Best of Thin Lizzy

Max tre låtar per album.
Minst en låt per album.
Låtordning=Noga genomtänkt, men ej rangordnad.
Spotifylista: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0m5cuirvQyp1fX9IWe9kLc?si=52a54325161e4154&pt=7bcaa13030d3985e5936eafa669cfa4c

"One of the defining rock groups of the 20th Century, Thin Lizzy began life in Dublin in 1969 when childhood friends Phil Lynott and Brian Downey were approached by two former members of Van Morrison's band 'Them', Eric Wrixon (keyboards) and Eric Bell (guitar)." -Thinlizzy.org

1. Låt: Rocker
Skiva: Vagabonds of the Western World
Årtal: 1973
Kommentar: Mama Nature Said, The Hero and the Madman, Slow Blues, The Rocker och Little Girl in Bloom är kanon!

"Året var 1974. Vi var 19 år. Föräldrafritt i Lelles radhus i Linköping. Just hemkomna från Folkets park. Inga mellanöl kvar. På tok för sent för att spela "The rocker" om och om igen på full volym med öppna fönster – men vi gjorde det ändå. Pluggade in luft­gitarrerna ännu en gång. Ställde oss alla på rad, bakom varsin tänkt mikrofon, och mimade till Lynotts röst, för ingen av oss hade mycket till egen sångröst:

Down at the juke joint me and the boys were stompin'/Bippin' an a boppin', telling a dirty joke or two" -Jan-Olov Andersson för Aftonbladet

"The quality of Phil's song writing and the aggression in our playing made it a good album. I think 'The Rocker' just about sums up what Thin Lizzy was all about at that time." -Trummisen Brian Downey om Vagabonds of the Western World och The Rocker.

2. Låt: Don't Believe a Word
Skiva: Johnny the Fox
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar: På ett år och två månader (augusti 1975-oktober 1976) lyckades Thin Lizzy kläcka ur sig tre fantastiska album (Johnny the Fox, Jailbreak och Fighting). Slå det om ni kan!

3. Låt: Chinatown
Skiva: Chinatown
Årtal: 1980
Kommentar: Enter plastiga trummor. Enter 80-tal. Enter Chinatown. Sicken låt!

"Lynott's mother was a white Irish Catholic and his father was a black Brazilian, whom Phil hardly ever saw. In 1976, once Thin Lizzy had taken off, Phil met with his dad, but it was hardly a storybook reunion, and the two never formed a meaningful relationship." -songfacts.com

4. Låt: Rosalie
Skiva: Fighting
Årtal: 1975
Kommentar: Rosalie är Bob Segers låt, men vad gör väl det? 

"The record company said, "We really need a hit. I don't care what you say. We really need a hit" and that really pissed Phil off. "We can write a hit song and they said, "Yeah, but let's try a cover version of something." And we had done a U.S. tour with Bob Seger, and we all loved Bob. Every night he was great with songs like "Turn the Page" and all that we listened to every night. So Phil got this Bob Seger album with his version of "Rosalie" and he played it and he said, "We could do this song." And he plays it and I listened to it, and I'm looking down at the record player and I'm looking back at him and go, "Really? (laughs) I don't see that because it's more of an acoustic song that Bob's doing." But Phil said, "No, no, no, what we have to do is really up the tempo and put different lines in there. It was Robbo (Brian Robertson) who really got into that idea. It took me a little while to latch onto it, but when we did, all four of us really got into it. And you're right, we turned it into our own, basically, so much so that when we did our live album, the record company guy said, "All right, can you write down all the writers on each individual song?" And when it came to "Rosalie," immediately went "Phil Lynott" and it went out. It was printed with that on there and somebody brought to my attention that, "No, this is a Bob Senior song." I went, "Oh my God, that's right." We had to go to Bob Seger and apologize profusely, and "you're going to get the money. It's not going to be a problem," and he laughed and said, "Don't worry, that's fine. That's great." But that goes to how much we considered it our song."- Scott Gorham

5. Låt: Are You Ready - Live
Skiva: Life Live 81-83
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:

Are you ready to rock?
Are you ready to hit the floor?
Are you ready now?
Cause if you're ready, I'm ready!
Look out!

6. Låt: Suicide
Skiva: Live and Dangerous 76-77
Årtal: 1978
Kommentar: Vartenda jäkla spår är 5+ här. Hur fasen ska man kunna välja? 

"Written by band leader, bass player and vocalist Phil Lynott, it was inspired by an episode of the American TV series Perry Mason. Called The Case Of The Lover's Leap, it was first aired on April 4, 1963; to quote from one on-line TV database: "Slippery Roy Comstock attempts to swindle his partner, Peter Brent, fake his own suicide, and disappear with his slutty wife. Comstock's plans come a cropper when he's discovered murdered. Peter Brent is accused of the crime and it's Perry to the rescue once again." -songfacts.com

7. Låt: Emerald
Skiva: Jailbreak
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar:

"It's got the real sort of Irish-y feel in it. Brian Robertson and I, we came up with the harmony guitars in there. But the main riff came straight out of Phil. It's a song about ancient times in ancient Ireland, talking about the warring clans and all that...It was the first time that Brian Robertson and I did the bounce off lead guitar thing where he starts," he continued. "I start, he starts, I start... the back and forth. That's the first time we actually got that one together. It felt so good and it felt so right, so we then started to try that out on a couple of other songs. That was kind of a launching pad for that style of writing between the two guitarists." -Scott Gorham

8. Låt: Southbound
Skiva: Bad Reputation
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar: Brian Robertson lirade på sista strängen. Han hade redan blivit ersatt pga. skada på den senaste turnen och återvände här snabbt för att lägga lite licks på plattan, innan han hoppade av igen, denna gång på riktigt.  

"Southbound was Phil at his poetic best. A beautiful tale that tapped into his fascination with America. Of a little place that had become a ghost town following the gold rush and a man destined to leave and wander on – like the eternal plight of the Irish – travelling at sundown and disappearing over the horizon. Those lyrics were so emotive and really painted the scene before my eyes:" -stereostories.com

Tumbling with the tumbleweed
Down the open road
I'll be taking just what I need
Before my head explodes

9. Låt: Ballad of the Hard Man
Skiva: Fighting
Årtal: 1975
Kommentar: Fighting inleder med brottarhiten Rosalie (Bob Seger). For Those Who Love To Live, Suicide, Wild One, Fighting My Way Back, Kings Vengeance, Spirits Slips Away, Freedom Song och Ballad of the Hard Man är kanon! Det finns inte ett dåligt spår här. Världsklass! Scott Gorham och Brian Robertson perfektifierar (det är ett ord nu!) dual lead guitar för all framtid. Lyssna bara på Suicide!
"Wishbone Ash had done the twin guitar thing before us, but we took the idea and put it into a hard rock context, with more aggression." -Scott Gorham

10. Låt: Waiting for an Alibi
Skiva: Black Rose: A Rock Legend
Årtal: 1979
Kommentar:
"Recorded in Paris, while Philip Lynott and Scott Gorham were strung-out on smack, Thin Lizzy's Black Rose: A Rock Legends showcases hired-gun Gary Moore." -JonFox 

11. Låt: Opium Trail
Skiva: Bad Reputation
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar: Soldier of Fortune, Bad Reputation, Killer Without A Cause får ursäkta. De är bra, mycket bra till och med, men de mäter sig inte med Opium Trail, Dancing In The Moonlight, Southbound 

12. Låt: It's Only Money
Skiva: Nightlife
Årtal: 1974
Kommentar: Gary Moore på gura och Frankie Miller på backupsång. 

13. Låt: Wild One
Skiva: Fighting
Årtal: 1975
Kommentar:
"The band's name is a play on Tin Lizzie ("Thin" being pronounced "Tin" in an Irish accent). Tin Lizzie is either a reference to a character from the Dandy Comic or a nickname for the Model T Ford." -songfacts.com

14. Låt: Jailbreak
Skiva: Jailbreak
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar: Jösses vilken hitkavalkad vi bjuds på här. Jailbreak, Running Back, The Boys Are Back In Town, Cowboy Song, Emerald m.m. Och då har jag inte nämnt Romeo And The Lonely Girl, Angel From The Coast, Warriors och Fight Or Fall. Högsta betyg är inte gott nog! Ett av musikhistoriens allra bästa album! Hitta en dålig sekund! I dare you! 

15. Låt: Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed
Skiva: Johnny the Fox
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar: Johnny, Borderline, Don't Believe a Word, Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed och Massacre är grymt bra!

"Who exactly The Boys Are Back in Town" is about has been much-debated since the song's release. Possible inspirations have allegedly been Manchester football, soldiers in the Vietnam War and, even the band's own fans. But the song actually is believed to be a referential tribute to a ragamuffin bunch of criminals based in Manchester called the Quality Street Gang. Members of the gang frequented the bar which Lynott's mother ran, and Phil immortalized one of them in another Lizzy song, "Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed." When the song became popular, he gave Jimmy the Weed his own gold record. His mother recalled that Philip "liked them" and thought that the gang were "characters." -Ultimateclassicrock.com

16. Låt: Hollywood (Down on Your Luck)
Skiva: Renegade
Årtal: 1981
Kommentar: Ett rejält fall framåt och mycket bättre än Chinatown.  

17. Låt: Sarah
Skiva: Black Rose: A Rock Legend
Årtal: 1979
Kommentar: Troligen min absoluta favoritlåt innan detta projekt drog igång.
"My Sarah" is a lovely tune Lynott wrote for his young daughter, which is hardly appropriate for snarling rock, so Lizzy appropriately perform this one at half-mast, with melodious solos aplenty." -cirithungol

18. Låt: Cold Sweat
Skiva: Thunder and Lightning
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:
"Well, he was extremely patriotic about Ireland. To give you an example, we would do interviews all over America and it always seemed to be me and him. If the journalists just made a tiny mistake about the size of Ireland or where Ireland was situated in the world or mispronounced an Irish capital he would just jump all over that. And for the next 30 minutes, these people were getting an Irish lesson to the point where I finally had to say, "Come on, man, we're over here trying to sell albums. This is not supposed to be a history lesson." -Scott Gorham

19. Låt: Little Girl In Bloom
Skiva: Vagabonds of the Western World
Årtal: 1973
Kommentar:

20. Låt: Sweetheart
Skiva: Chinatown
Årtal: 1980
Kommentar:
"There were times where he would bring something in, maybe a whole song, and we'd listen to it and say, 'You know, Phil, I think maybe you should use that for your solo album.' [Laughs] And he was like, 'Okay.' He was cool with that. Because, in fact, he was trying to gather up as many songs as he could to do his first solo album [1980's Solo in Soho]. So when anybody ever said that, he wasn't bothered. It wasn't like some kind of a burn on his writing manner or anything. He just said, 'Yeah, great, okay,' and put it in the pile." -Scott Gorham

21. Låt: Cowboy Song
Skiva: Jailbreak
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar:

"Their hard work was rewarded with the breakthrough album 'Jailbreak' in 1976 and the single 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. Both were massive international hits with the single hitting number 8 in the UK charts. Reaching the top 20 in the US, the album sales exceeded 100,000 copies..." thinlizzy.org

22. Låt: Johnny
Skiva: Johnny the Fox
Årtal: 1976
Kommentar:
"Following a sell-out British tour at the end of 1976, the band were all set for an American tour when Brian Robertson was injured and they were forced to cancel. Instead they went to America as the supporting band for Queen, and drafted in Gary Moore as a replacement for Robertson. Once the tour had ended, Robertson confirmed he would not be returning to the group and the three-piece of Phil, Brian Downey and Scott went on to record the 1977 album 'Bad Reputation'. In the end Robertson did return to re-join Lizzy during the album recording and stayed with the group doing session work and guest appearances until August 1978 when he finally left to form 'Wild Horses'." -Thinlizzy.org

23. Låt: Still in Love With You
Skiva: Live and Dangerous 76-77
Årtal: 1978
Kommentar: Jag tror seriöst att alla som bevittnade Thin Lizzy mellan 1976 och 1977 live, dog av extas. Satan så bra detta är! 

24. Låt: Got To Give It Up - Live
Skiva: Life Live 81-83
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:

25. Låt: Killer Without A Cause
Skiva: Live at the BBC 
Årtal: 2011
Kommentar: 

26. Låt: Remembering Part 1
Skiva: Thin Lizzy
Årtal: 1971
Kommentar: Thin Lizzys debutplatta är kanon. Honesty Is No Excuse låter Van Morrison i Lizzyskrud, Diddy Levine är Lizzy i progland och Ray-Gun är Hendrix på steroider. Look What The Wind Blew In, Eire, Return Of The Farmer's Son, Clifton Grange Hotel, Saga Of The Ageing Orphan och Remembering är bra! Fullt med kanonlåtar! Eric Bell hanterar "Single guitar" på bästa sätt. Bandet var i mycket Eric Bells på första plattan. 

"Thin Lizzy was very much Eric's band at the beginning, and Phil barely got a look-in. My earliest memory of Thin Lizzy live was that it was just Eric going through his Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix routines." -Peter Eustace (Roadie på tiden det begav sig).

27. Låt: Sha La La
Skiva: Nightlife
Årtal: 1974
Kommentar: Första plattan med Phil Lynott, Brian Downey, Scott Gorham och Brian Robertson tillsammans. Resultatet är sökande och spretigt, men några riktigt fina låtar göms här. Still in Love With You, She Knows, Night Life, Philomena, Sha La La, It's Only Money och Dear Heart 

28. Låt: Brought Down (Overdubbed and Remixed)
Skiva: Shades of a Blue Orphanage
Årtal: 1972
Kommentar: Fuzzig(inte på ett bra sätt), lo-fi platta, men några få ljuspunkter. Brought Down,Whiskey In The Jar, Call The Police, Shades of a Blue Orphanage är bra.

29. Låt: Róisín Dubh (Black Rose) - A Rock Legend
Skiva: Black Rose: A Rock Legend
Årtal: 1979
Kommentar: Jag hade gärna haft plats för Do Anything You Want To, Toughest Street in Town, Get Out of Here, With Love och Got To Give It Up, men det gick inte...
"Got To Give It Up" is startling, and would be downright morose, if not for boasting some of the band's toughest riffs ever. It's clear that whereas most rock stars saw drug 'n booze excess as their right, Lynott saw it for what it was; a yoke he was sadly not able to walk away from, right up until his death." -cirithungol

30. Låt: Genocide (The Killing Of The Buffalo)
Skiva: Chinatown
Årtal: 1980
Kommentar: Snowy White kommer in på gitarr tillsammans med Scott Gorham.  

31. Låt: Dancing In The Moonlight
Skiva: Bad Reputation
Årtal: 1977
Kommentar:
"He taught us how to do this thing called 'song writing.' And until we got better and better at it and we could actually bring our own songs in, we brought in songs that were either partly finished or just ideas to put on one of his songs. We might bring in a song that was half finished, or a whole song minus the lyrics. And it was always minus the lyrics, because that was Phil Lynott's domain. We knew that we weren't ever going to touch or top his lyrics. So you just let him get on with it." Scott Gorham 

32. Låt: Return Of The Farmer's Son 
Skiva: Thin Lizzy 
Årtal: 1971 
Kommentar: Eric Bell får visa att han var en mycket duktig gitarrist på denna best till gitarr-låt.

"We were totally bombed for the duration of that record." -Eric Bell

"Thin Lizzy's debut single was "The Farmer." Released by Parlophone on July 31, 1970, 500 copies of the single were pressed, but only 283 were sold." -songfacts.com

33. Låt: It's Getting Dangerous
Skiva: Renegade
Årtal: 1981
Kommentar:

34. Låt: Someday She Is Going To Hit Back
Skiva: Thunder and Lightning
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:

35. Låt: The Boys Are Back In Town
Skiva: Live and Dangerous 76-77
Årtal: 1978
Kommentar:

"We had demoed about fifteen tracks for what became the Jailbreak album, and we'd selected those we felt were the ten best ones," explains guitarist Scott Gorham. "Then our co-manager Chris O'Donnell came down to listen to the songs, and we played him all fifteen. He picked up on something we'd titled GI Joe, but we had already rejected it as not good enough for the album.

"He liked it, and told us that we should include it. We accepted his judgement, but there was still work to be done, because the lyrics were anti-war, which wasn't really right for us, and musically it wasn't there. However, we sorted it all out, and GI Joe turned into The Boys Are Back In Town." -Scott Gorham 

36. Låt: Renegade - Live
Skiva: Life Live 81-83
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar:
"On the list of awkward ways to close an interview, one that statistically produces an unpredictable result is any variation of "So, what else do you have to say to the fans?" Lynott had a great answer waiting one day, as he replied, "Look, I hate those guys in interviews that say 'Come and see the band, and buy all the records.' They always sound so insincere. So I'd like to say, really sincerely, come and see the band and buy all the records." -ultimateclassicrock.com

Just a boy... that has lost his way

A rebel... fallen down
A fool... blown away
A renegade...
He's just a boy within us all
But still he is a stranger
A renegade...

37. Låt: Angel of Death
Skiva: Renegade
Årtal: 1981
Kommentar: Renegade, The Pressure Will Blow och Leave This Town kunde lika gärna kommit med. Bra platta! 

38. Låt: Call The Police 
Skiva: Shades of a Blue Orphanage  
Årtal: 1972  
Kommentar:
"I went home and told my parents and they went insane," he recalls. "They asked me what was I going to do with myself and I said, 'I'm going to be a professional guitarist'. They went crazy and said, 'never mind the bloody guitar – you're going to get a proper job."-Eric Bell om när han satsade på musiken istället för jobbet som mekaniker.

39. Låt: The Sun Goes Down
Skiva: Thunder and Lightning
Årtal: 1983
Kommentar: Thunder and Lightning, The Sun Goes Down, Cold Sweat, Someday She Is Going To Hit Back, Baby Please Don't Go är bra låtar! 

40. Låt: Mama Nature Said
Skiva: Vagabonds of the Western World 
Årtal: 1973 
Kommentar:
"Vagabonds of The Western World is a work of art. Sure it is hard rock, but it is so tasteful and intelligent." -spillmagazine.com

41. Låt: She Knows 
Skiva: Nightlife 
Årtal: 1974 
Kommentar:
"Några månader senare besökte Thin Lizzy Sverige för första gången. Spelade på Barbarella i Växjö. En karavan med bilar och folk från Linköping intog både diskoteket och Esso Motor Hotel i utkanten av staden.

På hotellet bodde i stort sett bara vi och… Thin Lizzy. De satt i baren när vi kom dit. Vi övervann rädslan att tilltala ett gäng som i våra ögon var världsstjärnor och en halvtimme senare satt hela gänget från Linköping och drack öl med hela bandet.

Lynott & co kastade lystna blickar efter tjejerna i vårt sällskap, men de kunde inte heller helt ignorera oss killar. Det gick liksom inte när de förvånat konstaterade att vi hade koll på hela deras repertoar. Även B-sidor på obskyra singlar.

Under kvällens konsert tillägnade Lynott med jämna mellanrum låtar till sina nya vänner från "Linkoping". Hela natten hade vi efterfest med bandet. Att få tävla med Phil Lynott i whiskyhävning direkt ur flaskan framåt morgonkvisten på ett hotellrum i Växjö… mycket coolare än så kan det inte bli för ett 20-årigt Thin Lizzy-fan." -Jan-Olov Andersson för Aftonbladet om när han och polarna träffade Thin Lizzy i Växjö.

42. Låt: Whiskey In The Jar
Skiva: Whiskey In The Jar single/Shades of a Blue Orphanage/Vagabonds of the Western World deluxe
Årtal: 1972
Kommentar:
"Although a massive first hit for Thin Lizzy, this was actually meant to be the B-side. The band recorded "Black Boys On The Corner" as the A-side and put the old traditional Irish Song "Whiskey In The Jar" on the B-side because they didn't have anything else. It was the record company that decided to make "Whiskey in the Jar" the A-side." -songfacts.com

""Hey, how about if we drop 'Whiskey in the Jar'? It's not really an original song. Let's just stand on our own two feet of things that we had written, not from songs that other people had written." And he surprised me. He agreed almost straight off the bat, "Not a problem. I think you're right. Let's drop it." And that's what we did. Now, if I had got somebody new in the band, and they said to me, "Hey Scott, maybe we ought to drop 'The Boys Are Back in Town,' it's a bit old. I would have said, "Okay, you're fired." -Scott Gorham

Bonus:

Albumranking:

Live and Dangerous
Jailbreak
Bad Reputation
Black Rose: A Rock Legend
Life Live
Johnny the Fox
Fighting
Thunder and Lightning
Renegade
Chinatown
Nightlife
Vagabonds of the Western World
Thin Lizzy
Shades of a Blue Orphanage