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Listen to Scott Walker Talk With Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker in a Rare Interview [UPDATE]

A two-hour BBC Radio program airing on Sunday will feature an interview between Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and his hero/collaborator Scott Walker, the enigmatic former-Walker-Brother-turned-avant-garde-visionary. The notoriously private Walker, who never performs live and often goes years or decades without releasing music, hasn’t given a substantive interview in four years. His last release was an orchestral soundtrack to last year’s Brady Corbet-directed film The Childhood of a Leader.

The BBC teased the interview with a series of minute-long clips. In them, Walker talks about writing songs on guitar and “hearing the arrangements in his head” at the same time, how he can’t listen to his music as soon as it’s finished, and his love for European film as a young man moving to England.

The program will also include a replay of a “dusty old cassette” Scott Walker sent into the BBC for a program celebrating David Bowie‘s 50th birthday, which you can hear in the first clip below. “You always embraced the new and freed so many artists,” Walker said on the 1997 tape. “I’d like to thank you for all the years, and especially your generosity of spirit when it comes to other artists. I’ve been the beneficiary on more than one occasion, let me tell you.”

After the message is played, you can hear Bowie’s speechless and tearful reaction, which the host clarifies was cut down from “30 seconds or even longer.” Bowie called Walker his “idol since [he] was a kid.” Listen below; the full interview runs on Sunday at 11am EST.

Update (July 23): Jarvis Cocker’s full interview with Scott Walker is now available to stream via the BBC Radio 6 website. It will remain available for 30 days.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p013ng9v/player

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058ghtp/player

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058ghtt/player

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058ghv4/player

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058ghv6/player

[Pitchfork]