I agree. I don’t dislike Thin Lizzy at all, but wouldn’t put them that high in my top lists of bands. It’s hard to dislike them!
I am no longer making a thin lizzy appreciation post
I’ve never listened to them and would welcome a thin lizzy 101 post @MoH
DO IT! I’d always appreciate anything musical!
tonight there’ll be an appreciation post
Somewhere in this thread
See I’m gonna force you all to like it
So there’ll be YouTube links up and down
thin lizzy
for those who don’t know, thin lizzy was an irish rock band active from 1969 to the early 1980’s with the golden age happening during the 1970’s. if you didn’t know that, you’ve still heard the boys are back in town.
their most immediately recognizable features of a thin lizzy song are the twin guitar attack and the voice of bassist and primary songwriter phil lynott (pictured above with mayor mccheese). the twin guitar attack was later recreated through the high-flying leads of iron maiden and similar NWOBH bands, but thin lizzy brought a bluesy virtuosity and tasteful restraint not seen in their epigones. phil lynott is simply irreplaceable and inimitable.
like all working bands of this time, thin lizzy had some duds. they released only one album that’s close to perfect, but even that has a questionable turd. however, their best songs are the best rock and roll music has to offer. phil lynott was an artist and a poet. the rotating cast of musicians that filled thin lizzy’s ranks through the years elevated his songs about love and despair in working class life to operatic proportions. this “raw refinement” is what gives thin lizzy the magic. they’re so catchy you can simply rock out and have a good time, but there’s plenty to chew on there should you so choose. there are other bands that have attempted such a combination and some have even succeeded, but none so elegantly as thin lizzy.
i’m going to highlight some of my favorite songs from each of their eras.
s/t (1971)
this album is not really that good so i’m not going to link anything from it, but if you feel a little crazy check out “look what the wind just blew in” or “dublin.”
shaded of a blue orphanage (1972)
this album is also not that good (list off to a great start), but it does contain the first great thin lizzy song. however, it’s not even their song. it’s an old irish folk song called whiskey in the jar (o). as far as i can tell, thin lizzy’s most significant contribution to this old diddy was the little guitar lead. i realize i spit on tradition by saying this, but the lead is so good it’s made it impossible to listen to any other version of the song (especially the metallica version):
for those like me who have heard this song a million times before, i also recommend listening to the acoustic version, even if only to hear the vocal delivery of
Now some men like the fishin’
And some men like the fowlin’
And some men like ta hear
A cannon ball a roarin’
Me? I like sleepin’
Especially in my Molly’s chamber
But here I am in prison
Here I am with a ball and chain, yeah
vagabonds of the western world (1973)
okay, now we’re getting somehwhere. while this isn’t quite vintage lizzy just yet, the ingredients are beginning to appear. the opening track “mama nature said” is one of my favorites, but i want to highlight the album’s standout “little girl in bloom”:
a very weird title for a very weird song. the thick bass tone and sparse guitar during the verse is almost post-punk in it’s approach, an alienating and haunting sound that matches the lyrical content. this sensation becomes even more enigmatic when we’re met with the charming, melancholy chorus.
nightlife (1974)
thin lizzy goes soul? nightlife is a great album, but a bit atypical from the traditional thin lizzy sound. it’s very smooth and laid back. it makes me feel like smoking a cigarette. i could easily recommend “showdown” off this album, but i’ll take the opportunity to talk about the album’s most famous track, “still in love with you.” you may have already heard this song, but the sade cover:
if you want some top notch guitar wankery, i recommend listening to the live version from tin liz.
fighting (1975)
maybe my second or third favorite thin lizzy album and the first where the “thin lizzy sound” is locked in. they’ll continue to evolve this sound, but they never completely relinquish what they found on this album. my favorite song from it is also one of my favorite thin lizzy songs ever and kinda captures everything i’m trying to say, “for those who love to live”:
the high octane intro with the harmonizing guitars, the smooth noodling of the verse, the way the vocal melody dips on the 2nd and 4th measures of the verse, the upbeat chorus, and even the message of “You’ve got to give a little bit of love/To those who love to live” is just all so good. don’t even get me started on the ascension of the ending.
jailbreak (1976)
kinda nuts to think they were recording all these albums back to back. further proof that rock and roll belongs to the young. anyway, this was the thin lizzy breakout album and the start of their true golden age. home to both the title track and “the boys are back in town,” two rare songs that don’t get annoying or worse after hearing them thousands of times, the rest of the album has always struck me as a little distant, like someone who is nice and impressive but is nonetheless unrevealing. thus it’s fitting that the album’s best song is about cowboys, a fantasy about life on the lonesome plains:
very catchy riffing and a momentum with a life of its own. this song feels epic in a way that extends well beyond it’s 5 minutes.
johnny the fox (1976)
holy shit, they released this the same year as jailbreak??? that actually explains a lot lol. i used to get johnny the fox confused with chinatown as “the late period thin lizzy album that has some surprisingly solid songs.” and that is still true! but that it came out between a string of all time classics gives is a bit of an also-ran feeling. thinking about it now, both johnny the fox and chinatown have kickass songs about buffalo. hm. but let’s look at fool’s gold.
fool’s gold is a great example of a lynott “story song.” he’s able to capture such complicated scenes of broken lives in just a few couplets:
Broken Joe just lying in a gutter
He’s gone as low as any man can be
He calls for wine but they’ll only serve him water
The bartender says, “We don’t sell sympathy”He tells a strange story about his father
How Sunday morning they’d go down to the church on the corner
As time grows older his thoughts they grow younger
It is his wish to search no longer
bad reputation (1977)
dogshit album art, but an arguable contender for the best thin lizzy album next to jailbreak and black rose. the rock and roll lifestyle was catching up to the band at this point and things were falling apart a bit at the seams. that didn’t stop them from writing such classics as the opium trail, southbound, or the thin lizzy song closest to my heart, “dancing in the moonlight”:
not much one can add. if you listen to any song on this list, make it this one!
black rose: a rock legend
if you ask me, the best thin lizzy album and nearly perfect were it not for s&m. everything is so condensed and concentrated in these songs, their pop instincts honed and perfected without yet losing their edge, the harder rock of the 80’s adding to their pub rock roots instead of overtaking them, lynott still writing lyrics like he has life to gain instead of life to lose. really great. let’s look at “waiting for an alibi”:
Valentino’s in a cold sweat
Placed all his money on that last bet
Against all the odds he smokes another cigarette
Says that it helps him to forget he’s a nervous wreckIt’s not that he misses much
Or even that he’s lost his lucky touch
It’s just he gambles so much
And you know that it’s wrong
maybe thin lizzy ain’t for you if you’ve never had a night like that. but if you have, may i suggest you find recognition in the way lynott sings these lines.
i’m also going to break my self-imposed rule of one song per album and point you to “got to give it up”:
lynott was already deep in the heroin addiction that would later kill him. i feel like maybe i’ve quoted lyrics a bit too much already, so i’d urge you instead to just listen to it. killer riff too.
chinatown (1980)
after black rose, it was all downhill. like i said about johnny the fox, this album’s best quality is that it’s surprisingly good. it has a song about killing buffalo, the opening track is a nice mid-tempo number, but the song i’m most partial to on the album is “sweetheart”:
it sounds like thin lizzy trying to cover a thin lizzy song.
renegade (1981)
most people say this is the worst thin lizzy album. they might be right. but they can’t deny this album has the second best rock song called angel of death, and it has “the pressure will blow”:
even if this is my favorite song on the album, even i have to admit the chorus feels like they’re trying a bit too hard to say “hey we still got it”
thunder and lightning (1983)
the last thin lizzy studio album. uh i don’t know. it kinda sucks. it’s like “yeah this is definitely an 80’s album.”
phil lynott died 3 years later at the young age of 36. there’s a statue of him in dublin that i’d love to see, and there’s also a great clip of an lemmy killmeister interview where he says lynott is the only dead person he wishes was still around because “he was a great geezer.”
instead of ending on a bummer, i’m going to cheat a bit and include…
live and dangerous (1978)
this was released at the band’s peak. just one of the best live albums of all time.
this isn’t from the record itself but from the same tour i think. it’s also really shitty quality with a watermark that doesn’t go away. but still goated.
in a twist, writing about thin lizzy like this actually has me less convinced of their greatness than i originally suspected. their catalog is just too spotty. however, they are still one of my greats and have to be in the top 5 of most-minutes-played since i started listening to rock music as a wee lad. some of my favorite songs to play on guitar, too. so much expression going on.
enjoy!
Thank you for the write-up. I barely listen to rock music so this is actually helpful for me to become familiar with certain bands. I didn’t know that Sade song was a cover for example. I think my favorite out of the ones you posted is also your favorite: for those who love to live.
i was messing around in garageband last night and made a little thin lizzy type part
i’m actually pretty chuffed with how it turned out so i might have some more fun and make a thin lizzy tribute song and get some real drums and bass on there
Now that is
Kendrick’s Super Bowl performance was cool. Hell of an artist.
I smiled so hard when he spoke directly into the camera at Drake. As a career Drake/Jay-Z/Diddy hater, I’ve been EATING the past few months
I didn’t follow this whole drama too close but I was losley aware of the events and like not like us. Watched the performance on YouTube and my take is “dang I didn’t realize public executions were legal in the USA”
Just imagine being in that man’s brain for a day.
The Magnetic Fields are just too fucking good. Thats all I wanted to say.
Sad to report that Drake continues to commit the worst sin of all…being BORING
Liking Drake was never exactly cool, especially now, but I’ve always felt enough of a vestigial admiration for him to check out what he does. And he can still make a good song every now and then even when he’s being really embarrassing with his accent work.
Sometime around More Life he started singing in melody and rhythm completely detached from whatever production work was happening in the background. This made his music feel a bit schizophrenic and dissociative, but now it’s worse because he doesn’t even sing hooks anymore! Like what the fuck is going on here:
It’s so languid and obese, a decade of indulgence creating nothing but deadened boredom, first take scratch demos passed through ableton filters in order to fit an algorithm-friendly inflated track list.
The difference is especially stark when listening to one of his earlier songs like Take Care, but even his more impressionistic ones still had some swing and coherence: