"The Mingulay Boat Song"

This stunning Richard Thompson version of "The Mingulay Boat Song" was recorded for the "Rogues Gallery" album. This album was produced by Johnny Depp and Hal Willner, and was a collection of cover versions of sea shanties and pirate songs released in connection with the "Pirates of the Carribian" movies. Hal Willner has also produced tribute albums of Kurt Weill songs, Walt Disney songs, Leonard Cohen songs, Nino Rota tunes, Thelonious Monk tunes etc. Basically a man of great taste.

"The Mingulay Boat Song" is sort of an artificial sea shanty. The tune is an old gaelic tune, but the lyrics were written in 1930. The Island of Mingulay had been abandoned by its population in 1912, so the song had a nostalgic feel already in 1930.



Chorus:

Heel y'ho boys, let her go, boys
Bring her head round now all together
Heel y'ho boys, let her go boys
Sailing homeward to Mingulay!

What care we tho' white the Minch is
What care we for wind and weather?
Let her go boys, every inch is
Wearing homeward to Mingulay!

Chorus

Wives are waiting on the bank, boys, .
Looking seaward from the heather.
Pull her 'round boys, and we'll anchor
'Ere the sun sets at Mingulay!

Chorus

"Killing Jar", a murder ballad

This is my version of "Killing Jar", a little known Richard Thompson murder ballad. In a perfect world it would have been recorded by Johnny Cash. But the original version from the album "Invisible Means" is great too, sounds a bit like a Nick Cave song.

And someone put the original version on youtube:



"My father was a judge, a solitary man
He beat me to cry, with the back of his hand
I played with my sisters, he said I played too rough
It seems to me son, I didn't beat you enough
You're no good. He said I'm no good
You're no good. He said "son, you're no good"

I went for my schooling and I faced the wall
"Tommy Burns" said the teacher, "can you hear me at all?"
I sweep down the hall ways, and I sweep up the grounds
And the boss he tells me that I'm late on my rounds
I'm no good. Oh they say I'm no good
I'm no good. They say I'm no good

I once had a songbird with a broken wing
I cried and I cried. Oh it never would sing
I once had a songbird. The apple of my eye
I put it in the killing jar just to watch him die
I once had a sweet heart. Caught her running around
I hit her with a log chain and I put her in the ground
I once had a sweetheart, oh a pretty little thing
I knelt in her cold grave and I took back my ring
I'm no good. They say I'm no good
I'm no good. You see I'm no good
I'm no good. They say I'm no good
I'm no good. I'm no good"

The Songs of Richard Thompson: "Cooksferry Queen"

This song is apparently about a blues club in London in the 1960s, whose owner used to be a gangster, until he met a hippie chick who introduced him to to LSD. Sometimes drugs can change people for the better.

It's from the great 1999 album "Mock Tudor", which is sort of a concept album or song cycle about the outer suburbs of London.

The song rocks, and I like the couplets that build on "Alice in Wonderland" and Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit": "She gave me one pill to get bigger / She gave me one pill to get small / I saw snakes dancing all around her feet /And dead men coming through the wall"






Well there's a house in an alley
In the squats and low-rise
Of a town with no future
But that's where my future lies

It's a secret, but no secret
It's a rule, but no rule
Where you find the darkest avenue
There you'll find the brightest jewel

Now my name it is Mulvaney
And I'm known quite famously
People speak my name in whispers
What higher praise can there be

But I'd trade my fine mohair
For tied-dyes and faded jeans
If she wanted me some other way
She's my Cooksferry Queen

She gave me one pill to get bigger
She gave me one pill to get small
I saw snakes dancing all around her feet
And dead men coming through the wall
Well I'm the prince of this parish
I've been ruthless and I've been mean
But she blew my mind as she opened my eyes
She's my Cooksferry Queen

Yeaaaaah

Well she's got every rare perfection
All her looks beyond compare
She's got dresses that seem to float in the wind
Pre-Raphaelite curls in her hair

She could get the lame to walking
She could get the blind to see
She could make wine out of Thames river water
She could make a believer out of me

Yes I'd trade it all tomorrow
All the wicked things I've been
She's my bright jewel of the alley
She's my Cooksferry Queen

Yes I'd trade it all tomorrow
All the wicked things I've been
She's my bright jewel of the alley
She's my Cooksferry Queen

The Songs of Richard Thompson: "Hots for the Smarts"

This is one of the funny ones. Me like:

THE HOTS FOR THE SMARTS

"I like a girl in satin
Who talks dirty in Latin
A girl who’s flirty
When she quotes Krishnamurti
If she likes to be goosed
While reciting from Proust
I’ll know she’s my kind of creature
Among her delectables
Her intellectables
Must be her sexiest feature

CHORUS
I’ve got The Hots For The Smarts
The Hots For The Smarts
IQ off the charts
Give me brains over hearts
I’ve got The Hots For The Smarts

I like a girl from Mensa
With a furrowed brow
When the tenses get denser
She gets it – and how!
I need a polymath
Called Cindy or Cath
Who likes her Plato not too platonic
An autodidact
Who can add and subtract
While sipping her Tolstoy and tonic

I need a girl with a feel
For Faraday’s wheel
A girl who’ll drool
For Fleming’s Left Hand Rule
Now you may like pin-ups
Of girls who do chin-ups
Like Xena the Warrior Princess
But I’ll take to dinner
My Nobel Prize winner
With plutonium stains down her dress

I like a girl who knows loadsa
Kierkegaard and Spinoza
Who likes to play chess
Humming Porgy and Bess
She must be able
From her logarithmic table
To find all those decimal places
And what do I care
That she’s nothing to wear
And her teeth are imprisoned in braces

I want a girl with a brain
The size of Siberia
With a haughty disdain
Of all things inferior
I don’t want a learner
With a Bunsen burner
She must be the finished article
Who sees our attraction
As chemical reaction
And charm as merely a particle

I want a PHD
Who reads Linear ‘B’
Who applies her lotion
With a Brownian motion
Now some men may favour
A girl who’s a raver
A tease or a saucy young minx
But I’ll get undressed with
The girl I’m impressed with
Who’s tunnelling under the Sphinx"

The Songs of Richard Thompson: "Calvary Cross"

"My claw's in you and my light's in you / This is your first day of sorrow"

"The Calvary Cross" is a really freaky song. I still have no idea what the lyrics are about, but they're quite haunting. The stunning Youtube clip below is a shortened version of the song, but it's set to brilliant images from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis".

THE CALVARY CROSS

I was under the Calvary Cross
The pale-faced lady she said to me
I've watched you with my one green eye.
And I'll hurt you 'till you need me.

You scuff your heels and you spit on your shoes.
You do nothing with reason
One day you catch a train
Never leaves the station.

Everything you do
Everything you do
You do for me

Now you can make believe on your tin whistle
Ah, you can be my broom boy
Scrub me 'till I shine in the dark
I'll be your light 'till doomsday
Oh, it's a black cat cross your path.
And why don't you follow
My claw's in you and my light's in you
This is your first day of sorrow

Everything you do
Everything you do
You do for me

"Unhalfbricking" rereleased

And Fairport Convention's magnificent "Unhalfbricking", one of the greatest albums ever, has just been rereleased in in the US. I love everything about this album. The cover pic is just magnificent too. Go read Pitchfork's review here.

And listen to "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" here:

WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES?

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

"She Moved Through the Fair"

"Last night she came to me... my dead love came in" - Another song performed by, but not written by, Richard Thompson, this classic Irish folk song plays almost like a Neil Gaiman horror story.... although obviously it's more like the other way around, Gaiman being inspired by the folk tradition and all. This was one of the old folk songs that Thompsons legendary sixties band Fairport Convention helped revive.

The Original 1960s version by Fairport Convention, sung by the great Sandy Denny, and with a young Thompson on guitar, can be found here (embedded youtube play not allowed, so you'll have to click on the link), but the Thompson version below is also quite brilliant and creepy.

At the beginning of this clip you'll see some typical funny between song banter from Thompson. He probably does his funny skits so that all the dark songs he's singing doesn't make it all into a celebration of depression or something.

SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR

My young love said to me, My parents won't mind
And my father won't slight you, For your lack of kind
And she laid her hand on me me , And this she did say,
"It will not be long love , Till our wedding day"

And She stepp'd away from me and she moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her go here and go there,
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,
Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came, that her feet made no din,
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."

It's sometimes sung with an extra verse between the second and third verse, but that verse left out of Fairports version, and from Thompsons solo version. It can be heard in this version by a nice-looking and sinister-sounding young lady on Youtube:

The people were saying no two were e'er wed,
But one has a sorrow that never was said,
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

The Songs of Richard Thompson part V: "Cold Kisses"

This is a very funny and very sinister song about obsessing about your girlfriend's past, obsessing to the point of psychosis that is. It's just great storytelling, you can actually imagine the guy going through his girldfriends old photos while you listen to the song.

Originally the song referred to a Margeret Miller mystery book, but in recent years he's changed it to "Dan Brown mystery" instead. heheh.

Another dark and creepy Richard Thompson song. I'll try to dig up one of his lighter ones soon.

COLD KISSES

Here I am in your room going through your stuff
Said you'd be gone five minutes, that's time enough
Here in your drawer there's lacy things
Old credit cards and beads and bangles and rings
Well I think I've found what I'm looking for
Hidden away at the back of the drawer
Here's the life that you led before

Old photographs of the life you led
Arm in arm with Mr X Y and Z
Old boyfriends big and small
Got to see how I measure up to them all
There is a place we all must start, love
Who were you holding in that fond embrace
I've found a door into your heart, love
And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

Here I am behind enemy lines
Looking for secrets, looking for signs
Old boyfriends big and small
Got to see how I measure up to them all
This one's handsome, not too bright
This one's clever with his hands alright
Tougher than me if it came to a fight
And this one's a poet, a bit of a wet
Bit of a gypsy, a bit of a threat
I wonder if she's got over him yet

Old passions frozen in the second
Who were you holding in that fond embrace
Hearts have a past that must be reckoned
And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

Time to put the past away
That's your footstep in the street I'd say
Tie the ribbon back around it
Everything just the way I found it
And I can hear you turn the key
And my head's buried when you see me
In a Margaret Miller mystery
And do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses
Do you still feel the warmth of cold kisses

The Songs of Richard Thompson part IV "The End of the Rainbow"

This surely is one of the darkest songs ever written. Pure primal existential despair made into sound. It's a hymn sung to a baby in the cradle, telling it about the darkness of the world.

Thompsons version isn't on Youtube, but that's fine. This is the version by Elvis Costello - his voice somehow manages to make the song even more icy:



THE END OF THE RAINBOW

I feel for you, you little horror
Safe at your mother’s breast
No lucky break for you around the corner
‘Cos your father is a bully
And he thinks that you’re a pest
And your sister, she’s no better than a whore

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

Tycoons and barrow boys will rob you
And throw you on the side
And all because they love themselves sincerely
And the man holds a bread-knife
Up to your throat, is four feet wide
And he’s anxious just to show you what it’s for

Your mother works so hard to make you happy
But take a look outside the nursery door
There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow
There’s nothing to grow up for anymore

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

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

Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock", the R.T. version.

This is sort of a a speciel edition of my Songs of Richard Thompson series, featuring his haunting version of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock". According to his website he did another song for the show, but had to replace someone else and also do this song at short notice. He wasn't quite sure about the chords, and only remembered the lyrics thanks to the teleprompter. But the result is unbelievable excellent. Maybe it's his folk background- he really manages to make the Woodstock-thing seem like a myth from ancient times. Which is quite fitting considering that it sort of HAS become one of the myths that rock n roll culture is build upon.

This is the version of Woodstock I try to emulate when I play it on the piano. I might post my humble attempts at some point in the future, I dunno.

WOODSTOCK

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
Im going on down to yasgurs farm
Im going to join in a rock n roll band
Im going to camp out on the land
Im going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
I dont know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

The Songs of Richard Thompson Part III: "Shoot Out the Lights"

This is one of the great songs about Darkness, and it's the dark centerpiece of Richard and Linda Thompson's classic "Shoot out the Lights" album from 1982. According to some reports it was inspired by the movie "Apocalypse Now" and by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.. I don't quite see this myself, but hey - it's quite nice to imagine it.... it COULD probably be seen as a mythic metaphor for a war-like situation.

Traditionally Thompson does this as a heavily distorted guitar workout when playing with his band, but he's also quite good at playing a sparse solo version. I'll post a solo version here because it's the most haunting I could find on youtube. But you definitely should check out the version from the original album.

solo live version:


SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS
(from the 1982 album "Shoot Out the Lights")

"In the dark, who can see his face?
In the dark, who can reach him?
He hides like a child. He hides like a child.
Keeps his finger on the trigger
You know he can't stand the day
Shoot out the lights. Shoot out the lights

Keep the blind down on the window
Ah, keep the pain on the inside
Just watching the dark. Just watching the dark
Ah he might laugh but you won't see him
As he thunders through the night
Shoot out the lights. Shoot out the lights

In the darkness the shadows move
In the darkness the game is real
Real as a gun. Real as a gun
As he watches the lights of the city
And he moves through the night
Shoot out the lights. Shoot out the lights
Shoot out the lights. Ah, shoot out the lights"

The Songs of Richard Thompson Part II: "Beeswing"

Now this is one of the big ones.

This song seems to be somewhat inspired by Bob Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue". Like the Dylan song, it's a love story set in the 1960s, and Thompson takes one of Dylan's verses ("I lived with them on Montague Street / In a basement down the stairs / There was music in the cafes at night / And revolution in the air") and transforms it into the beginning of this song: "I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love / They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves". But that's just the initial inspiration, from this beginning he transform it into his own epic of britain in the 1960s, and in the end it becomes a stunner of a song that may even be better than Dylan's. Well, possibly. "Tangled up in Blue" and "Beeswing" - these two mighty songs seem to be US and UK mirror images of each other. (Nice acoustic version of the Dylan song here)

The lyrics are a filled with ideas and with lyrical richness. The 1960s, the realities of working life, the problems associated with having a somewhat 'wild' girlfriend... towards the end of the song this wild child with "animal in her eyes" is transformed into a nearly mythic character, a faded flower with a wolfhound sleeping at her feet.

Brilliant song, and a brilliant piece of storytelling.

Live version, 2005:


BEESWING
(Orignally from "Mirror Blue", 1994)

"I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me

CHORUS:
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind"

CHORUS

We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well"

CHORUS

We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch

Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse

Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way"

The Songs of Richard Thompson Part I: "Dad's Gonna Kill Me"

Now here's the deal with this series of song portraits I'll be doing: Richard Thompson is one of the best guitar players in the world, and he's also a writer of timeless dark songs on the level of Dylan and Tom Waits. And there are piles of nice clips available on Youtube. So I'll basically do a series of introductions to some of his greatest songs.

We'll start out with the stunning standout track from his most recent album. "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" is a protest song against the Iraq war. Being an old folkie and rock n roller, and also a moderate muslim, it comes as no surprise that Thompson is no big fan of Bush and Blair's folly. With this searing song I think Thompson manages to do what Neil Young didn't quite manage to do on HIS Iraq protest album: write a truly classic anti-war song about this horrible mess. It also helps that Thompson hasn't sounded more plain rock n roll in years.

According to Thompson the language in the song is inspired by browsing various web-sites with modern soldiers slang.... the most obvious being the 'Nam/'Dad slang thing used in the song title. But there are lots of other lyrical goodies scattered throughout the song. And toward the end he manages to succesfully marry this modern song with the death-obsessed themes of his more folk-based song: "...And who’s that stranger walking in my dreams / And who's that stranger cast a shadow ‘cross my heart / And who’s that stranger, I dare speak his name / Must be old Death a-walking / Must be old Death a-walking"

Great song, basically.

Original version from the album:


And great live version from a UK tv appearance:

"Dad's Gonna Kill Me"

Appears on "Sweet Warrior" (2007)

Out in the desert there’s a soldier lying dead
Vultures pecking the eyes out of his head
Another day that could have been me there instead
Nobody loves me here
Nobody loves me here

Dad’s Gonna Kill Me
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

You hit the booby trap and you’re in pieces
With every bullet your risk increases
Old Ali Baba, he’s a different species
Nobody loves me here
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me


I’m dead meat in my HumV Frankenstein
I hit the road block, God knows I never hit the mine
The dice rolled and I got lucky this time
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

I’ve got a wife, a kid, another on the way
I might get home if I can live through today
Before I came out here I never used to pray
Nobody loves me here
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

Dad’s in a bad mood, Dad’s got the blues
It’s someone else’s mess that I didn’t choose
At least we’re winning on the Fox Evening News
Nobody loves me here
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

Dawn Patrol went out and didn’t come back
Hug the wire and pray like I told you, Mac
Or they’ll be shovelling bits of you into a sack
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me.

And who’s that stranger walking in my dreams
And whose that stranger cast a shadow ‘cross my heart
And who’s that stranger, I dare speak his name
Must be old Death a-walking
Must be old Death a-walking

Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

7 muzzle monkeys standing in a row
Standing waiting for The Sandbox to blow
Sitting targets in the wild west show
Nobody loves me here
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

Another angel got his wings this week
Charbroiled with his own Willie Pete
Nobody’s dying if you speak double-speak
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me