Scott Walker (Noel Scott Engel, January 9, 1943 - March 22, 2019) was an Am… Read Full Bio ↴Scott Walker (Noel Scott Engel, January 9, 1943 - March 22, 2019) was an American-born singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. He is noted for his distinctive baritone voice and for the unorthodox career path which took him from 1960s pop icon to 21st century avant-garde musician.

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))).

If Ships Were Made to Sail
Scott Walker Lyrics

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If ships were made to sail
Out through the star clouds
It'll be the world of somewhere
All greed and fair
And I would go to Alpha Centauri
And I would be a living there

If I could fall up long night, reach the time gone

Then touch him infernity
I'd find a forest hill and clean fresh air

If I could go to Alpha Centauri
Then I would be a living there

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Scott Walker's "If Ships Were Made to Sail" create a sense of longing of escape from the present world. The opening line, "If ships were made to sail out through the star clouds," suggests a desire to leave the Earth and travel into the unknown. The phrase "all greed and fair" reflects the desire for an ideal world where there is no greed or injustice, a world that can only be reached by leaving the present one. The singer further describes his desire to travel to Alpha Centauri, a star system closest to our solar system. In this world, he imagines himself living in a utopia, surrounded by "clean fresh air" and "forests hills."

The second stanza continues the theme of escape, with the singer describing his wish to "fall up long night" and "reach the time gone" - observations that evoke a sense of time travel, where he can touch "eternity." The line "I'd find a forest hill and clean fresh air" depicts a picture of serenity and calm, a world without the chaos of the present earth. The repeated reference to Alpha Centauri, an actual star system, emphasizes the sense of place and destination, a world that exists beyond the present one, a physical location where the singer can escape the difficulties of life.

Line by Line Meaning

If ships were made to sail
If the purpose of ships was to traverse the open sea

Out through the star clouds
In the vastness of space beyond even our galaxy

It'll be the world of somewhere
There would exist a world, a place of wonder and possibility

All greed and fair
A world of balance and fairness, free of corruption and malice

And I would go to Alpha Centauri
If given the chance, I would journey to the nearest star system outside our own

And I would be a living there
I would make a new home among the stars

If I could fall up long night, reach the time gone
If I could transcend the limits of time and space and explore the far reaches of the universe

Then touch him infernity
I would attain a transcendent understanding of existence

I'd find a forest hill and clean fresh air
I would discover new worlds, full of life and vitality, unspoiled by the damage of humanity

If I could go to Alpha Centauri
If I could journey to this distant star system

Then I would be a living there
I would thrive in this new world, forging a new path among the stars