My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. I just wrapped up posting his 50 Best Albums. But I figured I’d keep “Music Monday” going with more of the stuff Bren wrote about music.
Bren’s writing is part music-critique, part memoir, part cultural snapshot. Many of these pieces were written a decade ago, so I am happy to share it with you!
This is part of Brendan’s lengthy series of essays on Scott Walker, which I’ll be posting for the foreseeable future, one every Monday.
The Strangest Pop Hit Single In History
The Walker Brothers had broken up at the height of their fame. Their run only lasted from ’65 to ’67 but the breakneck pace of recording and touring made it seem much longer. Tensions in the group were high for all the typical reasons, but a crucial one was the burgeoning songwriting talent of Scott Walker. He’d started writing B-sides to singles as a way to increase revenue for the band. It worked. But it also showed that Walker was the true visionary.
Still having a Japanese tour to complete as a vestige of their contract, The Walker Brothers broke up. Walker immediately set to work writing and recording his debut, simply titled Scott.
Walker had, through a German Playboy bunny he’d met at London’s Playboy Club, discovered the music of Belgian superstar Jacques Brel. The first song on Scott is an incredible cover of “Mathilde” which Walker sings as if he is belting out the finale of some strange musical where a skinny American kid winds up on the BBC in love with a supermodel who drives him mad.
By default, the second track on the album (“Montague Terrace (In Blue)”) is Walker’s debut as a solo writer. It is also, as the title of this post states, the strangest pop hit single in history. (Get used to hyperbole; it is really the only appropriate response to the eccentricity of this man’s work.)
This video is not an official one, someone matched old post-war Europe footage to the moody strains of Walker’s imagination. The result is fascinating.
The album was a smash, rising to # 3 and staying there for seventeen weeks, an eternity for an album. “Mathilde” and “Montague Terrace (In Blue)” charted as singles but the ALBUM was the thing in those days and Walker had a massive hit on his hands. This sent his career into the stratosphere, immediately dwarfing the one-hit-wonder nature of The Walker Brothers. He became a cultural phenomenon, a cult-hit who also achieved mainstream success.
“Montague Terrace (In Blue)” shows why. But what makes it work so well? Is it the strangely dissonant string figure that way back in 1967 felt like a sample but was obviously organic? Is it the harsh consonant clash of the lyrics against that lush bed of violins? Or is it the gunshot crack drum explosion which kicks off the soaring drama of the chorus?
As usual, with Scott Walker, it is impossible to put your finger on just what is going on and why it is so effective. I am also struck by how ENGLISH this song seems, how BRITISH. It animates a cloudy fog-ridden England in the mind’s-eye, ancient, foreboding, sexy. It was written by a 24-year-old American.
Scott Walker had arrived.
— Brendan O’Malley
for a big one from the 60s, it’s impossible to find covers of this song, which says plenty. Richard Hawley tried at the Proms with a full orchestra and was absolutely steamrolled by it. And as big as the arrangement is, even with the wall of sound, Scott’s voice is bigger. It’s crazy to think how young he is. He holds the word blue so long and confidently! All that really indicates his youth is how directly inspirational his influences are. What a delightful song to kick off with!
It’s somehow restrained and bonkers at the same time. He barely seems to be singing, more like talking with melody.
Also, I don’t think anyone should even attenpt to cover Scott Walker. Maybe female artists but males?!? Nope. Ye shall be destroyed.
it’s a tough ask, and I think any men who try a straight cover must be certifiable. John Grant does okay at that Proms; Susanne Sundfør is the most successful. You can’t do it with an easy listening voice, you have to have some weird in you.
Restrained and bonkers at the same time, yes! There’s a baroque excess to his voice and sensibility (and later, of course, the music) that means he can’t ever just sound normal or easy. He starts from a place of too much, even when he’s doing almost nothing!
// He starts from a place of too much, even when he’s doing almost nothing! //
I love artists like this. So often they’re misunderstood by contemporary critics and/or audiences. But it’s that “too much-ness” that makes their work eternal – and also music like this doesn’t “date” at all, the way other more popular trend-based hits date. It stays in the present, always.
Dusty Springfield and Karen Carpenter would have been natural interpreters of the Scott Walker songbook.
They both had the weird on them – they excelled in expressing the existential loneliness that defines Walker.
These are very intriguing thoughts.
I wish this was something I could hear.
there’s a Dusty/Scott duet on YouTube from her 60s show but it’s not a Scott song. But she could sing a mean chanson and I guess we’re all sorry there’s not a Dusty sings Walker album.
I’m 87% sure that one of Bren’s essays is about that Dusty Springfield duet!
Can’t wait!