Today and tomorrow I am going to feature a somewhat unexpected country artist – the sadly recently deceased Scott Walker
In the first two of Scott’s “big four” solo albums, the non-Brel, non-self-written songs tend to get neglected. They have the air of record-company friendly filler, a bridge between the pop of The Walker Brothers and the more “interesting” self-created Scott.
As I have mentioned before I find the Brel songs somewhat cloying (but way better than most Anglophone Brel), the self-written songs luminous as ever, and gradually have learnt to appreciate the others.
So here, from Scott 2, is “Black Sheep Boy”, written by the tragic Tim Hardin who, like Scott, went into a kind of obscurity; unlike Scott he died young, before reaching forty of a heroin overdose.
youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v7_yUCxt_o&w=560&h=315%5D
Séamus Sweeney 