Surely any album that begins with a slightly bonkers crooned retelling of Ingmar Bergman's existentialist film The Seventh Seal has got to be worth investigating. The film follows a medieval knight returning home to Sweden after The Crusades to find the Black Death having ravaged his country. He meets a robed figure who had come to meet him, 'Death'. The knight challenges Death to a game of chess in order to stall his own demise. It's an interesting film but the plot is entirely lifted from Bill & Teds Bogus Journey where our young stallions of rock challenge Death to games of Battleships and Twister.
Sadly Scott Walker's 'The Seventh Seal' follows quite precisely the plot Bergman's film. His deep baritone backed by rich orchestral strings and Mariachi brass section. Its a dark start to a bleak album.
There's not much fun to be had on Scott 4 but that's not to say its not a satisfying listen. Its musically rich and lyrically deep. The most upbeat sounding song is 'Hero of The War' which is quite jaunty until you realise the lyrics are about a woman reflecting on the loss of her son, who like his father, gave his life in a great war. All she's left with is that "empty" feeling: she "shows his gun to all the children in the street / it's just too bad he can't shake their hands or move his feet".
It's followed by 'Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)', a song about the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring uprising when the Soviets and other Warsaw Pact armies invaded the the former Czechoslovakia to put down political liberalisation. The "old man" of the title being reference to the resurgence of Stalinist behaviour by the USSR. The ghostly male voice choir gives it an oppressive militaristic tone.
As you can probably tell, this isn't exactly happy listening but it is a masterclass of ambitious and dramatic songwriting. Funnily enough SCOTT 4 was actually Walkers 5th solo album. His fourth was a collection of songs he'd recorded for the BBC. SCOTT 4 originally failed to chart and was quickly deleted, possibly because it was released under Walker's real name Noel Scott Engel. It's gone on to be rightly revered, acknowledged as Walker's greatest moment and cited as an influence on everyone from Bowie, Radiohead, through to Pulp, The Divine Comedy and Alex Turner / Miles Kane's Last Shadow Puppets. Give it a go, but don't blame me if you feel a little introspective afterwards.
'THE SEVENTH SEAL'
'OLD MAN'S BACK AGAIN (DEDICATED TO THE NEO-STALINIST REGIME)'
'HERO OF THE WAR'
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