The Electrician

[Deebank]

I'm not really a big Walker Bros/Scott W fan - I like his voice and really like maybe a handful of tunes. Perhaps I should look into his/their music further...

One of the tunes I love is The Electrician. It's a gorgeous, epic production that is gone before you've had time to be blown away, almost.

Apparently it is one of the few lyrics that Scott ever discussed - he was famously reticent about talking about or explaining his words (although I suppose most of the early works are pretty straightforward and fit into the love/heartbreak/boy meets girl category). The Electrician can be taken pretty much at face value and is, he is reported as saying, about a torturer - the eponymous Electrician - somewhere in Latin America, in the kind of right-wing state the US was happy to prop up at the time.

Baby its slow
When lights
Go low
There's no help
No
Baby its slow
When lights
Go low
There's no help
No

Chilling.



Now I'm sorry I looked into it.

[robertff]

Thought this was going to be about Paul McCartney to begin with.

I like this. With regard to Scott Walker I really like those latter day albums of his, the 'avant garde' ones, also like the earlier ones but the later ones in particular.


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[Neil Jung]

It’s a great song and performance, easily the stand out track on the album Night Flights. I think you can or could get his first 5 albums for about £10 on Amazon. Scott 3 and 4 are both worth having.

[Neil Jung]

It’s a great song and performance, easily the stand out track on the album Night Flights. I think you can or could get his first 5 albums for about £10 on Amazon. Scott 3 and 4 are both worth having.

£11.09 actually.

[Jimbly]

All his albums are worth getting, even the "bad faith" years albums still have the voice if not the songs.

[Tom Waits For No One]

Thought this was going to be about Paul McCartney to begin with.

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Wasn't it George who was the Electrician?

[Charlie O.]

[robertff]

Thought this was going to be about Paul McCartney to begin with.

.

Wasn't it George who was the Electrician?

Whoops, of course, I was thinking of 'The Fireman'.


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[Deebank]

Thought this was going to be about Paul McCartney to begin with.

.

Wasn't it George who was the Electrician?

Whoops, of course, I was thinking of 'The Fireman'.


.

I thought he was The Walrus

[robertff]

Wasn't it George who was the Electrician?

Whoops, of course, I was thinking of 'The Fireman'.


.

I thought he was The Walrus

Now you're just being silly.


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[Nervous Ned]

I always thought the Nite Flight tracks, and Climate of Hunter caught Walker briefly at the point where he was making quite unusual music but still within conventional frameworks; Before he tilted into what sounded like free form abstraction. I mean, good for him, but those last few albums really left me cold (Farmer in the City notwithstanding).
The Electrician, while being less than explicit, is still compelling because the meaning isn’t hidden in a haze of free form wordplay. He begins approaching that on Climate, but the music is relatively accessible so it isn’t so much of a problem (for me at least).

[Deebank]

Despite the way the song is bookended (which points towards his Sunn 0))) joint venture Soused) The Electrician inhabits the same musical territory as something like The Wichita Lineman - bittersweet, melancholy, yearning etc. But obviously the subject matter is darker. TWL has a lonesome protagonist up a telegraph pole in a romantically bleak and deserted landscape pining for his mrs while the electrician has its exultant CIA operative in some Latin American dungeon revelling in his sadism to an extent that is almost romantic. It is astonishing.

[jimboo]

I always thought the Nite Flight tracks, and Climate of Hunter caught Walker briefly at the point where he was making quite unusual music but still within conventional frameworks; Before he tilted into what sounded like free form abstraction. I mean, good for him, but those last few albums really left me cold (Farmer in the City notwithstanding).
The Electrician, while being less than explicit, is still compelling because the meaning isn’t hidden in a haze of free form wordplay. He begins approaching that on Climate, but the music is relatively accessible so it isn’t so much of a problem (for me at least).

I always wish that the reunion had been abandoned and someone/anyone had pulled Scott to one side and said let's see what else you got.

[Jimbly]

I always thought the Nite Flight tracks, and Climate of Hunter caught Walker briefly at the point where he was making quite unusual music but still within conventional frameworks; Before he tilted into what sounded like free form abstraction. I mean, good for him, but those last few albums really left me cold (Farmer in the City notwithstanding).
The Electrician, while being less than explicit, is still compelling because the meaning isn’t hidden in a haze of free form wordplay. He begins approaching that on Climate, but the music is relatively accessible so it isn’t so much of a problem (for me at least).

I always wish that the reunion had been abandoned and someone/anyone had pulled Scott to one side and said let's see what else you got.

He didnt have anything till he found out the label was closing and they could do whatever they wanted. So they all wrote, which never happened on any other WB albums. Which resulted in the contract from Virgin and then he worked at a snail's pace.