Review Summary: Flashes of genius mixed with 60s MOR filler. INteresting for the historical context but the best tracks ('Such a Small Love', 'AMsterdam') better heard elsewhere.
Because they were out of print for so long and in a pre-internet age you were only aware of them (if at all) as a hip reference for in the music press or revered influence for a certain type of rock star, a mystique developed around the series of solo albums Scott Walker recorded in the late ‘60s of which this is the first. That mystique was heightened for this teenage music fan when I heard the startling set of Walker originals collected on the ‘Boychild’ compilation in 1990. What else could be in store on those albums if this were just a taste? Well, once you finally got to listen to those albums the reality was a bit more prosaic. Those albums – or ‘Scott’ and ‘Scott 2’, at least - were made up of a whole hodge-podge of film themes, country-tinged pop songs and other MOR filler rubbing up alongside Scott’s seminal compositions and Brel covers.
On ‘Scott’ the filler isn’t really of much interest. For the most part well arranged and well sung, but compared to his own songs, which convey a whole range of emotions – defiance, contempt, tenderness – all with a sense of ironic detachment, Scott always sounds hemmed in when taking on a purely interpretative role. Maybe it’s because the songs themselves are on the whole quite bland. The only one which sparked my interest is ‘The Big Hurt’, which I was already familiar with through Del Shannon. On his version, Shannon sounds driven to the edge of suicide as he faces up to the void left by his lover. Scott’s approach is completely different – against a jaunty orchestral backing, he sounds amused at this opportunity to go through the motions of despair, not for one second believing that she won’t come back to him. I initially recoiled from what seemed like a gross misreading of the song, but it’s actually a lot of fun imagining Scott sitting back in his luxury bachelor pad, drinking scotch whiskey and waiting for his girlfriend to see the error of her ways – because he’s right, who would leave a great catch like him?
The album opens and closes with covers of Jacques Brel songs, a statement of intent about where Scott was headed. Mathilde is a barnstorming opener – Mathilde is coming back to her former lover and he is telling anyone who’ll listen that he’ll be sleeping with her tonight, that she’ll give him hell but he can’t resist her and so on. In short he’s a bit of a bull***ter and presumably everyone is rolling their eyes as they’ve heard this tale many times before, the likely punchline of which is that Mathilde will take one look at this sad sack and swan off with a better suitor. However, Scott plays it straight and seems to take all these claims at face value– when he tells his friend not to buy him another beer because ‘tonight I’m going to drink my tears’ it sounds like that is literally what he intends to do. The lack of an ironic perspective means that for all the efforts of Scott and the orchestra, it all falls a bit flat.
‘My Death’ is quite a bit better and it’s something of a coup that Scott managed to get such a morbid song which casually equates sex with death into his milieu of easy listening albums and light entertainment TV. It doesn’t quite come off – the moody arrangement is great (I love the little flourishes of electric guitar) but Scott’s singing sounds strained, lacking the arrogant nonchalance the lyric demands. ‘Amsterdam’ is a suitably rousing finale about the drunken sailor who ‘eats only fish heads and tales’ on which Scott sounds much more confident and like he’s having fun.
If Scott hadn’t yet quite figured out how to approach the Brel songs, that probably goes double for his own compositions. ‘Always Coming Back to You’ is a fairly straightforward song of romantic disappointment with some nice touches (“we missed the bus!”) but doesn’t really resolve itself satisfactorily, unsuccessfully trying to achieve intensity through repetition and singing louder. ‘Montague Terrace (in Blue)’ has all the right elements in place but it has never quite clicked for me. Something in the arrangements means the required spark is missing when the song moves from the seedy scenes of the verses to the rapturous chorus. ‘Such A Small Love’ shows how it should be done, its verses set to an almost ambient background before bursting into a soaring chorus. This is also where Scott perfects his trick of throwing the full orchestral caboodle at everyday or squalid subject matter.
So is ‘Scott’ worth listening to? Probably no unless you are a Scott enthusiast - the best tracks don’t really gain anything from being heard in this context and it doesn’t really do any favours to the filler (respectable enough on its own terms) to hear them next to the Walker/ Brel compositions, i.e. the songs Scott was really interested in. ‘Scott’ does provide useful historical context, showing how the legendary, late ‘60s Scott didn’t emerge fully formed but more tentatively, both formed by and in reaction to the easy listening slot Scott occupied at the time.
