2024 Repress. Scott 4 is Scott Walker's fifth solo album. It was released in late 1969 under his birth name, Scott Engel, and failed to chart. Reissues have been released under his stage name. It has since received praise as one of Walker's best works. Scott 4 was the first Walker album to consist solely of self-penned songs. The preceding Scott (1967), Scott 2 (1968) and Scott 3 (1969) albums had each featured a mixture of originals and covers, including several translations of Jacques Brel songs, which were later collected to form the album Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel (1981). Scott 4 also features slightly less ornate orchestral arrangements than its predecessors, opting instead for a more skeletal, folk-inspired sound with greater emphasis on the rhythm section.
The opening track, "The Seventh Seal", is based on the 1957 film of the same name by filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.[6] The second track on side two, "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)", refers to the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The quote "a man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened" (credited to the writer Albert Camus) appears on the back of the album sleeve.
Despite its initial lukewarm reaction, the album failed to chart on release (possibly due to the album being released under his birth name of Noel Scott Engel! Scott 4 has been recognised as a major influence on countless artists – David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker, Marc Almond amongst others. His song-writing reached new peaks on this record (it was the first Scott Walker album to feature entirely original material) and is incisive, articulate and acerbic. The Seventh Seal (inspired by the classic Ingmar Bergman film), features a haunting Ennio Morricone-style arrangement; The Old Man’s Back Again also displays cinematic qualities and a penetrating theme (“dedicated to the neo-Stalinist regime,” the “old man” of this song was supposedly Josef Stalin); Duchess and Boy Child are achingly beautiful, timeless classics. The eclectic mix of folk, country, and soul influences contained, make this an intriguing and innovative body of work.
