I'd love to say that I got into Scott Walker at an early age, that my squalid city centre bedsits were littered with the eponymous numbered Sixties solo albums, next to the row of Camus and Genet on the bookshelf and Jacques Tati movie posters hiding the cracks, peeling wallpaper and damp.
The truth is, whilst I had a clutch of cover versions and orphaned album tracks scattered across my collection, I didn't own a single Scott Walker album until 2018, when I bought the budget-priced "5 Classic Albums" box set covering 1967 to 1970.
I think the first song I really remember hearing and making the connection was Marc And The Mambas' cover of Big Louise from 1969's Scott 3. Prior to that, I'd read about Julian Cope's love of Scott Walker: his curated collection released on Zoo in 1981 was titled Fire Escape In The Sky, lifting a line from Big Louise. Marc Almond was a regular visitor to Scott Walker, or at least his extensive English language interpretations of Jacques Brel, delivering an entire album's worth of reworkings in 1989.
Coming to Scott Walkers first five albums and properly listening to them, with the baggage of nearly five decades on this planet and thousands of hours of music listened to in that time, was a revelation. Walker's voice, the rich lush orchestral arrangements particularly on the earlier albums, the gradual shift from cover versions to his own compositions, the music and lyrics steeped in his influences but with a flavour and character all his own. I got why these albums were and continue to be an inspiration to songwriters who value the transformative and transporting nature of music.
The selection has been split into two sides, 10 songs per side, 2 songs apiece from each of the five albums. If we're talking vinyl, this would have to be a bargain basement K-Tel or Ronco-style compilation with crammed grooves, rather than Julian Cope's carefully curated, spacious collection.
There's no Big Louise, Montague Terrace (In Blue) or If You Go Away, they appear on other various artists' mixtapes and will appear here eventually. There are a couple of Jacques Brel covers, including Jackie, which Marc Almond covered (as Jacky) and Momus homaged (as Nicky) so well, but it's mainly Scott Walker née Noel Scott Engel's own songs here.
1) Prologue (1970)
2) It's Raining Today (1969)
3) Plastic Palace People (1968)
4) On Your Own Again (1969)
5) Mathilde (Cover of Jacques Brel) (1967)
6) Rhymes Of Goodbye (1969)
7) When Joanna Loved Me (Cover of Tony Bennett) (1967)
8) Thanks For Chicago Mr. James (1970)
9) Jackie (Cover of 'La Chanson De Jacky' By Jacques Brel) (1968)
10) We Came Through (1969)
1967: Scott: 5, 7
1968: Scott 2: 3, 9
1969: Scott 3: 2, 10
1969: Scott 4: 4, 6
1970: 'Til The Band Comes In: 1, 8
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