“Scott 4” was released in November 1969, his 3rd album release of the year, but this time under his own name of Scott Engel, although my (re-issue) copy is credited to Scott Walker (tut-tut specialist re-issue label 4 Men With Beards). It was his first album that failed to chart but is still a marvellous record. This time Scott wrote all the songs and any collection of material as good as “The Seventh Seal”, “Boy Child”, "Hero of the War" and "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" is just fine with me. 

With these songs Scott was reaching for deeper themes in his writing. As an example, "The Seventh Seal”, is based on the story of Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film of the same name in which a medieval knight plays chess with Death to delay the inevitable consequence of meeting him during the Black Death plague of the 14th century…nothing heavy about that huh. In a similarly trivial fashion the wonderful “The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)" is concerned with the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the combined forces of Soviet Russia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberal reforms and strengthen the Czech Communist party…phew, it’s a good job it’s a bloody great song after all that !

“Angels & Ashes” (Engel translates from German as angel) is a beautiful ballad based on plucked Spanish guitar and a sweeping orchestral arrangement with spiritual lyrics. “Boy Child” highlights Scott’s incredible voice with the dreamstate orchestration supporting lyrics like “Through mirrors dark and blessed with cracks, Through forgotten courtyards, Where you used to search for youth, Old gets a new life”.

The first two songs on Side 2 address war. “Hero Of The War” while being one of the more poppy and upbeat songs is a scathing depiction “Mrs. Reilly get his medals, Hand them 'round to everyone, Show his gun to all the children in the street, It's too bad he can't shake hands or move his feet”. We already met “The Old Man's Back Again…” but the lyric “I seen a woman standing in the snow, she was silent as she watched them take her man” bears repeating while that shit is still happening in too many places in the world.

This is the only one of Scott’s albums on which he wrote all the songs. The fact that his lyrics were obviously so much more ambitious and the arrangements more intricate, added to that decision to release the record as Scott Engel rather than Walker may have caused its poor sales. “Scott 4” is a wonderful record and is another touted by fans as his best. His voice is strong throughout  and the songs balance intricacy and melody while in places hinting at some of the more atonal music Scott would make in later years.

The Seventh Seal - https://youtu.be/oNY6UiN_RG0?si=g3TNDQObViEP4UnH