The Legacy of 1981's Fire Escape In The Sky
Fire Escape In The Sky
The Godlike Genius of SCOTT WALKER
Released: August 28, 1981. Label: Zoo Records
Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker is an anthology of twelve original songs released by Scott Walker between 1967 and 1970, compiled by Julian Cope, then the frontman of Liverpool band The Teardrop Explodes. Released in August 1981 on the short-lived, Liverpool-based Zoo Records label, run by Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe, it was issued in a plain sleeve with subtle typography by Martyn Atkins and no sleeve notes, with a title taken from the lyrics of Big Louise.
In a 2011 Guardian series of its writers’ favourite albums, Bob Stanley called the compilation “an artefact that is a distinctive blend of pop fandom, mystique and skyscraping ambition”.
Walker’s solo career “had almost been forgotten” when the compilation was released, Stanley wrote. “[H]is solo work was remembered [then], if at all, as a brief postscript to the Walker Brothers’ hit run. These 12 exceptional songs, wrapped in what looked like a grey felt sleeve embossed with olive-green lettering, were buried deep. It is hard to recall just how deep. At the turn of the ’80s, Pet Sounds was out of print, and the world of reissues was in nappies.”
Julian Cope was introduced to Scott Walker’s music by Paul Simpson of Wild Swans. “I’m doing a Scott compilation album for Zoo,” Cope told Chris Salewicz of Creem Magazine three months before the anthology was released. “I’m freaking out about it: he’s one of my favourite ever-ever singers, and I’ve got the chance to compile all his songs! It’s quite a presumptuous, pompous thing to do, but all I’m saying really is that if you didn’t hear them the first time round, listen to them now.”
He added, “Scott Walker had the most disarming sounds you could bear on his records, with the most beautiful melodies. …loads of rock bands become lost because they’re at the wrong time, but it doesn’t make them any less great that people don’t realise how good they are until later.”
Asked to contribute to director Stephen Kijak’s Scott Walker documentary, 30 Century Man, Cope sent an email which was shown and read in the film: “My reason for releasing it…was because I’d been buying up his LPs for between 80p and £1.20 all over Liverpool and Bimringham, and giving them to friends and/or anyone who would listen. Furthermore, I really felt Scott had been utterly lost in terms of culture.”
In 2011 Guardian and Observer writer (and St. Etienne member) Bob Stanley cited Fire Escape in the Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker as ‘My favourite album’, writing:
“What made Fire Escape in the Sky all the more unusual was that it was put together by a Smash Hits pin-up, the Teardrop Explodes' Julian Cope. He had talked about Walker – as well as then barely mentioned names such as Love, the Left Banke, Tim Buckley – plenty in interviews, but put his balls on the line with this album. One listen to Plastic Palace People or Boychild and you could hear the inspiration for Cope's own Christ Versus Warhol or Tiny Children.
It was an act of extraordinary generosity and selflessness. He was a model pop star, a one-man gateway to music's past and future. Sleevenotes would have burst the bubble. Cope was smart enough to unlock the door and walk away – after that you were on your own.”
In a 2020 article on Liverpool pop culture site Sun-13, Liverpool musician Dave ‘Yorkie’ Palmer remembers Walker’s part in Cope’s early career. “[The Teardrop Explodes] were courted by a number of record companies at the time, and I think the deciding factor for Julian signing to Mercury Records was the fact that it was a division of Phonogram Records…the home of Scott Walker, and his first classic solo albums (Scott 1, 2, 3 & 4). The head of the label gave him tapes of all the solo stuff that Julian had been hunting down. Pristine copies. He was in heaven.”
Fans of Fire Escape In The Sky included Marc Almond, who covered Big Louise in 1982 with his band, Marc and the Mambas, Walker’s early b-side, The Plague, on his 1986 A Woman’s Story EP. Jacky for a 1991 single release, and wrote the liner notes for the 1990 Scott Walker compilation Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967–1970.
Fire Escape In The Sky got to no. 14 on the UK Independent Charts, and was one of only two releases on the Zoo label.
Track Listing
Such a Small Love 4:53
Big Louise 3:07
Little Things (That Keep Us Together) 2:18
Plastic Palace People 6:06
Girls From the Streets 4:10
It's Raining Today 3:55
Seventh Seal 4:55
The Amorous Humphrey Plugg 4:29
Angels of Ashes 4:18
Boychild 3:35
Montague Terrace (In Blue) 3:28
Always Coming Back to You 2:40
I celebrated by giving Linda Mac [McCartney] a copy of Fire Escape in the Sky, this was a compilation of Scott Walker recordings which we had released on Zoo Records, Bill Drummond and I had licensed the tapes and I’d picked out my favourite stuff. We even designed a plain grey album sleeve. I wanted all those post-punk dudes and dudettes to buy Scott in droves.
From Head On by Julian Cope
First published by Magog Books Ltd (A division of K.A.K. Ltd) 1994
Julian Cope 1981 by Fin Costello