Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #1

1. Scott Walker - Clara (from "The Drift")The fact that for this track an artist is credited with "meat-punching" says it all. It's impossible to adequately describe this surreal poem about a dream of Clara Mussolini, a dream of her own death. It pulls you to the edge, sinking down to the low pits of deathly horror, spiraling upward holding a knife to your throat. Walker's operatic voice is incredible, insistent and urgent, coming from the rafters, haunting your movements as you tumble, disoriented by the spinning strings and the slow, relentless march of drum hits. And the meat... the sounds of fists hitting flesh is undeniably intense. It makes the inescapable doom of Clara's death palpable. And indeed she is dead, you can hear the rope, taut with dead weight, squeeze as it shifts slightly from side to side. Or are those floorboards? Who's behind me? Walker's violins throw your head into the wall, fragments of your shattered skull catch glimpses of the moonlight as the drum's shock decays into the darkness.It all ends with one of the most well-realized spoken word epilogues I've heard on recording. There's really nothing like this track!As with many things I've uploaded, terribly compressed due to its great length. Apologies.