Every so often a song floats into your consciousness from somewhere or other. I am not sure why, but yesterday Scott Walker’s driving, rhythmic “Little Things (That Keep Us Together)” from 1970’s “‘Til the Band Comes In” drifted back into my consciousness. Perhaps it was because I was travelling at the time, and the song is redolent of propulsive motion (and references Jumbo jets crashing), or perhaps its evocation of social collapse “while the war is going on” is relevant, because it is always relevant:
Of Scott Walker songs, it reminds me most of the pseudo-martial We Came Through, and like We Came Through is sounds initially a little dated but as the years have passed by has lasted better than many of Scott’s Brel covers, some of which strike me as histrionic and over-mannered now:
Séamus Sweeney 