Scott Walker (1943 - 2019)
By 1995, I was well on the way to being a music obsessive. Me and a few mates from uni would head into 78 Records and other city music shops as often as we could, invariably coming home with more cds than we could afford.
I devoured magazines like Q and Mojo. In our largely internet-free world, this was where we found out what was new, what was interesting, what was classic, and what was different. I'd have been a remarkably good university student if I'd spent as much time learning the content of my courses as I did trying to internalise an understanding of pretty much the entirety of popular (and unpopular) music. (Still a work in progress, by the way.)
Some albums and artists were more important along the journey than others. Some were important simply because I loved them. Others were important for different reasons.
At some point in '95, I read a review of an album that struck me as interesting.
The album was called 'Tilt'. It was by an artist called Scott Walker.
I remember listening to bits of it in 78s, through headphones. In fact, I can remember exactly where I was standing. Christ, it was odd. (As was its cover.) But there was something about it. This was unquestionably different, difficult music, but it grabbed me in ways I could neither describe or comprehend. I bought it. Took it home. And set about trying to understand it.
It's something I've never managed to do. Every time I play it - which isn't that often (it's just too overwhelming) - it smacks me about in different ways. Sometimes it's the discordance; its ability to fuse rage and fear into industrial hammerings. Sometimes it's the beauty; fragments of melody, hanging precariously over cliffs of noise. Other times, it's the impenetrable lyrics; farmers, cock-fighters, threshers. And the silence. Lingering. Uneasy. Threatening. Ready to shatter itself apart at any moment.
And Walker's voice. Jesus. A genuinely majestic baritone; tremulous, resonant, radiant. In every note, a performance. These weren't songs. These were soliloquies.
And it was as though Walker set about his work with the goal of obliterating conventional lyricism. Regardless of whether or not it was intended, he succeeded. And rather than produce nonsense, for me at least, he re-wrote the 'rules' of song-craft. These are not 'songs' in the conventional sense. These were sonic art-installations. Operas, fed through lap-tops and machinery, with free jazz used as sonic colour, rendered almost conventionally-toned in the context of Walker's demented inventions. Imagery? Ha. These were Rorschach tests, inflected into sound, to be unconvincingly deciphered by baffled, electrified listeners.
I kept listening to music. Lots of stuff. Lots of genres. Onward and onward.
Fast forward to 2019.
These days, a lot of the music I listen to can be described as 'weird'. Stuff that defies genre, and I'm sure if heard by many, common sense. But to me, it's all music. And if it were not for Scott Walker, my understanding of music would be a dimension short of enlightened perception.
As Cohen was to Dylan, so, too, was Walker to Bowie. Even our icons have their icons; those who orbit that bit further out.
If you feel up to it, give Tilt a listen. Do it in headphones. In the dark. I dare you.
Thanks for everything, Scott Walker.
You changed my life.