Thin Lizzy, "Jailbreak"

CJ’s been hangin’ down at Dino’s

CJ’s Pitch:

Of her, whose history began

Before G-d made the angelic clan,

Trails all about the written page.

When Time began to rant and rage

The measure of her flying feet

Make Ireland’s heart begin to beat;

And Time bade all his candles flare

To light a measure here and there;

And may the thoughts of Ireland brood

Upon a measured quietude.

• “To Ireland in the Coming Times”-W.B. Yeats

From their graves I heard the fallen

Above the battle cry

By that bridge near the border

There were many more to die

Then onward over the mountain

And outward towards the sea

They had come to claim the Emerald

Without it they could not leave

• “Emerald” -Thin Lizzy

Ireland has had more than her fair share of gifted poets and storytellers. I guess being in a centuries-long fight for independence inspires strong words. Certainly, William Butler Yeats is in the pantheon of great Irish patriots who did their fighting with the pen rather than the sword. But today I want to talk about the fellas who wrote the second verse above. The one that describes a Viking raid on their beloved Eire in a song called “Emerald”, my favorite cut from Thin Lizzy’s 1976 smash Jailbreak.

When I first decided to pitch this album, I was going to talk about how Thin Lizzy fit comfortably into one of my favorite musical eras, mid-to-late ‘70’s hard rock. It’s a style that’s discernibly heavier than ‘70’s pop, but not quite in the same fraternity as ‘70’s metal. This genre includes bands like Rainbow, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Blue Öyster Cult among others.

(If you’re a fan of Billions, you know that the show’s Music Supervisor, Jim Black, dips into this musical well quite often. So much so that I hardly ever jump off the couch and yell, “Holy crap! They’re playing a UFO song!” anymore.)

And while Thin Lizzy certainly shares a lot of characteristics with those bands, the more I listened the more I realized that I was going in the wrong direction if I wanted to succeed with Mitch and Ken. Because the real comparison here isn’t with a bunch of shaggy British bands, it’s with a distinctly American rocker.

Here it comes:

Thin Lizzy’s lead singer and chief songwriter, Phil Lynott, is the Irish Bruce Springsteen.

You heard me right, boys. Phil and Bruce are cosmic cousins. Both had troubled relationships with distant fathers, both felt like outsiders as kids, both turned to music as an outlet and both are fiercely loyal to their homelands.

Lynott writes about Ireland the way Springsteen writes about New Jersey, if New Jersey were being ruled by a distant group of wealthy Protestants. Say, Connecticut. (Man, this metaphor is getting stronger by the minute.) Phil has Bruce’s flair for careening through a fist-pumping anthem one minute and then bringing you to your knees with a heart-breaking ballad the next. When the twin lead guitar attack of Thin Lizzy and multi-pronged power of E Street are in full effect, they both sound like the best bar bands in the world.

No doubt you know the ubiquitous “The Boys Are Back in Town” the same way you know the ever-present “Born in the USA”. (Ironically, both songs have been used at political rallies for clueless candidates who clearly didn’t read the lyrics.) And perhaps the song “Jailbreak” reminds you of “Out in the Streets.” Now listen to “Angel from the Coast” and tell me you don’t hear Bruce telling tales of grifters and losers like he does in “Lost in the Flood”. And you can’t absorb “Running Back to You” and “Romeo and the Lonely Girl” without thinking of “Tunnel of Love” and “Point Blank”.

“Fight or Fall” and “Warriors” are battles against demons, real and imagined, just like “Death to My Hometown” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” And there’s even Thin Lizzy’s countrified “Cowboy Song” as a companion to Bruce’s “Tougher Than the Rest.”

The more time you spend with Jailbreak and Thin Lizzy, the more you come to realize that they weren’t just a one-hit ‘70s rock band. They were underappreciated national heroes. And that’s probably the biggest difference between them and Bruce.

So, what do you say, gentlemen? Put your concert tees on and fix your goatees up pretty. And meet me tonight in Dublin City.

---

---

Mitch’s Response:

Q1: What do Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Blue Öyster Cult have in common?

A1: They’re five bands who intimidate me more than a teenager with a whispy mustache smoking a cigarette while leaning on the hood of his partially-restored Monte Carlo SS outside of shop class.

Q2: What was your impression of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak after a week of forced, repetitive listening?

A2: The good stuff is much better than I hoped, and the bad stuff is far worse than I feared.

Q3: What’s the “good stuff”?

A3: The main riff of “Jailbreak”, the verses (but not the choruses) of the “The Boys are Back in Town”, Ricky Warwick’s vocal phrasing, and Thin Lizzy's surprisingly successful forays into soft rock territory.

Q4: Soft rock? I thought these were the bad boys of Irish butt rock?

A4: Perhaps, but my two favorite songs are “Running Back” and “Fight or Fall”, which are both excellent, melodic compositions (a little closer to my Ambrosia-Firefall-Bread wheelhouse) and even better than the weed you’d buy off of the Monte Carlo kid.

Q5: So what’s the bad stuff?

A5: As usual, I can’t stand CJ’s favorite songs. “Angel from the Coast”, “Warriors” and “Emerald” hurt my ears and my brain.

Q6: But what about the poetic Springsteen comparisons?

A6: Sure, Phil Lynott captured the cosplay storytelling aspect of the Bard of Freehold, but that’s not what makes Bruce special. The magic of Bruce is in his pathos: a lifetime spent desperately trying to run away, only to realize that he can never escape himself. That’s what makes Bruce the greatest.

Q7: So “Jailbreak” isn’t Thin Lizzy’s Born to Run?

A7: No, but it’s better than Human Touch or Lucky Town.

• Pitch Successful (far exceeded my low expectations)

---

Ken’s Response:

It’s been one of those weeks.  I’m not so much complaining as I’m simply making a statement.  I actually enjoy my job a lot and I work with an incredible team, but even under the best circumstances, sometimes we all just have one of those weeks.  Even as I type this, I missed my weekly EONS deadline…badly.  Between the kids starting spring sports, theater rehearsals for my youngest, and being super busy at work, time just got away from me.

It didn’t help that every time I got in my car to fire up Jailbreak, I just couldn’t figure out what to say.  Ricky Warwick’s vocals are solid, but not anything you’d write home about.  The guitar work from Damon Johnson and Scott Gorham work really well together, especially on cool riff-y tunes like “Jailbreak” and “Warriors”.  I got nice surprises of classic ‘70’s soft-er rock in “Fight or Fall” and “Cowboy Song” and I still couldn’t figure out exactly how to verbalize my thoughts about the album and about Thin Lizzy.

But yesterday I realized I was overthinking it.  I gave Jailbreak at least 8-9 listens this week, and each time I was pretty stressed out or anxious.  By the time the album finished, I felt better and I found myself tapping the steering wheel to the beats, and singing along (loudly) to “The Boys Are Back In Town”.  It’s a fun album and sometimes that’s exactly what we need.

Thank you CJ and Thin Lizzy (wherever you guys are) for helping me navigate a pretty tough week.  Not only are you welcome at the Newbury St. Collection, but when I finish my presentation this afternoon, I’m going to enjoy a nice pint of Guinness.

• Pitch successful (an emerald in the rough)

---

Well, we sure didn’t see this one coming, but CJ’s pitch for Thin Lizzy was successful and Jailbreak has been added to the Newbury St. Collection.

---

The boys are back in town, so boys (and girls) please head back to the part of town called the comments section and let us know if Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak is welcome back in your town or should be sent back to where it came from (some town in Ireland with a lot of boys, we’re guessing).

---

Please join us next week as the byrd-man of EONS returns, as Mitch pitches Byrds’ frontman Roger McGuinn’s delightful 1991 solo album Back From Rio.

---

The Exile on Newbury St. Spotify playlist features our favorite songs from all the albums we’ve discussed to date. Subscribe today and listen back on the fun we’ve had so far.