smacks of tribute band stuff, and singers not a patch on him doing copies. Back in the 60s Scott Engel (he revereted to his original name for a while but not doubt his 'advisers suggested he should not risk being was in a class of his own in terms of a great tuneful baritone voice and as an interpreter of good songs, literally in the case of Jacques Brel, he was second to none and Joanna was a pop song perfectly executed.

I've not yet listened to the Prom but I'd agree that people like Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley, fans that they may be, haven't got a hope in hell of emulating the originals, though I don't think that is the aim of the evening (and certainly not something Mr. Engel himself would want - he's said he doesn't listen to his old stuff because it just makes him aware of 'how I failed' (sic)).

As you'l know, Scott 4 mysteriously failed to chart and Philips (his record label) hauled him over the coals and told him he had to record commercial music - film tunes, cover versions, etc. which had a demoralising effect on him and made him throw in the towel creatively for a long time. Then came the Walker Brothers reunion in the mid-70s with No Regrets, culminating in the Nite Flights album where Scott finally found the confidence to settle on the style of music he's pursued since then. Climate Of Hunter was considered 'out there' in 1984 but sounds mainstream now and people are finally catching up with Tilt. Scott has always been at least one decade ahead of public taste so maybe in 10 years' time, everyone will be listening to Bisch-Bosch?

And I'll put a word in for Englebert Humperdink, who was an OK singer who made some decent records and had a good team of writers behind him. Jimi Hendrix thought he had a good voice, so who am I to argue? :)

[Conchis]

Right. I was querying what you were implying by 'subversive'. Was the orchestration SW's idea or was it their idea of how to arrange it to 'fit the words'? 'Subversive' would suggest that he asked for an arrangement which seemed somehow at odds with the words. How do you set words like that? It seems like an almost minimalist backing until the words: "But we know don't we" when it crashes like the sound "tear[ing] the night".

I think you could say that by 1969 he was beginning to find an individual voice (poetically) but his singing voice seems no more than how he sang. If 'subversive' means moving on from pop ballads, well, maybe.

I'm not sure how much of a musician he was in the late sixties - he was a bass guitarist with surf bands in California but I'm not sure he played any instruments to a high standard, or could read music. Then again, very few pop musicians in the 60s could.

But he knew what he wanted from his arrangers and he clearly got the goods from them, as far as I'm concerned. I think his relationship with Wally Stott/Peter Knight, etc. was a bit like the Beatles' relationship with George Martin - i.e., he needed skilled musicians to bring his ideas to life. He told one arrangers, 'I want this to be like Scriabin's Poem Of Ecstasy', which had the man in question scurrying find out what was meant.

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks, RB. Indeed, "Epizootics" is darkly subversive fare very different from what we got in the Prom -- an interesting trajectory. Walker's baritonal crooning is I suppose the connective tissue binding the Hawaiian dream/nightmare elements with the frantic boppish
fanfares & percussion, with an elliptical resolution to the lei-infested view of an Hawaiian paradise in the final echo of Crosby -- maybe here an element of self-mockery of Walker's own 60s baroque balladeer persona. Further listening required on my part.

The whole of the Bish Bosch album, from which "Epizootics" is taken, is on a high level of inspiration I think. Its successor Soused didn't do quite as much for me, but he's clearly been striking out in a very individual direction in the last few years.

[cloughie]

I've not yet listened to the Prom but I'd agree that people like Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley, fans that they may be, haven't got a hope in hell of emulating the originals, though I don't think that is the aim of the evening (and certainly not something Mr. Engel himself would want - he's said he doesn't listen to his old stuff because it just makes him aware of 'how I failed' (sic)).

As you'l know, Scott 4 mysteriously failed to chart and Philips (his record label) hauled him over the coals and told him he had to record commercial music - film tunes, cover versions, etc. which had a demoralising effect on him and made him throw in the towel creatively for a long time. Then came the Walker Brothers reunion in the mid-70s with No Regrets, culminating in the Nite Flights album where Scott finally found the confidence to settle on the style of music he's pursued since then. Climate Of Hunter was considered 'out there' in 1984 but sounds mainstream now and people are finally catching up with Tilt. Scott has always been at least one decade ahead of public taste so maybe in 10 years' time, everyone will be listening to Bisch-Bosch?

And I'll put a word in for Englebert Humperdink, who was an OK singer who made some decent records and had a good team of writers behind him. Jimi Hendrix thought he had a good voice, so who am I to argue? :)

And I'll put a word in for Englebert Humperdinck, who was a not very good singer who had a good team of writers, arrangers and producers behind him, who made his records sound almost decent but in the end EH's voice was still there, flattened notes and all!

[Ein Heldenleben]

i think some of the singing in this is a tiny bit in the EH mode ...

[Constantbee]

Now this is more about Jules Buckley than it is about Scott Walker, isn't it. Saw this in 2016 with the Quincey Jones Prom. Great on the radio, but when you read the titles on the TV program it was more about Buckley's skills as arranger. It worked better for me last year because I prefer a more upbeat, er dare I say boppy performance.

Anyway, Uncle Hornet and I switched off after twenty minutes. He gets a bit depressed you see. Said he'd prefer Frank Ifield

Lol
Connie
xx

[jayne lee wilson]

I've not yet listened to the Prom but I'd agree that people like Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley, fans that they may be, haven't got a hope in hell of emulating the originals, though I don't think that is the aim of the evening (and certainly not something Mr. Engel himself would want - he's said he doesn't listen to his old stuff because it just makes him aware of 'how I failed' (sic)).

As you'l know, Scott 4 mysteriously failed to chart and Philips (his record label) hauled him over the coals and told him he had to record commercial music - film tunes, cover versions, etc. which had a demoralising effect on him and made him throw in the towel creatively for a long time. Then came the Walker Brothers reunion in the mid-70s with No Regrets, culminating in the Nite Flights album where Scott finally found the confidence to settle on the style of music he's pursued since then. Climate Of Hunter was considered 'out there' in 1984 but sounds mainstream now and people are finally catching up with Tilt. Scott has always been at least one decade ahead of public taste so maybe in 10 years' time, everyone will be listening to Bisch-Bosch?

And I'll put a word in for Englebert Humperdink, who was an OK singer who made some decent records and had a good team of writers behind him. Jimi Hendrix thought he had a good voice, so who am I to argue? :)

Interesting about Scott, thanks Conchis...
I recall Climate of Hunter getting some airplay on R1 (1980s: JLW - The Pop Years...), one of those albums I meant-to but never got-around-to buying...(Hatful of Hollow, Purple Rain, Mirror Moves, Building the Perfect Beast..Heartbeat City! Oh especially Heartbeat City..... oh, it was some year, 1984...)

[Maclintick]

Now this is more about Jules Buckley than it is about Scott Walker, isn't it. Saw this in 2016 with the Quincey Jones Prom. Great on the radio, but when you read the titles on the TV program it was more about Buckley's skills as arranger. It worked better for me last year because I prefer a more upbeat, er dare I say boppy performance

Lol
Connie
xx

Jules Buckley always has to feature in the BBC Proms for some reason, just as the Dimblebies must always present electoral coverage on BBC telly, Sue Barker on Wimbledon. Gary on footie etc...