On long-ago Sunday afternoons of the mid-70s, the one surefire way to stave off boredom and the creeping sense of inertia with a return to school or work looming, was a couple of hours spent listening to Annie Nightingale’s Request Show – a two-hour BBC radio programme dedicated to playing rock songs listeners (long before the days of phone-ins or the internet) had requested in letter form during the week.
For much of the decade this was the only part of a Sunday, particularly in a small English town, where time actually moved too fast. No matter if the weather was inclement (more often than not) or intensely hot (the summer of 1976), being close to the radio as the weekend lurched to a conclusion was essential for any aspiring student of rock music.
In confident, enticing tones Nightingale not only introduced ‘tracks’ she had been asked to play, (the term used pointedly as her listeners appeared album connoisseurs rather than followers of the singles chart), she would also review the music papers of that week and impart snippets of rock gossip accrued during the past seven days – all of which made the show unmissable.
As for the music played, with hindsight it now appears some judicious editing may have been attached to the final play-list. In truth there was always more likelihood of hearing Jackson Browne than bombastic heavy rock, or perhaps followers of Bob Dylan simply put pen to paper in greater numbers than fans of Deep Purple – ‘Shelter from the Storm‘ a perennial, while ‘Smoke on the Water‘ was seldom, if ever, heard.
Nightingale clearly had favourites. Her two-hour stint rarely passed without a track of two from ‘Who’s Next‘ or ‘Quadrophenia‘, there was always a Faces inclusion (for some reason, generally a number with Ronnie Lane on lead vocals), while she or members of the listening public were clearly aware of husband and wife English folk duo Richard & Linda Thompson – as from memory no episode was complete without airing of the captivating title-track of their album I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT (April 1974).
Like most Richard Thompson songs it was wistful, compelling, yet with an underlying sense of fatalism. The parent L.P. made little commercial impact, although for followers of folk ensemble Fairport Convention, of whom he had once been a lead guitar playing member, it shone as a beacon to his songwriting genius.
Indeed, ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight‘ proved an album that would not receive its due critical acclaim until midway through the 1980s, long after its signature song had become a staple of bygone Sunday’s of the ’70s.
Born 3/4/1949 in Notting Hill, London, by his late-teens Thompson was a member of North London folk ensemble Fairport Convention. After building a sizeable following on the club and college circuit, in 1967 they landed a recording contract with Polydor and while their early albums revealed influence of the U.S. West Coast scene, particularly blues-rock troupe Jefferson Airplane, on developing their own identity Fairport began to explore contemporary folk territory.
The move in this direction was engineered in part by Thompson, but also recruitment of virtuoso violinist Dave Swarbrick, the interplay between he two giving the band considerable stage presence.
With accomplished vocalist Sandy Denny giving Fairport another distinctive dimension, in December 1969 they released the seminal ‘Leige and Lief‘. This reworking of traditional English songs galvanized latter-day folk circles in the same totemic way as The Byrds ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo‘ (1968) impacted on the development of country-rock.
Having been responsible for much of their original material, certainly the personally expressive element, Thompson, keen to meet challenge of being a solo artist, left the group in 1971. The following year he released an album on Island Records, who would support his ventures through the foreseeable future. Entitled ‘Henry the Human Fly‘ (June 1972), it was an interesting, quirky affair that while not short on eccentricity, lacked the sustained vocal prowess to make the entity sound convincing.
One of the backing singers to appear on the record was 24-year-old Linda Peters, whose career to date included a couple of unsuccessful singles and singing advertising jingles. Having known each other since the late-60s, (Denny being a mutual acquaintance), Peters and Thompson married in October 1972, committing also at this point to a musical partnership.
Through the next 12 months they played sporadic live dates mostly as a pair, sometimes with a couple of supporting musicians, while at the same time made visits to Sound Technique studios in London where they were recording a new set of Richard-penned compositions.
On completion their names were put to an album that while thematically dark and often disconcerting, never quite gives up on the capacity of the human spirit to endure, if not prevail. At the heart of several songs that constitute ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight‘ there is a sense of melancholy, yet each one is nevertheless gripping, often serene in their solemnity.
With singing responsibilities split, roughly speaking, equally between them, (on a couple of tracks they each sing, although rarely at the same time), Richard and Linda Thompson in different ways offer affecting vocal performances, he in world-weary tones, she with greater emotional resonance.
If the melodies are rooted in the folk tradition, then the lyrics often depict age-old struggles, which creates a notion the material could have been written 200 years before. In this regard there are similarities to many of the great songs Robbie Robertson wrote for The Band, Richard Thompson for his part presenting rural music from the time of the Industrial Revolution in a present day context – and in doing so creates a record steeped in the ambience of Thomas Hardy novels, yet timeless all the same.
Opening track ‘When I Get To The Border‘ with its resounding drums, ringing mandolin and bold acoustic guitar has many of the folk-rock overtones that had recently served English soft-rockers Lindisfarne well.
Despite the breezy resonance of the tune, there is a truculent edge to the lyric. The protagonist, irked by the selfishness of others (‘Dirty people take what’s mine/I can leave them all behind‘), has resolved to move on, Richard affirming the decision with a vocal full of gleeful disdain:
‘I’m packing up and I’m running away/To where nobody picks on me/If you see a box of pine/With a name that looks like mine/Just say I drowned in a barrel of wine/When I got to the border.’
Decorated with understated electric guitar work and the rich sound of an accordion, the present can go hang due to the future holding much more (‘The dusty road will smell so sweet/Paved with gold beneath my feet/And I’ll be dancing down the street‘), in the way of promise.
Beginning with the atmospheric droning of an electric guitar, ‘The Calvary Cross‘, also sung by Richard, is a sombre lament about how the best efforts in life can still result in failure and frustration. Not everything, however, is shrouded in darkness, reassurance offered to a loved one in the form of (‘Scrub me till I shine in the dark/I’ll be your light till doomsday‘), yet the overriding conclusion is that living amounts to negotiation of a road littered with pot-holes.
After singing harmony on ‘When I Get To the Border‘, Linda has a first vocal in her own right on ‘Withered and Died’. This haunting, if melodic narrative is rooted in despair, everything she surveys, including her dreams, summed up in the title. Deserted by ‘a boy from the West‘ all that remains are hopes of escape, ‘If I was a butterfly, lived for a day/I could be free just blowing away‘, the tender vocal accentuating the sorrowful mood.
With the title-track arrives some light amongst the shade and while there is still a degree of forlorn resignation, it comes with cheery defiance.
Fattened up with the background sound of a colliery band associated with the North of England (in this case the CWS silver band from Manchester), Linda appears joyously emphatic when setting out the intentions of the lyric:
‘I’m so tired of working every day/Now the weekend’s come I’m gonna throw my troubles away/If you’ve got the cab fare/Mister you’ll do all right/I want to see the bright lights tonight.’
Rolling along at the same sprightly pace as ‘Up on Cripple Creek‘ it bears the hallmarks of where The Band had once been and in the sumptuous vocal where one day the great Kirsty McCall would be.
To this end, there is no song more representative of mid-70s rock – many a Sunday afternoon through the era defined by the gorgeous sound of Linda Thompson describing a weekend mindset with the couplet:
‘I’m gonna dream till Monday comes in sight/I want to see the bright lights tonight.’
Having made a reference to drinking in the previous track (‘A couple of drunken knights rolling on the floor‘), it becomes the central theme of side one closer ‘Down Where the Drunkards Roll.’
Framed by some subtle electric piano work, Linda provides a plaintive vocal in delivering lyrics by her husband that describe those about to imbibe, although without being judgmental.
‘See the boys out walking/The boys, they look so fine/Dressed up in green velvet/Their silver buckles shine/Soon they’ll be bleary-eyed/Under a keg of wine/Down where the drunkards roll.’
Aside from his keyboard contribution Richard offers suitably impressive input on both acoustic and electric guitar, his words empathetic toward one perceived in a lovelorn state:
‘See that lover standing/Staring at the ground/He’s looking for the real thing/Lies were all he found/You can get the real thing/It will only cost a pound.’
Side two opener ‘We Sing Hallelujah‘ which at just under three minutes is the shortest track on the album, offers some wry, at times discomforting ruminations on the travails of life from the perspective of poor country folk, whose time appears to have been midway through the previous century.
The unrelenting toil of their existence is captured when Richard and Linda join forces at the chorus ‘And we’ll sing hallelujah/At the turning of the year/And we work all day in the old-fashioned way/Till the shining star appears.’ Yet despite the jaunty melodicism, the storyteller is under no illusion of just how downtrodden they are, ‘A man is like his father/Wishes he never was born/He longs for the time when the clock will chime/And he’s dead forevermore.’
Sombre and introspective, ‘Has He Got A Friend for Me‘ is testament to the skill of Richard Thompson in writing exquisite personal narratives.
Told from the standpoint of a lonely young woman envious of a friend with a handsome partner (‘He looks like God made him with something to spare’), such are her feelings of inadequacy she is so resigned in her thoughts to say, ‘He wouldn’t notice me passing by/ I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree.’
Her simple longing, stated over tasteful acoustic guitar accompaniment, is for someone ‘graceful and wise‘ and who ‘Doesn’t mind girls who are clumsy and shy‘ – Janis Ian perhaps inspired to write her moving 1975 hit ‘At Seventeen’ on the strength of this emotive, achingly sad affair.
There is no joy either in the life of ‘Sally’ the central character of ‘The Little Beggar Girl.’
While the musical connotations conjure early-Victorian times, the lyric suggests Sally finds employ in the oldest profession of them all, ‘And I love taking money off a snob like you.’
Once again there is juxtaposition between a lively tune (where prominence is given over to mandolin and accordion) and trying individual circumstances, Sally, through Linda, remaining defiant despite the apparent drudgery:
‘I’ll dance with my peg leg a-wiggling at the knee/I’ll play on the accordion my father gave to me/For it’s well worth it all to please a gent such as thee.’
Even when set against some of his more downbeat works, ‘The End of the Rainbow‘ is a despairing piece, Thompson, through the bleakest song he would ever write, laying out all the hurt and anguish waiting ahead for a babe in arms.
With the meshing acoustic and electric guitars made to sound bleak, he first takes to task the family of the child, eventually moving on to evoke those who wait in store. They too have seen their dreams crushed, everyone, ultimately, ending up as another hard-nosed competitor in the rat-race of life:
‘And all the sad and empty faces/That pass you on the street/All running in their sleep, all in a dream/Every loving handshake/Is just another man to beat/How your heart aches just to cut him to the core.’
In the face of such unrelenting misery it is worth asking if there is anything wonderous, even worthwhile, to anticipate in the years ahead – only for Thompson to answer that question when singing the chorus:
‘Life seems so rosy in the cradle/But I’ll be a friend I’ll tell you what’s in store/There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow/There’s nothing to grow up for anymore.’
The longest song on the record is held back to be the closing track, ‘The Great Valerio‘ clocking in at five and half minutes.
The figure referenced in the title is a tightrope walker whose high-wire performances are used as a series of metaphors alluding to the act and the audience. Over a studious, acoustic guitar-forged melody, Linda delivers an assertive vocal in relaying the vivid imagery:
‘We falter at the sight/We stumble in the mire/Fools who think they see the light/Prepare to balance on the wire/But we learn to watch together/And feed on what we see above/Until our heart turn like the seasons/And we are acrobats of love.’
Extended by the delicate guitar playing of the composer, ‘Valerio‘ moves to a gentle conclusion, Thompson offering no resolution to the most pertinent humanistic question he has posed through the record, ‘Who will help the tightrope walker/When he tumbles to the net?’
On release ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight‘ received a hugely complimentary review in the New Musical Express (early converts to the Thompson cause), but elsewhere went virtually unnoticed beyond a loyal following quick to recognise Richard Thompson as the important contemporary songwriter he undoubtedly was.
Soon after the album appeared the Thompson’s converted to Sufism, a strand of the Muslim faith and in doing so eschewed the conventions associated with rock stardom. To an extent such things took care of themselves, the run of L.P.’s that followed barely registering beyond their devotees.
In the face of diminishing returns it came as a surprise to many, including no doubt the couple themselves, who were in the throes of divorcing, when their brilliant 1982 set ‘Shoot Out the Lights‘ (that addresses the separation) came to the notice of both the U.S. record buying public and several noted rock critics.
Robert Christgau bestowed an A rating on his A-D grading system, while in Rolling Stone Kurt Loder described it as ‘absolutely perfect‘, the magazine going on to place ‘Shoot Out the Lights‘ at 24 on their list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s.
Such praise and a U.S. highest chart placing of 24 was not enough to save the marriage, yet generated sufficient interest in their back catalogue for earlier albums to receive retrospective reviews. ‘I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight‘ was assigned an A- by Christgau, Rolling Stone for their part writing in glowing terms about a record that by now had been in circulation for almost ten years, the title-track singled out as a ‘masterpiece.’
Something listeners to an aforementioned Sunday afternoon radio show were aware of many moons before.
God bless you, Annie.
RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON – I WAN TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT (Released April 30 1974):
When I Get to the Border/The Calvary Cross/Withered and Died/I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight/Down Where the Drunkards Roll/We Sing Hallelujah/Has He Got a Friend for Me/The Little Beggar Girl/The End of the Rainbow/The Great Valerio;
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