Sometimes you need to wallow in some premium tearjerking schmaltz, and The Walker Brothers 1976 comeback No Regrets ticks all those boxes. Lacking the echo laden drama of their 60s work, the one-man vision of Scott's solo albums and the avant garde nature of his later albums featuring someone punching a side of beef for percussion, this is wide screen, orchestral, Vegas-style pop. But still featuring those killer lines that Scott Walker can deliver- 'I woke last night and spoke to you not thinking you were gone, and it felt so strange to lie awake alone' being just one. Guitarist John Walker died recently aged 67.
Nearly two decades ago me and my then flatmate started going to a pub quiz. We hooked up with a pair of middle aged blokes, a builder and a carpet fitter, when we realised between us we had the required level of general knowledge and useless nonsense (especially for the music round) to win the quiz each Monday. Pete used to pick us up in his van, and we'd drive down to the pub, often with this song belting out. We must have looked pretty ridiculous, two twenty somethings and two forty somethings arriving in a builder's van bellowing Scott's song of lost love. I'm now a forty something, and Pete is a sixty something, and we still get to a pub quiz, despite having lost the other two along the way. Funny how such random encounters can lead to lifelong friendships being made. For the record, we don't win very often anymore. Maybe we need some young blood.
2 comments:
I love a bit of Scott, me. The Electrician is probably one of the most startling things I've ever heard. Can't think of too many other trade related songs, but given that your team had a builder and a fitter maybe you can?
Me, Mrs H, my mate Carlos and Stevie The Glaswegian enjoyed at least three glorious pub quiz seasons as Neither Micklin Nor Mucklin before babies, relocation and pub management shenanigans shut us down.
To this day I do not think I have been happier than at those nights.
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