Scott Walker refuses to listen to old songs despite Proms accolade

Scott Walker has admitted being surprised that the BBC are to devote an entire Prom to his songs from 50 years ago – because he would never dream of listening to them

Walker, once referred to as “pop’s own Salinger”, is a self-confessed loner and rarely gives interviews but he did agree to meet Jarvis Cocker before Tuesday’s concert celebrating his solo music from the late 1960s.

In the interview for BBC Radio 6 Music, 74-year-old Walker admits that he is not one for looking back but “I don’t have any objection to people singing my stuff … I was just wow, it is quite a surprise, it’s quite an honour”.

Cocker asks if news of the Prom had encouraged him to listen to them again. “No,” he says firmly. “With that kind of thing, with any past recordings, I’m like Don Quixote being confronted by the Knight of Mirrors. All I ever do is hear the faults, I never hear anything else, so I never listen.”

Walker was a teen idol in the 1960s as lead singer with the Walker Brothers, known as America’s Beatles, whose hits included The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) and Make It Easy on Yourself.

His subsequent career has been one of avant garde experimentalism, often gloomy, sometimes baffling, but always, his fans would say, beautiful and interesting.

At Tuesday’s Prom, Cocker – along with John Grant, Richard Hawley and Susanne Sundfør – will perform songs including Copenhagen and It’s Raining Today, which Walker wrote between 1967 and 1970 and were on his revered solo albums Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4.

Cocker was keen for tips on how he should go about performing songs that were clearly deeply personal to Walker. “Well make it as new as you can, that’s the only thing I can say, otherwise it goes in to karaoke ... just try to approach it in a new way.”

But he had no advice on how to approach the lyrics. “I can’t help you there unfortunately; you have to find your own way into that. I just did it the way I did it.”

Walker has gained a reputation for being a taciturn interviewee on the very few occasions he has agreed to speak but that was not the case for Cocker’s interview, to be broadcast on Sunday.

He talks about his love of Jaques Brel, jazz, European cinema and London fog and reveals how The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) was nearly a disaster. The band had to record four songs in a three-hour session and the studio rules were rigid – second chances were not allowed.

He knew the song would be a big hit but admitted: “The fixer who fixed that session, and it didn’t happen often, hired a really deaf guitar player who had to play the intro and it just wasn’t happening. I demanded that we re-record that and we recorded it again with all the right guys.”

• Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service is on Sunday, 4-6pm. The Songs of Scott Walker – Late Night Prom is on Tuesday 25 July at 10.15pm – simulcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC 6 Music.