RED HAIR AND BLACK LEATHER

Richard Thompson – Rumour and Sigh

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, but when my friend Alex and I went to see Richard Thompson a while back, we were the only young people in the audience who hadn’t obviously come along with their parents. This irked me so much that I made a point of coping ‘I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight’ – one of the best collections of songs recorded by anyone ever, period – for several young people in the hope they’d appreciate it. Well anyway, regardless, ‘Rumour & Sigh’ lets my side down by positively reeking of old folks music – it has that whole Mark Knopler/Chris Rea ‘old man playing politely rockin’ tunes with nostalgic lyrics about motorbikes and troublemakers and slick ‘80s production to audiences of other old men, politely rockin’ back’ vibe about it for sure. Even the cover art is a really sucky '80s yuppie neo-primitive sort of effort. But you know what? It doesn’t matter, cos Richard Thompson is fucking good, and writes extraordinary songs full of wide-eyed romanticism and honesty and triumph and despair, and this album flat out rules. Yes, not ‘it quite good considering..’, but RULES, like Springsteen rules (seriously – check the “let’s do Glory Days!” accordion on ‘Feel So Good’!). It’s gotta be his best post-70s album for sure.

Those who’ve had a listen to the recent Rough Trade Shops ‘Singer Songwriter’ compilation will already know what an incredible song the obvious highlight ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’ is, but just about every other song here manages to hit a similar alchemy of guts and gusto and star-gazing (not to mention some typically awesome guitar playing!), and no amount of unnecessary keyboards and bass guitars making a fuss and uncool English middle-class accents and unwelcome images of mortgages and people-carriers can hide the fact that this is top stuff all round; “well I’m 21, I might make 22, and I don’t mind dying for the love of you!”