Richard Thompson’s post-Fairport Convention Run of Genius

Following his departure from Fairport convention in 1971, Richard Thompson quickly established himself as the finest British singer-songwriter since Lennon and McCartney. He eclipsed what had gone before with Fairport, who in retrospect can be seen, really, as a ‘one album wonder’. That album, of course, is Liege and Lief, and while it would be harsh to say it really was their only quality release, I do feel it’s the only one that captured their real identity as a folk-rock band. Their earlier albums are good as far as it goes, but they lack absolutely any sense of a coherent identity. After Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny left, well aren’t Fairport Convention still going on in some form or another?

Richard Thompson soon found his voice, both literally and figuratively. It would be stretching it to say he has ever been a great singer, but he’s definitely a great vocalist – like Dylan, say, or Leonard Cohen, he is able to communicate his own artistic vision perfectly. This piece will look at his first four albums, the latter three offically released as Richard and Linda Thompson, but let’s not kid ourselves about where the talent really lay in that relationship.

So first, we have the deeply odd Henry the Human fly. Deeply odd and for a long time, deeply unpopular. Can it really be true that this was Warner Bros’ worst selling album of all time? In a world where Mariah Carey has sold 200 million records? Apparently it is. What we have here, however, is an undoubted masterpiece, a triumph of an intensely personal artistic journey. In many ways, you might find yourself asking ‘what was he thinking? Did he ever imagine this would sell?’. Take for example, the opener Roll Over Vaughn Williams’. Implicit in the title is Thompson’s clear aim of providing popular music with a distinctively English/British heritage, even mythos, quite apart from its permanent tilt towards America. The song itself is disturbing in a way you can’t quite put your finger on, ‘listen to the scratchy voices eating at you nerves…live in fear’. Coupled with his eerie multi-tracked vocals, it’s as strange an album-opener as you’re likely to find and it sees Thompson setting his stall out for what’s to follow. It sounds at once deeply ancient yet radically new, a contradiction that informs a great deal of his entire body of work. Thompson is simply too talented, despite the depth of his immersion in his musical heritage to be hidebound to tradition – he’s incapable of not leaving his own print on everything he does. His voice, too, is timeless. The man singing this was 23, but he could be 70, or 80, or 300. With this one song Thompson immediately outgrew Fairport and left them trailing in his wake.

To show he isn’t without a sense of humour, the next song is the gloriously nonsensical ‘Nobody’s Wedding’, followed by the moving and deeply affecting ‘Poor Ditching Boy’, which contains the bleakly beautiful line ‘the storm and the wind cut through to my skin, but she cut through to my blood’. The other two highlights on Henry… are, in my opinion, ‘Painted Ladies’ and ‘The Old Changing Way’. Painted Ladies is a sensual tribute to ladies of a certain…virtue, while The Old Changing Way is a heartbreaking account of brotherly love shattered by poverty and disgrace, which again sounds like it could have been written pre-Industrial Revolution. How does a young man of 23, releasing his first solo album, write a lines like ‘brothers are kindred, but hard times betray…you must share with your nearest, till the end of your days’?

Thompson’s ability to sound ancient, to tap into the deep mythology of his culture, was partly inspired by The Band, who did something similar for their own American culture with songs like ‘The Night They Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’. It’s testamant to Thompson’s creativity that he could be so heavily influenced by an act, yet at no point sound anything like them.

Henry… isn’t perfect by any means – I’ve never actually made it all the way through ‘Mary and Joseph’, and it’s not even two minutes long. Even though I don’t really like it, I’m still glad someone out there makes music like this; it’s a noble failure, born of a man pushing himself to his limits to explore the range of his talents. So a masterpiece, yes, but ultimately a slightly flawed one.

Search in vain for flaws, however, in the next album, and the first to be released as Richard and Linda Thompson, 1974‘s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Let’s be bold and say it’s his finest effort, whether solo or with Linda (so, solo with her mainly singing the lead). I’ve used the word ‘bleak’ before, but this album is bleak. Even the lighter songs are suffused with melancholy – see the title track for example. In the book The Electric Muse, this album is described, perceptively, as ‘chillingly bleak – tales of loneliness, disillusion and despair – but with no mawkishness, no excess of sentiment, and just enough hints of hope and nobility for the effects of this strange, compelling album to be far from depressing’. Well, quite. The hope is short supply on this album and it would take a strong constitution not be depressed by the remarkable ‘The End of the Rainbow’, featuring as it does the line ‘There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow, there’s nothing to look up to anymore’.

‘We Sing Hallelujah’ might sound quite cheery, but even at its lightest it’s about defiance in the face if inevitable doom – ‘A man he’s like his father, he wishes he never was born’. Listen out for the ultra-low harmony vocals in the chorus too. I think this album, along with Henry… marks the point at which Thompson moves beyond folk, or even folk-rock really, to became effectively a genre unto himself. Which are the folk songs on this album?

In a way I’d almost rather Henry…was better, because I think it’s more daring and original, but I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is just consistently stronger, with no tracks to skip. I have to say, reluctantly, that I’m not really a fan of Linda Thompson’s voice – in general I find it quite flat and uninvolving. I’d rather hear Richard sing these songs; his voice is a bit ragged sometimes but he brings character that I don’t think Linda often does. A notable exception here is ‘Has He Got a Friend For Me’, a song of profound desperation and loneliness indeed.

The next album, Hokey Pokey, was well in the genre of Richard Thompson, but it doesn’t really have the consistent quality of I Want…, or the daring brilliance of Henry… For more or less anyone else it would be a triumph, but Thompson had set the bar so high that he was bound at some point to fall a tiny bit short. We could charitably call the title track a tribute to the music-hall tradition of George Formby, but it wouldn’t really make you want to keep listening to it, and The Egypt Room never seems to settle on a melody. Other songs, you might be unsurprised to hear, are as strong as anything Thompson wrote. ‘Never Again’ is as heartbreaking and affecting as anything he wrote, and, to be fair, features a beautiful vocal performance from Linda. Does it remind anyone else of Fairport’s ‘Farewell, Farewell?’.

‘The Sun Never Shines on the Poor’ is great too, and I love how in the chorus Richard and Linda seem to singing separate counter-melodies rather than just harmonising. But, I don’t know, this album just doesn’t seem to have many songs that really transcend, and the other three I’m discussing have plenty. In a honest poll of Thompson’s best songs, I don’t many from Hokey Pokey wold make the grade.

But enough negativity! On to another masterpiece, incidentally his third in three years. Why can’t singers do that kind of thing these days? Anyway, the album in question is ‘Pour Down Like Silver’, the one that has a cover of Richard looking like an English Jesus, but is actually of him as a new convert to Islam. This was a step back up from the marginal dip in form on Hokey Pokey, and is a strong rival to I Want to see the Bright Lights Tonight. The two central tracks are, I would suggest, Night Comes In and Dimming of the Day/Dargai. The first of these lasts an epic eight minutes, and is in large part taken up by a lengthy guitar solo. Without showing off any advanced techniques, Thompson plays an intense solo that you simply never want to end. I’ve actually always thought that his real strength is as a songwriter as much as (or possible more than) a guitarist. Here, however, his guitar work is at least at good at the song itself, and indeed is so integral to the song that it’s hard to consider one without the other.

The album was made despite, rather than because, of Thompson’s conversion, but inevitably it has a spiritual feel to it. I’d suggest that few of the songs are explicitly about God or Islam, but what’s interesting is the most obviously religious-feeling songs seem to be addressed more to a person tan to a deity. Night comes in for example, could easily be sung to or a bout a person, as much as a God. I couldn’t understand for a while, until I read that Sufism, Thompson’s preferred brand of Islam, in some way emphasises a personal relationship with God. I think once you realise this, songs like Dimming of the Day start to make more sense of being influenced by his conversion.

Speaking of which, Dimming of the Day/Dargai is an unequivocal masterpiece and one of Thompson’s very best songs. A wonderful vocal performance from Linda (I know, I know) make this one of their most affecting songs. Because it feels as though it’s addressed to a person, whether lover, friend, or family member, there’s none of the potential heavy-handedness that can easily creep into religion-based popular music (see, for example, most of Dylan’s ‘religious’ phase). The first line ‘This old house is falling down around my ears’ reminds me of the old classic ‘This Ole House’ (yes, the Shakin’ Steven’s one), which was also written a by a religious convert.

Just as fascinating is the instrumental coda to the song, based on the melody to an old Scottish song Dargai, by James Scott Skinner. It’s easy to lose yourself in this song, as Thompson repeats a simply melodic phrase for several minutes, bringing different inflections and harmonies each time. I think of it as almost like a mantra in meditation – the repetition serves to concentrate the mind and ensures that the album closes on a suitably contemplative note. It really is a supreme example of the guitarist’s art, and can be unhesitatingly offered up as proof of Thompson’s deserved place in the pantheon of truly great songwriters.

So, Richard Thompson’s post-Fairport Convention run of genius was an exceptional burst of creativity, and the best thing about it all was that it didn’t stop there. I can’t go into his whol career here, but rest assured that he still puts out albums of extreme high quality, and has at no point rested on his laurels. The four albums written about here saw him pull away from his peers and set the template for a lifetime of creativity that shows no sign of dissipating. If you can think of any singer-songwriters who have a comparable body of work and who are still producing excellent songs, I’d love to hear about them.