{"id":165,"date":"2019-12-25T14:17:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T14:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/?p=165"},"modified":"2020-04-25T21:32:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T21:32:17","slug":"zercon-a-flagpole-sitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)\u201d \u2013 Scott Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DgtxzhM5pGw\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Merry Christmas!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gather the family around and listen to the late, great Scott Walker regale us with a tale as old as time. Yes, it\u2019s the story of Zercon, the Moorish dwarf who served as jester to Attila the Hun, and who became so desperate to transcend his brutal, soul-crushing circumstances that he literally elevated himself into the cosmos and became a brown dwarf star (cruel ironies abound in the Walkerverse), freezing and \u201cdrop[ping] into the darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is really what this song is about. It\u2019s over 20 minutes long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scott Walker actually did include a Christmas song at the end of 2012\u2019s <em>Bish Bosch<\/em>, his final solo LP. That would be \u201cThe Day The &#8216;Conducator&#8217; Died (An Xmas Song),\u201d which is about the Christmas Day execution of Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu (the refrain is \u201cnobody waited for \u2018fire\u2019,\u201d repeated over funereal sleigh bells). I considered writing about that one instead of \u201cZercon,\u201d but decided it would be too much of a downer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, if this gets even one person to listen to \u201cSDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)\u201d on Christmas Day, this has all been worth it. Scott Walker was a true genius, and we\u2019ll never see his like again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas!&nbsp; Gather the family around and listen to the late, great Scott Walker regale us with a tale as old as time. Yes, it\u2019s the story of Zercon, the Moorish dwarf who served as jester to Attila the Hun, and who became so desperate to transcend his brutal, soul-crushing circumstances that he literally elevated&hellip; <\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-201x-favorites","tag-scott-walker"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter) - Scott Walker | Rich Bradley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If this gets even one person to listen to &quot;SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)&quot; on Christmas Day, this has all been worth it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter) - Scott Walker | Rich Bradley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If this gets even one person to listen to &quot;SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)&quot; on Christmas Day, this has all been worth it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"RB.org\/songs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/richlbradley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/richlbradley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-25T14:17:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-04-25T21:32:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/scott3icon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rich Bradley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@rlbradley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@rlbradley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rich Bradley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rich Bradley\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/#\/schema\/person\/20a932bf4ce1b2724037a850355d507c\"},\"headline\":\"\u201cSDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)\u201d \u2013 Scott Walker\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-25T14:17:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-04-25T21:32:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\"},\"wordCount\":220,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/#\/schema\/person\/20a932bf4ce1b2724037a850355d507c\"},\"keywords\":[\"Scott Walker\"],\"articleSection\":[\"201X Favorites\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/zercon-a-flagpole-sitter\/\",\"name\":\"SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter) - 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