Scott Walker And The Late Twentieth Century Phenomenon Of Phonographic Auteurism

115 Pages·2015·9.8 MB·English

by  Duncan Hammons

Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2013
Scott Walker and the Late Twentieth
Century Phenomenon of Phonographic
Auteurism
Duncan G. Hammons
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF MUSIC
SCOTT WALKER
AND
THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY
PHENOMENON OF PHONOGRAPHIC AUTEURISM
By
DUNCAN G. HAMMONS
A Thesis Submitted to the
College of Music
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Degree Awarded:
Spring Semester, 2013
Duncan Hammons defended this thesis on April 4, 2013
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Kimberly VanWeelden
Professor Directing Thesis
Jane Clendinning
Professor Co-Directing Thesis
Frank Gunderson
Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and
certifies that the has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii
Dedicated to my family and friends for their endless encouragements and many stimulating
conversations that fostered the growth of my curiosity in this subject, and the memory of my
father, Charles Edwin Hammons (November 1, 1941 - April 28, 2012), who taught me the
invaluable lesson of consolidating work and play.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the members of my supervisory committee, Dr. Jane P. Clendinning,
Dr. Kimberly VanWeelden and Dr. Frank Gunderson for their enthusiasm and generosity in their
guidance of this research, and additionally, Dr. Laura Lee and Dr. Barry Faulk for lending their
expertise and additional resources to the better development of this work.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ...............................................................................................................................vii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................viii
1. THE PRIMACY OF THE RECORDED FORMAT IN EURO-AMERICAN POPULAR
STYLES ...........................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................1
1.2 Sound Recordings And The Transformation Of How Music Is Heard .........................4
1.3 Changing Aesthetics of Record Production ...................................................................6
1.4 The Beatles (and Glenn Gould) Declare: “All You Need Are Our Recordings” ...........8
1.5 Economic Barriers to the Creation of Works of Art in Commercial Media ................10
2. AESTHETIC PREMISES ..........................................................................................................14
2.1 Intentionality and Identity of “The Work” ...................................................................14
2.2 Auteur Theory as a General Model for the Analysis of Autographic Media ...............17
2.3 Literature or Music: The Role of Meaning in Popular Genres ....................................20
2.4 The “Mixing-Desk Pen” as the Phonographic Auteur’s Tool ......................................21
3. EARLY YEARS IN THE COMMERCIAL MUSIC INDUSTRY ............................................24
3.1 Scott Engel Demos, L.A. Session Work, and the Walker Brothers’ Formation ..........24
3.2 Issues of Teen Pop Idolatry and Public Performance ..................................................26
3.3 Development of Authorial Voice on Early Solo Releases (1967-1970) ......................28
3.4 “First Cut” and Issues of Patronage .............................................................................31
4. EMERGENCE OF MATURE COMPOSITIONAL STYLE (1978-1984) ...............................33
4.1 Circumstances Surrounding Nite Flights’ (1978) Production .....................................33
4.2 Narrative Process in Walker’s Works: “The Electrician” ............................................33
4.3 Replacement of Pop Forms with Mise-en-Scene: “Fat Mama Kick” ..........................38
4.4 Climate of the Hunter and the First Long Silence (1984-1995) ..................................46
5. TILT (1995). ...............................................................................................................................50
5.1 “Farmer in the City” and Walker’s Pastoral Orchestral Ballads .................................50
5.2 Narrative Threads and Movements Through Unseen Scenes: “The Cockfighter” ......54
5.3 Music or Sound Design: “Bouncer See Bouncer” .......................................................58
5.4 “Patriot (A Single)” As the Inverse Identity of “The Electrician” ...............................61
5.5 The Emergent Tradition of the Naturalistic Farewell Track: “Rosary” .......................65
6. THE DRIFT (2006). ...................................................................................................................67
6.1 Situationism, Psychogeography and the Principle of “La Derivee” (Drifting) ...........67
6.2 Analysis: “Jesse” ..........................................................................................................68
6.3 Analysis: “Jolson and Jones” .......................................................................................73
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6.4 Analysis: “Cue” ...........................................................................................................77
6.5 Analysis: “Buzzers” .....................................................................................................81
6.6 Return to Public Visibility ...........................................................................................83
7. BISCH BOSCH (2012) ..............................................................................................................85
7.1 Orpheus Resurfaces, One Foot Lingering Below ........................................................85
7.2 Analysis: “See You Don’t Bump His Head” ................................................................87
7.3 Analysis: “SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)” ...........................................89
7.4 Analysis: “Epizootics!” ................................................................................................91
7.5 Analysis: “Pilgrim” ......................................................................................................95
7.6 Analysis: “The Day the Conducător Died (An X-Mas Song)” ....................................96
CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................................................................98
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................102
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................106
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
4.1 “The Electrician” Large-Scale Formal Structure ..............................................................36
4.2 “Fat Mama Kick” Large-Scale Formal Structure .............................................................39
5.1 “Farmer in the City” Large-Scale Formal Structure .........................................................53
5.2 “The Cockfighter” Intro [0:00 - 1:24] ..............................................................................56
5.3 “The Cockfighter” Transition / Verse 1 [1:25 - 2:55] .......................................................57
5.4 “The Cockfighter” Bridge [2:55 - 3:27] / Verse 2 [4:16 - 4:54] / Outro [4:54 - 6:02] . ....58
5.5 “Bouncer See Bouncer” Structural Diagram .....................................................................60
5.6 “Patriot (A Single)” Structural Diagrams .........................................................................64
6.1 “Jesse” Structural Diagrams .............................................................................................72
6.2 “Jolson and Jones” Section A (“Metal Machine Music”) .................................................74
6.3 “Jolson and Jones” Transition [1:26 - 3:25] .....................................................................75
6.4 “Jolson and Jones” Section B [3:15 - 7: 45] .....................................................................76
6.5 “Cue” Section A ................................................................................................................78
6.6 “Cue” Section B and A’ .....................................................................................................80
6.7 “Buzzers” Large-Scale Formal Structure .........................................................................83
7.1 Symmetric Pattern of Studio Album releases since Nite Fights .......................................86
7.2 “See You Don’t Bump His Head” Large-Scale Formal Structure ....................................88
7.3 “Epizootics!” Large-Scale Formal Structure ....................................................................94
7.4 “Pilgrim” Large-Scale Ternary Form ................................................................................96
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ABSTRACT
The music of Scott Walker (b. Noel Scott Engel, January 9, 1943) continues to influence
multiple generations of respected figures in popular music from David Bowie to Radiohead, yet
Walker has not set foot on stage to perform since the 1970s. Instead, the singer-songwriter-
producer’s latter-day reputation has instead thrived upon the basis of his recorded works.
Following a radical self re-invention on the Walker Brothers’ farewell album Nite Flights (1978)
Walker has pushed the boundaries of his chosen media to the extent that his recorded tracks
belong more to the aesthetic sphere of fixed art forms such as films rather than performance-
oriented forms such as music as it is traditionally categorized among the liberal arts. In the same
manner that Sergei Eisenstein and Orson Welles abandoned the rules of theatrical formalism to
create works native to the cinematic medium itself, Walker has likewise approached his work in
recording studios as a Phonographic Auteur. To abstract Walker’s works by discussing them as
“songs” detached from their recorded “track” form would be as detrimental to their analysis as
would the discussion of Citizen Kane outside of the form language of the cinema. As
deconstructions of the binary opposition between track and song the problems surrounding the
analysis of Walker’s post-1978 works are largely those confronting the analysis of Euro-
american popular music that arise from its troublesome relationship with the recorded format.
Further, Walker’s career evidences how a number of artists in Euro-american contexts have come
to regard the recorded, studio intensive format of music as a solution to the problems they are
confronted within the the modern public concert spectacle. In doing so these individuals have
given birth to a burgeoning autonomous art form, and by extension, a new model of the
composer-listener-performer dynamic.
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CHAPTER 1
THE PRIMACY OF THE RECORDED FORMAT IN EURO-
AMERICAN POPULAR STYLES
1.1 Introduction
The music of Noel Scott Engel (b. January 9, 1943), better known as Scott Walker
through his affiliation with the commercially successful 1960s pop group The Walker Brothers,
has influenced multiple generations of respected figures in popular music including David
Bowie, Brian Eno, Johnny Marr, and Radiohead. Walker, however, has not set foot on stage to
perform since the late 1970s. His reputation as a profoundly innovative figure that straddles the
worlds of commercial popular music and high art has instead been sustained entirely through his
work in the medium of recorded sound. Following a radical self re-invention on the Walker
Brothers’ farewell album Nite Flights (1978), the singer-songwriter-producer has pushed the
boundaries of media and form to the extent that his recorded tracks belong more to the aesthetic
sphere of fixed art forms such as films rather than performance-oriented forms such as music as
it is traditionally categorized among the liberal arts. With the assistance of long time co-producer
Peter Walsh, Walker has pushed the conventional formal aesthetics of record production to their
limits in a series of forward-looking, critically acclaimed art-rock studio albums featuring tracks
in which large scale form and function are principally delineated through changes in virtual
performance space and the narrative arcs of Walker’s cryptically non-linear texts. In the same
manner that D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, F.W. Murnau, Leni Riefenstahl, and Orson Welles
abandoned the rules of theatrical formalism to create works native to the cinematic medium
itself, Walker has likewise approached his work in recording studios in a manner warranting
1