Listen to the first thirty seconds of this one. Check out the bass, it's quite amazing. So elastic, woody, melodic. Acoustic guitar, one drum on the third beat, nice and easy. Scott Walker's ultra-smooth baritone.
At 0:30, the chorus arrives with a lowing of deep male voices similar to Ennio Morricone's main theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Strings gather in counterpoint, ebbing and flowing.
The Old Man's Back Again is Scott Walker's reaction to the brutal repression of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, in which 137 citizens were killed, the 'old man' being Josef Stalin. His mellow voice disguises his anger at the Soviet crackdown following the liberal reforms of the Prague Spring. It's from his excellent 1969 album, Scott 4.
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