Music Monday: Bowie, Fatima Mansions & Walker Brothers: 3 Versions of Nite Flights: Original/2 Copies, by Brendan O’Malley

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.

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.

Bowie, Fatima Mansions & Walker Brothers: 3 Versions of Nite Flights: Original/2 Copies

Only one way to fall.

The title track of The Walker Brothers swan song is the incredible “Nite Flights”. While it doesn’t open the album, the fact that Walker doubled it as the name of the album speaks volumes about the importance of this particular song.

The song on its own merits is stunning. A sleek propulsive bass line propels the rhythm, descending against a rising layer of keyboard shimmer. Cymbals hiss, the snare pops, and the overall effect is somehow like something out of a science fiction film.

Put in the context of the musical landscape of 1978 and the song takes on even greater significance. England was exploding into punk rock and new wave, both of which are left in the dust by the genre-less edifice this song effortlessly erects.

In the hands of a media juggernaut, this album could have been some kind of international blockbuster. It was obviously blazing new sonic ground and combining this with the unlikely history of The Walker Brothers seems like an alley-oop. But the company was folding and the album made a brief appearance, affected a few of the cognoscenti, and that was that for The Walker Brothers.

I can only make analogies to somehow explain what this might look like were it to happen today. Imagine that Hall & Oates released an album tomorrow that alienated all of their fans from back in the day but that in 30 years would be looked upon as the pinnacle of musical achievement of the era.

After all, in the film 30 Century Man, Brian Eno holds up a copy of Nite Flights and says, “We’ve come no further than this. It’s shameful!”

Listen to the original “Nite Flights” off of 1978’s “Nite Flights” by The Walker Brothers.

The album did not have the kind of commercial success to match the critical lasting effect it had on musicians.

Elsewhere on this blog you will find my 50 Greatest Albums series. One of these is Viva Dead Ponies by a little-known Irish band called The Fatima Mansions. They had a moment in the sun in the early ’90’s and Viva Dead Ponies is one of the great political manifestos ever put to sound. On the follow up Lost In The Former West is a cover of “Nite Flights”. I’ve had the song for almost twenty years but never knew it was a cover, let alone that it was written by Scott Walker. It was my favorite song on the album.

The second copy of the original comes from David Bowie who has honored Walker as one of his heroes. He executive produced the movie about Walker and it is obvious that much of his singing style was influenced by him as well.

Listen to “Nite Flights” off of David Bowie’s Black Tie, White Noise.

Again I must return to the element of fear that is somehow present in Walker’s work. The imagery is so startling, so perfectly realized, and so unlike anything you are used to witnessing in pop song form that there is a kind of vertigo that ensues. This sensation when juxtaposed with the aural oddity is unsettling in a way that is impossible to quantify. Walker has said that he starts with the words and that they inform his melodic choices. Read “Nite Flights”. I don’t know what it means but it terrifies me.

Nite Flights

There’s no hold
The moving has come through
The danger brushing you
Turns its face into the heat
And runs the tunnels

It’s so cold
The dark dug up by dogs
The stitches torn and broke
The raw meat fist you choke
Has hit the bloodlite

Glass traps open and close on nite flights
Broken necks
Feather weights press the walls
Be my love
We will be gods on nite flights
Only one promise
Only one way to fall

Glass traps open and close on nite flights
Broken necks
Feather weights press the walls
Be my love
We will be gods on nite flights
Only one promise
Only one way to fall

On the nite flights
On the nite flights
On the nite flights
Only one way to fall

On the nite flights
On the nite flights
On the nite flights
Only one way to fall

— Brendan O’Malley