Originally coming to fame in the mid-1960s singing orchestral pop ballads as the frontman of The Walker Brothers, Walker went on to a solo career balancing a light entertainment/MOR ballad approach with increasing artistic innovations in arrangement and writing. Despite a series of acclaimed albums, a disastrous drop in sales forced him back into straight Middle of the road recordings with little of his own artistic input. This in turn eventually led to a Walker Brothers reunion in the mid-1970s (although the latter eventually moved, by mutual consent, into more avant-garde areas).
From the mid-1980s, Walker revived his solo career while drastically reinventing his artistic and compositional methods, via a series of acclaimed and vividly avant-garde albums. These combined his iconic voice with an unsettling avant-garde approach which owed more to modernist and post-modernist classical composition than to his pop singer past. This change in approach has been compared to "Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen".
Walker has been a continuing influence on other artists, in particular The Last Shadow Puppets, Marc Almond, Goldfrapp, Douglas Pearce of the band Death in June, Billy MacKenzie of The Associates, David Sylvian, Julian Cope, Antony Hegarty, Thom Yorke, Steven Wilson, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Trey Spruance, Perry Blake, Radiohead, Noah Lennox, Mikael Åkerfeldt, and the Divine Comedy/Neil Hannon.
Walker continued to release solo material until his death, and was signed to 4AD Records. As a record producer or guest performer he worked with a number of artists including Pulp, Ute Lemper, Bat For Lashes and Sunn O))).
Cossacks Are
Scott Walker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
For a vanished
Style of mind
A noble debut
Tackling vertiginous
Demands
Has absence ever
Sounded so
So sad
I doubt it?"
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The nails
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The pale
Monkey
Nails
"Touching the
Shattered lives
It unearths
A nocturne
Filled with
Glorious ideas
A chilling
Exploration
Of erotic consumption"
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The nails
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The pale
Monkey
Nails
Cossacks are
Charging in
Charging into
Fields of
White roses
Cossacks are
Charging in
Charging into
Fields of
White roses
"That's a nice suit"
"That's a swanky suit"
"Been a pope like no other"
"I'm looking for a good cowboy"
"A rare outcry makes you lead a larger life"
"You could easily picture this in the current top ten"
"Medieval savagery
Calculated cruelty"
"It's hard to pick the worst moment"
Calculated cruelty"
"It's hard to pick the worst moment"
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The nails
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The pale
Monkey
Nails
The song "Cossacks Are" by Scott Walker is a haunting and mysterious piece that is open to interpretation. The lyrics are evocative and poetic, painting vivid images in the listener's mind. The opening lines refer to a "vanished style of mind," which can be interpreted as a comment on the loss of a particular way of thinking or being. The singer then goes on to describe a "noble debut," perhaps referring to a performance or a grand gesture that is meant to impress.
The chorus of the song features the repeated lines "With an arm across the torso, face on the nails, with an arm across the torso, face on the pale monkey nails." It's unclear what this repetition symbolizes, but it adds to the overall sense of unease and tension in the song.
The final section of the song introduces the titular "Cossacks," who are charging into fields of white roses. The significance of this imagery is again open to interpretation, but it suggests a violent or chaotic event.
Overall, "Cossacks Are" is a complex and mysterious song that invites the listener to grapple with its meanings and symbols.
Line by Line Meaning
A moving aria
For a vanished
Style of mind
A noble debut
Tackling vertiginous
Demands
Has absence ever
Sounded so
Eloquent
So sad
I doubt it?
The song is an ode to a lost culture, tackling difficult emotions with grace and beauty. The absence of this culture is truly heartbreaking and unlikely to be replicated.
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The nails
With an arm
Across the
Torso
Face on
The pale
Monkey
Nails
The repeated image of an arm across the torso and face on nails signifies a sense of pain and agony, as if the singer is trying to hold themselves together amidst great suffering.
Touching the
Shattered lives
It unearths
A nocturne
Filled with
Glorious ideas
A chilling
Exploration
Of erotic consumption
The song dives into the deep, dark parts of the soul, bringing to light both beautiful and disturbing ideas about life and love. It is a haunting exploration of human desire and what we do to fulfill it.
Cossacks are
Charging in
Charging into
Fields of
White roses
Cossacks are
Charging in
Charging into
Fields of
White roses
The title of the song seems to evoke images of violence and chaos, with Cossacks charging into fields of white roses. The meaning here is somewhat obscure, but it seems to suggest a clash of beauty and ugliness, of grace and brutality.
"That's a nice suit"
"That's a swanky suit"
"Been a pope like no other"
"I'm looking for a good cowboy"
"A rare outcry makes you lead a larger life"
"You could easily picture this in the current top ten"
"Medieval savagery
Calculated cruelty"
"It's hard to pick the worst moment"
Calculated cruelty"
"It's hard to pick the worst moment"
These phrases appear disjointed and disconnected, but they all evoke a sense of despair and confusion about the world around us. The references to pop culture and history suggest that this is an ongoing, universal feeling that transcends time and space.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind