The Metal Files

When I look back at Thin Lizzy’s catalogue, it blows my mind that the Johnny The Fox  album wasn’t more popular.  Other than the final track, Boogie Woogie Dance, it’s damn near perfect.  Phil sings his heart out on this.  Oddly enough the album is played a half-step down from standard tuning.  I had read a while back that Phil wrote most of while recovering from Hepatitis and tuning down made the songs easier to sing.

Thank God for Hepatitis, eh?

There’s a lot of romanticism and sadness on this album of varying degrees.  Borderline and Old Flame always tug at my heartstrings for various reasons…loves from days gone by.  Phil really had a way of stringing words and phrases together.

Selected verses from Borderline:

Midnight in the big city
At the bar drinking all on my own
Just thinking about that girl and me
How something’s going wrong

Seven beers and still sober
It’s time to change to something stronger
I cannot take this scene no longer
She could have told me it’s all over

Back in my home town
The old place is still the same
But time can cast a spell over something
You can’t go back again

It’s just love or rejection
For this borderline case

No shit, Phil.  I feel ya.  And from Old Flame:

Once this flame it did brightly blaze
Among the ashes there still remains
A glowing spark in my heart
For that old flame of mine

Dude, that’s what I mean.  Old crushes can sometimes die hard (with a vengeance?) .  OK, that was weak.

Then the sarcastic tone of Don’t Believe a Word:

Don’t believe me if I tell you
That I wrote this song for you
There might be some other silly pretty girl
I’m singing it to

Don’t believe me if I tell you
Not a word of this is true
Don’t believe me if I tell you
Especially if I tell you that I’m in love with you

The man…a lot of it is in how he sings it too.  Such a unique vocalist.

Then you have Fool’s Gold.  The romantic notion of leaving your homeland in hopes of finding gold, only to end up with fool’s gold.  Oddly the song takes some odd lyrical turns and tells some other stories that don’t seem so related to the initial subject, but it’s still a great tune.

Then…Massacre.  This song rules.  It’s very metal for 1976.  Iron Maiden did an incredible cover of this.

The song Johnny, Rocky and Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed and are 3 great rocking tunes as well.  Rounding it out is Sweet Marie.  A nice little love song about missing his woman while he’s out on the road.

If you’re even mildly a Thin Lizzy fan, this is one album that needs to be in your collection.

Enjoy the tunes.

RIP Phil.