The anniversary of Phil Lynott’s death is a strange one, in that it already has a clear and established mythology and ritual associated with it; one set out by the singer himself. In the song King’s Call, the Irish songwriter ostensibly talking about the death of Elvis, prefigured how he would himself be remembered.
The first bands I remember seeing (and liking) on Top of the Pops as a kid were Abba and Thin Lizzy, but it would be a lie to say that I was a die-hard lizzy fan while Lynott was alive. In fact, like many of my contemporaries, the announcement of his death on January 4th 1986 was not something felt particularly deeply at the time. It was a footnote, a talking point, but little more.
Later, though, discovering more and more of Lizzy’s records, with their melodies that seemed to resonate from somewhere deep in the Irish spirit (despite the fact that the majority of Lizzy’s guitarists were not Irish), and their romantic lyricism, I would do exactly as the song suggested and stay in with close friends drinking and listening to the albums over and over again.
It’s a habit I’ve grown out of - but let’s do it virtually today together with this brilliant track from the much over-looked early album Shades of a Blue Orphanage. No need to explain why it’s so good - just listen to it, and enjoy.
Imagine the scene: The revolutionary court stands to order as its three women judges enter. There’s a tension in the air, the atmosphere is electric, as the accused stands in all his fuzzy-faced glory. There was a time in the mid-eighties when all you could hear on the radio had his reverbed vocals, and now he stands up to face judgement on his past.
This is the man who managed to take George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison and make them all sound like Dave Edmunds. A man whose production footprint brooked no opposition, taking genius and cramming it into his own particular grinder.
A verdict is expected - given the harsh sentences handed out by the same court respectively to Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange and Timothy Z. ‘Timbaland’ Mosley, it’s not looking good for the British born songwriter/producer.
The judge stands
“Jeffrey Lynne, this court has listened to persuasive arguments that you should be banned, under section 2.5 of the revolutionary code (crimes against culture), for ever more from the act of playing or recording music, in particular for your work on Free as a Bird, the Travelling Wilburys, and that solo single by the blonde from ABBA. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”
In the same year that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel topped the album charts with Bridge over troubled waters, Gil Scott Heron recorded his debut album A New Black Poet - Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. The difference couldn’t be more stark, both in terms of outlook and reception.
Simon and Garfunkel were at the height of their career, recording their fifth studio album and tensions were rife. The duo argued during the sessions and, despite being vocal politically at various points of their career, as a result opted not to include the only overtly political song of the recordings Cuba si Nixon no. They were repaid with an album that spawned (though I balk at its use, it seems to me that ’spawned’ is more than appropriate here) a number of huge hit singles that meant everything and nothing to millions of people.
Gil Scott Heron, on the other hand was recording his first album - a live recording in a nightclub with the small group of David Barnes on percussion and vocals, Charlie Suanders and Eddie Knowles on percussion, and Scott Heron himself singing and playing guitar and piano. It’s as intimate as S&G’s album was polished and spacious. It’s also about as political as you’re ever going to get, while still staying on the side of art as opposed to preaching or propoganda.
The album’s most famous track is, justifiably, The Revolution will not be televised - a template for Scott Heron’s socio-political raps that would influence so heavily african-american music later. I want, though, to recommend to you a different track. One that’s more traditional in terms of its structure -which probably accounts for its relative obscurity - but one that packs no less powerful a punch.
The song opens with Scott Heron introduction “Who’ll pay reparations on my soul?”, his voice rich and questioning. Thereafter it’s as taut, angry, and beautifully melodic as any protest song can be. The guitar and percussion start off at breakneck speed (for an acoustic song, let’s be clear) and Scott Heron and Barnes singing push and pull each other through America’s troubled history, chiming together repeatedly ‘but who’ll pay reparations on my soul?’.
Scott Heron has been criminally neglected, and criminally targeted in the intervening years, going in and out of jail on drug possesion charges (and apparently becoming H.I.V. positive in the process) most recently being paroled in 2007. It would seem that there’s a clear answer to the song for him personally - the only person picking up the tab for Scott Heron has been himself. He is, according to sources on Wikipedia, back recording and writing now - something we should all be grateful for.
On a wider scale, the song remains as relevant, angry, and unanswered as ever - as we head in to an election campaign where Barak Obama’s race is something that needs to be discussed.
“What about the red man
Who met you at the coast?
You never dig sharing;
Always had to have the most.
And what about Mississippi,
The boundary of old?
Tell me,
Who’ll pay reparations on my soul?”
