Thin Lizzy found their trademark twin-guitar sound on 1975's Fighting, but it was on its 1976 successor, Jailbreak, where the band truly took flight. Unlike the leap between Night Life and Fighting, there is not a great distance between Jailbreak and its predecessor. If anything, the album was more of a culmination of everything that came before, as Phil Lynott hit a peak as a songwriter just as guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pioneered an intertwined, dual-lead guitar interplay that was one of the most distinctive sounds of '70s ock, and one of the most influential. Lynott no longer let Gorham and Robertson contribute individual songs -- they co-wrote, but had no individual credits -- which helps tighten up the album, giving it a cohesive personality, namely Lynott's rough rebel with a heart of a poet. Lynott loves turning the commonplace into legend -- or bringing myth into the modern world, as he does on "Cowboy Song" or, to a lesser extent, "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" -- and this myth-making is married to an exceptional eye for details; when the boys are back in town, they don't just come back to a local bar, they're down at Dino's, picking up girls and driving the old men crazy. This gives his lovingly florid songs, crammed with specifics and overflowing with life, a universality that's hammered home by the vicious, primal, and precise attack of the band. Thin Lizzy is tough as rhino skin and as brutal as bandits, but it's leavened by Lynott's light touch as a singer, which is almost seductive in its croon. This gives Jailbreak a dimension of richness that sustains, but there's such kinetic energy to the band that it still sounds immediate no matter how many times it's played. Either one would make it a classic, but both qualities in one record makes it a truly exceptional album.
MP3: Thin Lizzy - Cowboy SongSigh. I honestly could post almost every Thin Lizzy record ever in this column or even create a "best band ever" just for them, but I just took the needle off of side B of my "Jailbreak" record and this is where my mind is at.The great thing about Thin Lizzy is you could fill a room up and everybody will find a song that spoke to them on any of their albums: from th...
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GAWD THIS SONG IS SO AWESOME AND OF COURSE I'M BUZZED AND NEED SOME SLEEPSINGING MY ASS OFFI am just a cowboy lonesome on the traila STARRY night,the CAMPFIRE lightThe coyote call, and the howling winds wailSo I'll ride out to the old sundownI am just a cowboy lonesome on the trailLord, I'm just thinking about a certain femaleThe nights we spent together riding on the RANGELooking back it seems so
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you just can't say you dig Rock N Roll without giving mad respect to Thin Lizzy, and the heart of the band, Mr. Phil Lynott (R.I.P.)Everybody knows "The Boys Are Back In Town". "Jailbreak" just rips. But the song that makes me crank the volume and break out my air guitar is "The Cowboy Song" - total duelling axe jam smack dab in the middle. This band just had total attitude, musical competence,...
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GAWD THIS SONG IS SO AWESOME AND OF COURSE I'M BUZZED AND NEED SOME SLEEPSINGING MY ASS OFFI am just a cowboy lonesome on the traila STARRY night,the CAMPFIRE lightThe coyote call, and the howling winds wailSo I'll ride out to the old sundownI am just a cowboy lonesome on the trailLord, I'm just thinking about a certain femaleThe nights we spent together riding on the RANGELooking back it seems so
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you just can't say you dig Rock N Roll without giving mad respect to Thin Lizzy, and the heart of the band, Mr. Phil Lynott (R.I.P.)Everybody knows "The Boys Are Back In Town". "Jailbreak" just rips. But the song that makes me crank the volume and break out my air guitar is "The Cowboy Song" - total duelling axe jam smack dab in the middle. This band just had total attitude, musical competence,...
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not sure why but i cant listen to anything from thin lizzy and be pissy so pls enjoy emerald.later,don
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the dangers of im'ing and mog at the same time. the prior song was not jailbreak but the very nice emerald.apologies,don
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We used to play in the park by the highwaypanic and laugh about the cars,carry our bikes across the railroad tracks,throw rocks half-heartedly to try and break a signal-box window,then run and run and runhands sticky with blackberries.You smoked cigarettes, I didn’t.You knew more about motorbikes.We both talked about girls.Talked porno at what we didn’t knowwere pre-recorded messages in the pu
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MP3: Thin Lizzy - Cowboy SongSigh. I honestly could post almost every Thin Lizzy record ever in this column or even create a "best band ever" just for them, but I just took the needle off of side B of my "Jailbreak" record and this is where my mind is at.The great thing about Thin Lizzy is you could fill a room up and everybody will find a song that spoke to them on any of their albums: from th...
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 "Jailbreak")
