SCOTT WALKER - IF YOU GO AWAY

IF YOU GO AWAY

SCOTT WALKER

SONGWRITERS: JACQUES BREL & ROD MCKUEN

COUNTRY: U.K.+U. S. A.

ALBUM: SCOTT 3

LABEL: PHILIPS

GENRE: ART POP

YEAR: 1969

 

          Noel Scott Engel(January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019) better known by the stage name Scott Walker, was a British-American singer-songwriter, composer and record producer who resided in England. Walker was known for his baritone voice and an unorthodox career path which took him from 1960s teen pop icon to 21st-century avant-garde musician. Walker's success was largely in the United Kingdom, where his first four solo albums reached the top ten. He lived in the UK from 1965 and became a UK citizen in 1970.

         Rising to fame in the mid-1960s as frontman of the pop music trio the Walker Brothers, he began a solo career with 1967's Scott, moving toward an increasingly challenging style on late-1960s baroque pop albums such as Scott 3 and Scott 4(both 1969). After sales of his solo work started to decrease, he reunited with the Walker Brothers in the mid-1970s. From the mid-1980s onward, Walker revived his solo career while moving in an increasingly avant-garde direction; of this period in his career, The Guardian said "imagine Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen". Walker's 1960s recordings were highly regarded by the 1980s UK underground music scene, and gained a cult following.

       Walker continued to record until 2018. He was described by the BBC upon his death as "one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in rock history".

    Scott 3 is the third solo album by singer songwriter Scott Walker.

         Upon release in 1969, it met with slightly fewer sales than his previous albums, as pop audiences struggled to keep pace with Walker's increasingly experimental approach, though it still reached #3 on the UK Album Chart. The dense, lush string arrangements by Angela Morley seemed to evoke a Vegas-style lounge crooner atmosphere, but one tinted with surreal drones and touches of dissonance.

      The album's muted reception and subsequent failure of his short-lived BBC TV series signified the beginning of Walker's decline in popularity. Since its release, however, it has been regarded by many of Walker's fans as a favourite. The title of the compilation Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker is taken from the lyrics of the song "Big Louise", and the 2006 documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man is named after "30 Century Man".

         Marc Almond covered the song "Big Louise" in 1982 with his band Marc and the Mambas on the album Untitled.

          In September 2019, Thom Yorke named "It's Raining Today" as one of the eight pieces of music he would take to an imaginary desert island in the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs.

       Though a majority of the tracklist features original songs from Walker, the final three tracks are covers of compositions by Jacques Brel.

If you go away

On this summer day

Then you might as well

Take the sun away

All the birds that flew

In the summer sky

When our love was new

And our hearts were high

And the day was young

And the night was long

And the moon stood still

For the night bird's song

If you go away

 

But if you stay

I'll make you a day

Like no day has been

Or will be again

We'll sail the sun

We'll ride on the rain

And talk to the trees

And worship the wind

 

Then if you go

I'll understand

Leave me just enough love

To fill up my hand

 

If you go away

As I know you will

You must tell the world

To stop turning, turning

'til you return again

If you ever do

For what good is love

Without loving you?

Can I tell you now

As you turn to go

I'll be dying slowly

'til the next hello

 

But if you stay

I'll make you a night

Like no night has been

Or will be again

I'll sail on your smile

I'll glide on your touch

I'll talk to your eyes

That I love so much

 

But if you go

I won't cry

Though the good is gone

From the word goodbye

 

If you go away

As I know you must

There'll be nothing left

In this world to trust

Just an empty room

Full of empty space

Like the empty look

I see on your face

And I'd have been the shadow

Of your shadow

If it might have kept me

By your side.