Footnotes are useful, and yet, possibly because they are relegated to the bottom of the page, often overlooked – or at least under-appreciated. This is a shame because much can be gleaned from them in order to increase our understanding of the text in question. A close relative is the hand-written note in the margin, although its presence is solely down to a previous reader, rather than carrying any authorial or editorial voice. I inherited a copy of poetry by T.S. Eliot which is full of official footnotes, and pencil scribblings of my father’s translations of the Greek quotations and whatnot. They are equally useful in trying to unpack T.S.’s meaning.
It’s possible that in a few years copies of the lyrics of Scott Walker‘s Bish Bosch will be handed around covered in lightly pencilled markings as well, to go alongside Walker’s own handy explanations of his words. Well, some of his words. For the most part they are obtuse and fractured, spread out across the lyric book like an e.e. cummings poem and using the most alliteration I’ve seen outside a James Ellroy novel. Walker starts with the words and builds the melody around them, but he can be, at times, impenetrable and it is tempting to enjoy just the shape of the phrases he sings rather than deciphering any meaning. The lengthy “SDSS14+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)” has probably the longest set of notes for a lyric I’ve ever seen, covering everything from Attila the Hun to Louis B. Mayer and certainly clarifies things a bit. But not enough to penetrate the mystery: ‘Grostulating-Gorbi requires fresh packing’, for example, is a phrase that retains its secrets. But perhaps a song that takes us from soothsaying to the discovery of a cold star via some fairly coarse imagery and a bunch of yo’ mama jokes doesn’t really need the listener to sit there and try to join the dots, and rather – at least for now – just enjoy the ride.
As might be expected from a writer of Walker’s intensity, there is enough thought and craft behind both music and lyrics to make in-depth study of it worthwhile, but not to the extent that one stops enjoying the experience of listening. The whispered ‘Pow-pow’s on The Drift‘s “Jesse” can be unpacked numerous ways – and a couple of extra ones have been revealed by Scott recently – but it’s a gradual discovery that takes place over time, rather like watching a movie on several occasions and picking out different themes and characters each time – or, if you’re feeling ambitious, attempting to ‘read’ the whole film as a text. It’s no coincidence that Scott is a avid film buff, given the amount of cinematic imagery that filters through his work – most obviously, “The Seventh Seal” from Scott 4, but also the Pasolini-referencing ‘Paolo, take me with you’ line from Tilt‘s “Farmer In The City” – and it’s an interest that is present in the bracing opening track of Bish Bosch, “’See That You Don’t Bump His Head’”, which rests on a quote cut from the movie From Here To Eternity.
We’ll come back to the lyrics later, for A Closer Listen is really about the music and for all the inspection of the words, it’s what Bish Bosch sounds like that will be the clincher. Those of you who have been at least moderately aware of Walker in the past decade or so will know that one of the more arresting music-making images of recent memory is that of percussionist Alasdair Malloy punching a side of meat in order to get that certain sound that Scott was after – the other image being of Scott’s baseball cap shading his eyes to avoid unnecessary contact. The promotional video for the album (at the bottom of the page) doesn’t quite match that for an image but does have men blowing into long ripply horns, marbles in a dustbin lid and various effect boxes. Oh, and machetes. Mustn’t forget the machetes. Perhaps a go-getting young band out there will seize the initiative and hack up a dead pig with a sword for their next album.
Much of this is what Scott calls ‘dressing the songs’ (a phrase he attributes to Jarvis Cocker), which means, in effect, adding little bits of sound where the lyrics demand it, rather than keeping a consistent musical accompaniment throughout which is what most songwriters stick with. It’s a bold concept, and one can understand why many musicians don’t follow that approach because it effectively means operating with fewer hooks for the listener and relying on the vocals to carry the song; effectively, the audience is being asked to do a bit of work, rather than just sit there and experience it, which is generally why avant-garde music hasn’t tapped into the mainstream in the way contemporary art has. You can look at a piece of modern art for a few minutes at most in a gallery and then move on to the next, whereas you have to sit down and engage with the music, when most people listen to music to soothe, rather than challenge. In addition to the arrangements, Walker has changed his singing technique for his last three albums, seeking to escape the expectations that his velvety croon carries with it in favour for moving up the scale. The contrast at first was stark, particularly for those who went straight from the heroic introspection of Scott 2 into Tilt (much like spending the night carousing on tables in all the bars around town, then spending the next day shivering through the come-down in the corner of a darkened room). From: https://acloserlisten.com/2012/12/09/scott-walker-bish-bosch/
