A while back I saw a friend’s band play. One of the songs he played was by Ocean Colour Scene; I thought it was Thin Lizzy, though, and it got me thinking of what a great old band Thin Lizzy was, and how Phil Lynott is the epitome of rock ‘n’ roll… and I also got to thinking that it’s been a long time since I listened to Thin Lizzy. So I set out to do something about that.
Turns out my timing is impeccable – last year was some sort of anniversary apparently, because they reissued all of the Thin Lizzy CDs in expanded editions. Bonus! So I’ve started snapping them up, starting with Johnny The Fox, then Chinatown and Jailbreak. My wife went to Japan, and managed to get me Live And Dangerous, since it’s not available here at all.
TLj
Thin Lizzy, “Jailbreak”, Expanded Edition – A great album full of tough guy songs like the clobbering title track, but the album is a bit uneven. “Angel From The Coast” is a funky number that doesn’t really stand out, “Running Back” is a poppy boppy number that comes off as a bit silly (songs like this, and the direly icky funk ballad “Romeo And The Lonely Girl” would never have appeared on later albums like Chinatown or Thunder And Lightning). Happily, Phil Lynott’s lyrics and vocal delivery are what keeps even weaker numbers alive, so it’s not such a big deal, but “Warriors” brings back the tough guy theme of the album. It’s a menacing, brooding rocker, all menace and savagery. Nice, with funky vocal effects. “Death has no easy answer for those who wish to know.” Awesome! “The Boys Are Back In Town” everyone knows, with its simple riffs, its breathless lyrical storytelling, there’s a whole movie in there, and some funky double guitar blazery. Their biggest hit, according to the liner notes they weren’t originally considering it for a single, but the suits knew one when they heard one. Nice, since a hit single was so badly needed for a band somewhat stuck in a rut in terms of their fan base and potential. “Fight Or Fall” is a bit wimpy-sounding, despite the tough name, and “Cowboy Song” is simple silliness that takes a while to warm up. Meanwhile, “Emerald” is pure Irish torch fire – what a crackling number! Totally unknown on Canadian classic rock radio programming I listened to growing up. Only four minutes long, but pure madness – some proto Iron Maiden twin guitar attack, and what a solo!!! Rock ‘n’ roll!
At 94 minutes, Jailbreak actually warrants the double disc format it comes in (unlike so many other double CDs, where the combined running time comes under less than a single CD – why not combine them onto one CD?), and it’s generous with its extras, including two additional versions of the release’s biggest tracks, “The Boys Are Back In Town” and “Emerald.” The remix of “Jailbreak” starts off with Phil yelling out “okay, we know you’re in there – come out with your hands up!” Most of the versions are pretty regular, but the extended version of “Fight Or Fall”, in a rough mix, has some pretty cool touches, and the “brother brother” stuff at the end, with its growling, just kind of goes on and on and on and on… The band also has a song called “Blues Boy”, a truly bluesy number that sweeps and sways with some silly improvised lyrics, along with “Derby Blues”, an early version of “Cowboy Song”.
TLJTF
Thin Lizzy, “Johnny The Fox”, Expanded Edition – This album was recorded when Phil Lynott came down with hepatitis, too big to go on his potentially world-crushing world tour opening for Deep Purple on the success of Jailbreak. Well, we may not have had a world tour out of Thin Lizzy at that stage, so we got this album instead. More tales like “The Boys Are Back In Town”. Opening track “Johnny” is about a doomed gangster, full of darkness and violence, it rocks. “Rocky” is loud and squeezed out, with a dark, funky groove, somewhat restrained, a bit listless (like the album). “Borderline” is a pretty little number with nice acoustic guitar and screaming leads, and dark lyrics about a gangster and his girl – kind of an early power ballad, that closes out with some wicked solo guitar. “Don’t Believe A Word” kicks out the jams, though, with a love song from a liar, it’s cool, wicked and short (2:20). Love it. “Fool’s Gold” is a spooky, scary tale of fools being betrayed into going to the New World where what awaited them was… death!!!! Deep and spooky song, but with a catchy chorus. “Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed” is a cool, weird song about gangsters, all arty and jazzy, funky. Something pretty weird for Thin Lizzy, showing also how versatile these guys were. “Old Flame” is a glistening ballad song, nothing special, while “Massacre” is a righteous, angry song (Iron Maiden covered it on a B-side), “Sweet Marie is the band’s most saccharine song ever, and album closer “Boogie Woogie Dance” is wacky funk that gets pretty aggro, nice closer. Some love this album, but it sounds to me like it doesn’t know what it wants to be, and outside of a few really awesome tracks (“Don’t Believe A Word”, “Massacre”) the album is a bit weak.
The extras are so-so, mainly alternate versions of the songs that we heard on the regular album, along with instrumental run-throughs that are really nothing special, other than historical, archival documents, and geek curiosities. They evidence the fact that they scraped the bottom of the barrel to put this together. At least the fans can be satisfied. There’s a funky little jam called “Scott’s Tune” on the album, which is nice. It funks, it rocks, it rolls. It funks. Yeah… it funks.
The CD comes in a nice cardboard pack with cool photos and a nice booklet full of groovy photos. Of course, there’s less than 72 minutes of music in the collection, meaning that all this music could have easily fit onto one disc. Hmmm…
TLC
Thin Lizzy, “Chinatown”, Expanded Edition – Thin Lizzy just kept getting better and better as a band, and this one really hits home. It opens with “We Will Be Strong,” which doesn’t really have a heavy riff, but is full of great anthemic stuff, and nice vocal production stuff. The second song is the killer, “Chinatown”, the title track, full of tales of drugs and mystery, with one of the best opening riffs and delivery of all time. Wicked. Beautiful, beautiful solo, with the rhythm guitarist and the lead guitarist trading licks, awesome. Living in Singapore and playing in a band, this is one of the songs that we should cover (along with “Chinese Rocks” by the Ramones and “China White” by the Scorpions). “Sweetheart” is a bit weird and sappy, with its nonsense rhyming, but it’s also a nice, thick, dense, driving, catchy rock song. Love it. “Sugar Blues”, the fourth number, is the first (and maybe only) so-so song on the album, although it’s funky in its own rude way – great solo, though! “Killer On The Loose” is about Jack the Ripper, that eternal topic of hard rock songs, with a sweeping, evil backbone that throbs, roars and moans, with spooky dynamics. “Having A Good Time” is Thin Lizzy’s answer to Queen’s “Don’t Stop”, a good raucous fun, happy song, with Phil talking to his bandmates, “we like to party, we like to go out and get drunk.” The next song, “Genocide (The Killing Of The Buffalo)”, is a more sombre affair – a dark, spooky riff, and deep, rumbling vocals about the killing of the buffalo… but really it’s about the killing of the native Americans. “There are people around here who get it right, there are people around here who can’t sleep at night, there are people around here who go slow, there are people round here who don’t take kindly to the killing of the buffalo.” And he fits it all into a great vocal metre – and it just goes on and on and on… awesome! “Didn’t I” is a bluesy, mellow song with some cool lyrics. The last song on the studio album, “Hey You”, has a reggae start-off, then it gets going and going and going. Nice and nasty. “Hey you – you’re heading for a life of crime!!!” It slows down from time to time to be reggae-ish, that’s all right… nice.
The second CD is full of bonus tracks such as a song from the Killer On The Loose 7″ called “Don’t Play Around” (a great song about someone who plays dangerously – hard rocking, “He slipped that knife right into her gut / I wanna tell you she was lucky with what she got”, “If you give your love to someone and someone treats you bad / If you give your love to someone and someone makes you mad / Don’t play around”… screaming solo – best song on the set), we get a live version of it later on as well, a US edit, and a whole bunch of live songs, whether live in Cork, Dublin and Hammersmith in 1980/1981, or from an undated soundcheck. The live songs are great, and fully energetic, with plenty of cool Phil Lynott crowd talk (including some bad jokes at the Hammersmith – “Anyone out there with a little Irish in them? And of the ladies out there who want a little more Irish in them?” There’s also a great version of “Whiskey In The Jar” (recorded in Cork, crowd participation is fantastic – they sing most of the song!!) and “Are You Ready” (live in Dublin), both classic Thin Lizzy songs that don’t actually appear on the first disc, making this the expanded set with the most tidbits to offer! Absolutely stunning solo on “Got To Give It Up”, which is full of great rock moodiness. “Dear Miss Lonely Hearts” from Lynott’s solo album “Solo In Soho” turns up, it sounds… okay. Lynott is a master of crowd response, and the audience is fully under his control in “Killer On The Loose” – he has them in the palm of his hand!! The sound check versions that fill out the end of the CD can be kind of listless (they are also a lot longer than any of the other versions on the release), but the one for “Didn’t I” turns up a nice lyric that isn’t on the original, “There are people in this town that say I don’t give a shit / But the people in this town, there are people who are full of it, there are people who are full of it.” But those sound checks may surprise – “Hey You” speeds up eventually and finishes with a great, blistering (there’s that word again) solo. Rock ‘n’ ROLL!!!!!
Why they left “Don’t Play Around”, their best song from this era, off this album, though, I’ll never know…
TLLAD
Thin Lizzy, “Live And Dangerous”, Expanded Edition – The great live album… although the liner notes go on to dispute how live it really is and how much is added in production, some saying it’s 75% live, others saying that it’s 75% re-created. No matter, though, the album is good fun, starting off with “Breakout”, Phil appealing to the band “we need your helping hands!” He also indulges in crappy jokes, like “Is there anyone here with a little Irish in them? Are there any of the girls who’d like a little more Irish in them?” No matter, they then launch into “Emerald”, one of their best songs, with its rolling riffs and wicked soloing. “Southbound” is fairly chilled out, setting us up for the Bob Seger cover of “Rosalie.” “Dancing In The Moonlight It’s Caught Me In Its Spotlight)” features some nice saxophone from a member of the Graham Parker band, with which the band was touring with (they were also touring with a band called Clover, that featured a young singer and harmonicist called Huey Lewis), along with its groovy groovy tunes. “Massacre” is mighty and brave (yeah!!!), sounding for all its bluster like a lost Iron Maiden track. That’s followed with the masterful “Still In Love With You”, one of the most amazing songs the band ever recorded for its wandering emotionality and sentiment. That and the huge, huge guitar solos that flood its second half… wow! “Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed” is funky strangeness, while “Cowboy Song” starts off CD 2, setting us up for a slam into “The Boys Are Back In Town” (the crowd goes wiiiiiild!!!), and a string of hard-hitting numbers “Don’t Believe A Word”, “Warriors”, and the superior rocker “Are You Ready?” Yes, we’re ready!!! “Suicide” is a slow boiler, sinister storytelling in the full Phil Lynott vein. “Sha-La-La” is a silly, funky song that is mainly a set-up for a drum solo – oooohhh…!!! “Baby Drives Me Crazy” is bluesy funk, and Phil introduces the band, including Huey Lewis on the harmonica. “We’d like you to make a lot of noise for the road crew!” The road crew?!?!? “We’d like to thank everybody for coming, especially if you came two or three times. Are you out there? I said ARE YOU OUT THERE?!?!?” That man was pure show! Album closer “The Rocker” warns little girls to stay out of his way, this is AC/DC territory with a bit less nose and flame. But it funks along with the rock!
The CD also comes with two bonus tracks, “Opium Trail”, which tell scary tales of the Golden Triangle (and has a fantastic wah-driven solo) and “Bad Reputation”, the growling rocker that has another drum solo in it (I guess that they didn’t include this one, seeing as “Sha-La-La” already had one, ha ha…
The set comes wit the Live And Dangerous DVD, which has previously been released along with a ton of other stuff. But, since it’s nice to have it all in one go, we get it all in one go! The beginning of the DVD shows a truck driving down the street to drop off the gear to get the show going, kind of like AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, okay. But this is Live At The Rainbow, ’78. Band comes in over “Rosalie”, then kicks off with “The Boys Are Back In Town.” Things really get cooking with “Emerald”, probably Thin Lizzy’s best song (among so many standout tracks). Shot of Brian Robertson playing guitar with cigarette in hand is recycled. “If God is in the heavens, how can this happen here” line from “Genocide” is ultra powerful. “Still In Love With You”, Brian Robertson plays first solo, Scott Gorham the second, both amazing. Watching Phil Lynott peel off those lines is just great, even as he plays solid bass lines. Wow. Scott Gorham solo on “Are You Ready” also amazing, Brian Robertson takes a puff of a cig then does his solo. “Sha La La”, Brian Downey solos furiously, the band comes in, more soloing, at the end of the song Downey hits the gong, flash pots go off all right! Introduces band in “Baby Drives Me Crazy”, crowd follows along on that “b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-baby” stuff, funny. Band goes off, but comes back quickly for an encore of “Me And The Boys” (is this right? sounds like a different song) that is kicked off by Phil and Brian Downey, then Brian Roberston and Scott Gorham come running in, it’s the best song in the set! During the solo, you see a fan touch the headstock of Brian Robertson’s guitar (he often gets close to the crowd when he solos), he pulls back, the guitar stays in tune… and the day is saved.