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$15.99 CD
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SCOTT WALKER
Til the Band Comes In
(Water)
 "Thanks for Chicago Mr. James"
"Stormy"
It's about time that this record -- one of my favorites in Scott Walker's discography -- gets the praise it truly deserves. Unfairly maligned for decades (perhaps most infamously in Pulp's song "Bad Cover Version," produced by Walker himself), 1970's Til the Band Comes In is essentially Scott 5, the fifth and final lost chapter in what was the singer's initial post-Walker Brothers solo career. The record is interesting in that it successfully serves as a bridge between the Eurocentric obsessions (the Brel covers, the Nietzsche lyrics, the Bergman film tributes) of his early solo work and the slide into more overtly Americanized tendencies (jazz standards, country tunes, vaudevillian songs) of his rather underwhelming country/primetime variety show period in the mid-'70s.
The first ten songs of this fifteen-track album are all penned by Walker, and feature some satisfyingly strong work typical of this period; many of the songs revolve around the theme of life during wartime -- "Little Things (That Keep Us Together)," "The War Is Over (Sleepers)" -- and alienation and loneliness in one particular apartment complex during the confusion of the Vietnam War, along with the usual desolate song-portraits of elderly folks being left to wither in nursing care ("Joe"), the solitary man whose only company is the woman on the telephone who tells him the time ("Time Operator"), and of the communist stripper who lives down the hall ("Jean the Machine"). Arrangements are provided as usual by Walker's then main man Wally Stott, and the work proves to be as focused, emotional, and intellectual as his previous albums while putting his characters in a slightly different context.
Then there are the final five songs. These last tracks are essentially what give the record a bad reputation (rather unfairly), as they are covers of differing quality and style -- a breathtaking version of Michel LeGrand's "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," Mancini's "The Hills of Yesterday," Kenny Rogers(!)'s "Reuben James," Classics IV's "Stormy," and perhaps best of all, a fantastic cover of Jimmie Rodgers's "It's Over," which closes out the album. While I do think they break up the vibe of the preceding 10 tracks (which would have made a classic album on their own), these tracks are not to be discounted and do end up solving more of the riddle of Scott's career path after this record. That cover of "It's Over" proves perhaps to be the most symbolic song on the album, with one particular verse ringing out like a message to his fanbase:
"So I turn my back,
Turn my collar to the wind
Move along in silence
Trying not to think at all
I set my feet before me
Walk the silent street before me
Now it's over."
And with those final words, "it's over," Walker closes the door on one exceptional chapter in his career, stumbles through darkness through the '70s and reemerges at the dawn of the '80s with Nite Flights to reinvigorate and... well, that's a chapter for another day. [IQ] |
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