11. Scott WalkerBoy Child: The Best Of Scott Walker 1967–1970
I knew ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘My Ship Is Coming In,’ by the Walker Brothers, which I fucking loved. People had given me cassettes in the early 90s, saying "You’ve got to listen to Scott Walker solo." Julian Cope did a compilation in the 80s called Fire Escape In The Sky but I looked at that track listing retrospectively and thought it’s not as good as Boy Child. I just think it’s the best introduction to Scott Walker.
We were on a tour around Europe with a band, Sophia, and we were listening to the tape all the time. You’re stopping at an Italian truck stop and it’s a blinding hot summer’s day, then you get back in and it’s into ‘It’s Raining Today.’ There’s the arrangements, there’s the fact that initially you might think, ‘Oh, he’s some big sort of Vegas crooner,’ but then the lyrics jump out about people struggling. It mentions watching the telly and calling the telephone operator. Then just all the wild stuff as well. "We’ll sleep with the girls from the street," and everything. Suddenly he’ll get a weird delay on his vocal or the strings will swell up and do something crazy. He’s just doing whatever the hell he wants, really.
When I listened to this early stuff, I always pictured him in the later documentary where he’s punching the meat, because that was the era when I got into it. I don’t picture this golden boy on the songs, I picture him as this studious man. The reason is in this list is because it’s seeped through into everything ever since I’ve heard it. He was obviously an American implanted into London. There’s this story about him when he wasn’t the flavor of the month. He wanted to create, but he couldn’t, so he went down a bit of a wormhole and would go to pubs all day and drink and watch darts players. I love this idea that Walker’s just sitting in a pub in Twickenham watching people playing darts all day in the mid 70s.
