I’ve always been a fan of Scott Walker. I first heard his song 'My Death' sometime in high school when it auto played on Spotify after I had done listening to The Beach Boys or something. Such a pretty song. Then I heard 'Butterfly' and I thought wow this man is like out here making the most beautiful Disney-like songs ever., So I went through his first four albums and omg its like honey in my ears. On my local community radio they described him as a kind of “Gothic Crooner”, and yeah that’s pretty much on the money.
As with a lot of very ‘1960s’ musicians I tended not to listen to any of their more contemporary works, because idk, I’m really into the 60s sound I guess, and a lot of older musicians like that tend to fall off (beach boys). So I never gave Scott Walker’s later stuff a glance.
That was until I was reading an article by Hannah Pezzack for The Quietus, interviewing Xiu Xiu singer Jamie Stuart, where they go through 13 of their favourite albums as a promo for their release of ‘Oh No’. (great album btw). And the 6th album on the list is Scott Walker’s 2012 ‘Bish Bosch’. Which obviously I had never heard before. In the article, Jamie says “Early Scott Walker is untouchable, just fantastic pop songs. Post Nite Flights, he gets far more peculiar, experimental and challenging.” And I thought – Oh, that is interesting, I like peculiar experimental music. So I decided to throw it on whilst I was driving to my now-ex’s place after sundown for a Halloween party (in which I was dressed as a young Nick Cave).
I’ve always been prone to anxiety attacks, but this was something else entirely. Driving is already something that puts me on edge. I do not like operating a death machine. Especially now that I’ve been flying more recently and one of my mantras to stop being afraid of flights is: “Well, car crashes are far, far more common than plane crashes, and I’m in a car practically every day.” Which is a fantastic way to calm my nerves when I’m on the occasional flight. However, it does make me 100x more terrified of cars, which is rational, but still.
When I plugged in my aux cord and hit the engine, I expected something maybe along the lines of the stranger discography of The Beatles, perhaps, a more challenging baroque composition with stranger lyrics. But no, what I heard immediately was what I could only describe as the current panic attack I was, in pure audio form. Straight up mirrored back to me. Scott Walker’s ghostly wails was death. It was kinda awesome. But still, I was on edge, I was panicking, and I was making poor decisions on the road as a result. There are some dumb as hell drivers on that road, and it got worse by the time I was in the backroads trying to squeeze past impossibly tight residential streets, with cars lining both sides, and several trucks coming my way. With the ever thumping drum and dissonant high pitch screeching. I think at one point I turned at an intersection and almost got t-boned by a speeder because I was getting dizzy. But again, I still found the music super super cool because I’d never heard anything like it before, so I kept it on.
But yes, I made it there alive, and I got to the party, it sucked, but it’s okay because I was in charge of the music. No, I did not put on Bish Bosch.
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Funny last little story. A little while ago I was having a nap on the lounge when my family decided to come in and put on the new Planet of the Apes movie. I tried to watch a bit of it but it was so absolutely awful that I put my earbuds in and played Bish Bosch again. This time, the repeat play was much more comforting because I knew what to expect. This time the wails were more of a nightmarish lullaby and I was nodding off pretty quickly. Then, my little brother took one of my earbuds out and put it in his ear. I still had my eyes closed but all I heard was him shouting “What the fuck?!” in a half laughing half scared chuckle. Pretty funny.
Okay story time over goodby.