RIP

Today brings the sad news that the famously enigmatic singer and songwriter Scott Walker has died at the age of 76. In a sense, I grew up with Walker, relishing those epic pop songs he performed with the Walker Brothers, and following him into his solo career with something like obsessive devotion – I still have half a dozen or more of his solo albums on aged, played-to-death vinyl, and remember many a smoky evening wallowing in the glory of the Scott Walker sound (which at that time was largely the creation of the great producer and arranger Wally Stott, who later became Angela Morley). From the Eighties, as he moved on into ever more hermetic realms, often beyond melody and coherence (or so it seemed to me), I gradually gave up trying to follow him – it was too late for me; the world was too much with me, the smoky evenings were over, my musical taste had moved on. But I never lost my respect for that elusive touch of greatness in Scott Walker at his best. Here's a track from his first solo album. The lyrics don't bear much examination, but what a sound, what a performance, what a chorus – what grandeur...