rediscovering Scott

I've long admired Scott Walker. It's partly his amazing voice, but also his extraordinary abilities as a writer of utterly jaw-dropping songs. Brian Eno, another hero of mine, describes his lyrics as 'peerless'. The music itself is by turns lush, challenging, and bordering on sound sculture. Overall what I love about Scott's music is its incredible intensity. I was very intense about music as a young man - art over entertainment any time. I remember my friend Dominic remarking to my Dad at some teenage youth club disco that 'You can't dance to the music we're into.'

Anyway, somehow I never got round to buying much of Scott's work, despite its briliance. I only had Scott, his first solo album. So when I recently started to undergo something of a musical rebirth - I've also been strumming my guitar and singing along - one of my first acts was to remedy this. I bought Scott 2, Scott 3, Scott 4, and his two more recent albums Tilt and The Drift. It's been like opening a bottle of vintage champagne I'd been saving for a special occasion for 15 years. No, make that a case of champagne - I'm still listening my way through them, one by one.

So this morning Scott 3 was in the CD player, and 30th Century Man was playing. Imagine my pride when Fred walked in and said 'Hey Dad, this sounds really like you!'