BICENTENNIAL SUMMER PERFECTION

Here’s another perfect song from that Bicentennial Summer.  Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town.  It’s probably their most well-known song, and for a reason.  It’s a great fucking song. As I said before, I was ten that summer and just becoming aware of rock music, music other than the weird old stuff like Paul Harvey “And now you know the rest of the story”. Remember that name and voice, a blast from the radio past?  That was played on the local radio WDOE that my parents listened to mainly for the local news.  

So….. Thin Lizzy was touring the states in 1976 in support of the album Jail Break. The Boys Are Back in Town was released in April that year as the first single and peaked at number 12 on July 24.  At first it got little airplay and  the band was not selling a lot of tickets until a couple of DJs- lets hear it for independent DJ’S, right? From Louisville Kentucky who played the song incessantly until other radio stations keyed in on it and picked it up. That did the trick, people started listening, and the popularity of the band took off.

The lyrics are rumored to be about a Manchester, England gang called the Quality Street Boys who frequented the Clifton Grange hotel that Phil Lynott’s mother ran and the band became friendly with them.

Ten year old me just thought the sound was fascinating.  That twin sound of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson’s Gibson Les Paul’s with those distinctive humbucker- one of my favorite words!- vibrations through overdriven Marshall speakers- none of which I knew about back then of course- just ran right through me.  And thrilled me.  It still does.  And of course Phil Lynott was just sexy as hell.  I recognized sexy rock stars when I saw them, I just didn’t know exactly what it was that I liked back then, haha!

Throw it back to that Bicentennial Summer of ‘76 for old times sake, sit in the sun, spin some Thin Lizzy, and remember the good old days.  The Boys Are Back in Town is THE perfect song.