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.
Postagens
