S/D: Richard Thompson

Oh yeah, "Al Bowlly's In Heaven," shoulda thought of that.

I wasn't thinking of xpost grand political statements, but more like how class might have affected or suggest ways of seeing, hearing the presentations of scholars and artists. For inst, Pete Seeger, whatever his choice of sources and arrangements, they were unified by his respectfully refined vocal style, which I heard as genteel, and you could argue that it made folk music more acceptable as a genre or subgenre, providing a gateway for rougher voices, deeper artists, such as Woody Guthrie; genteel-singing Baez may have opened things up a bit for Van Ronk and Dylan.

But genteel folkie vox drove some older rockheads I know in the opposite direction.

Um, I am not certain that's a fair reading of "Beeswing," either the song or the book.

Every bit of criticism in the song is self-criticism. ("You foolish man"
/ "Like a fool I let her run" / "and I miss her more than ever words can say.")

The book is almost as wistful, and I would not classify it as self-exculpatory. He seems at least as critical of himself as most of us would be in his shoes.

Also his most famous song is a highwayman ballad, I am not certain you can extrapolate a politics from using what is among the oldest lyrical tropes in English songcraft.

I am sure that there is more cultural context about "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" than I can grasp but the lyrics seem clear that Thompson is speaking from a persona.

Here's what he said about "Geordie" in an interview I found:

I think generally speaking, when you're writing a song in the first person, you are trying to get into the head of somebody else. Sometimes (it's) a fictional character. Sometimes fictional characters are based on other people. You know, "Here Comes Geordie" is based on a real human being so it just becomes easy to satirize that person's shortcomings (ED NOTE: The Guardian claims that Sting is the subject of that song). But every time you're using the first person in a song, so you sing through their eyes, I think you really have to get as full a characterization as you can in two and a half minutes.

I saw Jeff Tweedy play Friday night, an all request benefit show. He joked that he was dismayed how none of the 60 songs he'd released in the four years since he last did this got requested, then doubly dismayed at the number of cover songs requested. "Well, I'm not going to play any of them," he half in jest sneered. Later in the night he noted that someone has requested "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," and that even if he was doing covers he would skip that one, because there were far too many words. He then told a story of when the band and Richard Thompson were opening for Dylan, and when the tour hit Duluth (which is on Lake Superior), they brought out Alan and Mimi from Low, in addition to Thompson, to play "Wreck." They apparently had rehearsed it, and it sounded good, but when the time came to actually play, the lyrics were taped to the stage only at the top, and kept blowing over and obscuring all the words. The musicians did the best they could, but apparently no one on stage was happy with how things turned out.

Yeah. It was bad. https://t.co/aEgPLZfNAh

— LOW (@lowtheband) July 13, 2021

I found a recording of them doing the best they can, though, with all those words that not everyone knew. At least Thompson's guitar sounds good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOfN6-tziMs

xxxp

Um, I am not certain that's a fair reading of "Beeswing," either the song or the book.

Every bit of criticism in the song is self-criticism. ("You foolish man"
/ "Like a fool I let her run" / "and I miss her more than ever words can say.")

The book is almost as wistful, and I would not classify it as self-exculpatory. He seems at least as critical of himself as most of us would be in his shoes.

Is being a cop's son a privileged position in terms of class for the boomer generation? Didn't Pasolini get angry at the student protests because he felt they were middle class kids opposing working class cops?

Thompson's dad was no ordinary PC Plod.

I dunno, I'm speculating about why he chooses "Geordie" as the ultimate punchline put-down playground taunt of this smirky song, rather than "tree-hugging pop star" etc.---seems to be some social discrimination, with regional chauvinism, jobism (cops smarter cooler than milkmen, unto the sons 'tis given?) easily figured in.

I mean, since he wants to take it in that direction, I'll take it a little further.

(ED NOTE: The Guardian claims that Sting is the subject of that song)

LOL "claimed", it could hardly be more obvious who it's about!

My ex-brother-in-law, my sister's ex-husband, had this thing where he would shout out for "Louie Louie" at every gig he went to - I used to go to lots of gigs with him. Then they got divorced and he became persona non grata and I haven't seen him in years. However he still knows people I know and, at the weekend, I was told a story by someone who'd met him at a Richard Thompson gig. As usual, he had shouted out for "Louie Louie" but then, because of his notoriously weak bladder, he'd had to go to the bathroom - and while he was in the bathroom Richard Thompson played "Louie Louie", the first time anyone had ever played "Louie Louie" at a gig he was at and he missed it. Thank you, Richard.

Amazing.

lol, I’d love to hear what RT could do with ‘Louie Louie’.

It looks like Thompson has played it at least one other time way back on Nov. 29, 2006 in Saratoga, CA, around the time the DVD version of 1000 Years of Popular Music was released. (The CD for it has already been out for several years.)

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/richard-thompson/2006/carriage-house-theatre-saratoga-ca-23f6b82b.html

Amazing selection of covers, it may have been one of his all-request shows where you write a selection on a piece of paper.

From New West---"Please Note: This ships on or before May 31":

When Richard Thompson began writing songs for his latest album, Ship to Shore, the artist was instinctively drawn to his own musical roots, employing them in the service of fashioning a deep and diverse 12-track collection that pulls from various styles, genres and eras, but remains unmistakably Richard Thompson. There’s the rumbling, Motown-style rhythm that propels “Trust,” and the straightforward riff-rock of “Turnstile Casanova.” The drone-y “The Old Pack Mule,” an “old man’s song” that takes musical cues from 1600s-era European music, and “Life’s a Bloody Show,” an ode to “snake-oil salesmen and hucksters” that floats on a glammy, cabaret-like melody that’s “almost like a parody of a Noël Coward song, or something from Berlin in the 1920s,” Thompson says. “I liked the idea of having a strong base to work from and reaching out from there,” he says. “And I think of my base as being British traditional music, but there’s also Scottish music, there’s Irish music. There’s jazz and country and classical. As far as I’m concerned, once you establish your base you can reach out anywhere. It’ll still be you ringing through, wherever you decide to go musically.”

TRACKLIST:

Side A -

Freeze
The Fear Never Leaves You
Singapore Sadie
Trust
Side B -

The Day That I Give In
The Old Pack Mule
Turnstile Casanova
Lost In The Crowd
Side C -

Maybe
Life’s A Bloody Show
What’s Left To Lose
We Roll