Thursday 16 June 2022

When You Kissed My Eyes Asleep

Side 2 of an imaginary mixtape, compiled 14th June 2022.
 
If you weren't moved by yesterday's selection, flee now, as here comes more Scott Walker. As with yesterday's side, the ten songs featured here are drawn from Scott's first five solo albums*, with a handful of covers - Jacques Brel again, plus Henry Mancini and Tim Hardin - along with self-penned songs.
 
* I've discounted 1969's Scott: Scott Walker Sings Songs From His TV Series, which was officially his fourth solo album release, but absent from the "5 Classic Albums" box set I purchased in 2018. 

Scott went on to release a further four solo albums in the first half of the 1970s, none featuring his own material, before spending the next 10 years reunited with The Walker Brothers. Final album Nite Flights saw Walker's first new songs since 1970 and a hint of what was to come, musically speaking.

Julian Cope's 1981 compilation Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker, appears to have been the impetus to pursue a solo career once more. The fruits of this labour, 1984's Climate Of Hunter, signalled a markedly different, avant-garde different from the music featured here, although perhaps the hints and signals had been there in Walker's choice of cover versions and subject matter for his own songs.

My introduction to Scott Walker's cover of Next aka Au Suivant came via the inspired use of a sample in Orbital's 1992 track The Naked And The Dead. It's very likely that I heard Paul Weller's version of Black Sheep Boy before either Scott Walker's version or Tim Hardin's original song. Most of these songs on today's selection I only heard for the first time when I bought the Scott Walker box set and I feel like I've spent the last few years catching up. 
 
I'm less familiar with Scott Walker's later releases from Tilt (1995) through to Bisch Bosch (2012) and Soused, his 2014 collaboration with Sunn O)))) and, from all accounts, would make for a much more challenging listen than the 20 beautifully arranged and performed songs presented here.
 
1) Wait Until Dark (Cover of Henry Mancini & His Orchestra) (1968)
2) Jean The Machine (1970)
3) Always Coming Back To You (1967)
4) Angels Of Ashes (1969)
5) Rosemary (1969)
6) Next (Cover of 'Au Suivant' by Jacques Brel) (1968)
7) Angelica (Cover of Barry Mann) (1967)
8) Winter Night (1969)
9) Black Sheep Boy (Cover of Tim Hardin) (1968)
10) The War Is Over (Sleepers - Epilogue) (1970)
 
1967: Scott: 3, 7
1968: Scott 2: 1, 6, 9
1969: Scott 3: 5, 8
1969: Scott 4: 4
1970: 'Til The Band Comes In: 2, 10

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