Trivia / Thin Lizzy

• Black Sheep Hit: "Whiskey In The Jar" was originally recorded as an Irish in-joke and as a B-side to one of their singles. When the management got hold of it, they flipped it to the A-side and it became a massive hit, much to the band's chagrin.
• Christmas Rushed: According to then-guitarist Eric Bell, the label initially denied them making a second LP, then gave them three weeks in which to make one - Shades of a Blue Orphanage. Having used up several of the best potential songs on their EP New Day (which was made due to the label's initial refusal to let them record a second LP), the group had very few new songs at the time and padded the album out with some hastily-put-together filler and a couple of early songs, not to mention sounding exhausted. There were no singles released from it. The group fortunately had a hit a few months later with "Whiskey in the Jar", which allowed them to negotiate a lot more time to make the much more popular Vagabonds of the Western World.
• He Also Did: Damon Johnson, guitarist since 2011, has formerly played with Alice Cooper and the country band Whiskey Falls among others.
• Looping Lines: According to co-producer Tony Visconti, 75% of Live and Dangerous isn't really live, because the band was usually at least a bit drunk on stage and the shortage of coherent recorded performances meant that they had to record it live in the studio and add crowd noise later. The band's manager Chris O'Donnell disputes this, saying that while some parts (mostly guitar solos) got looped in the studio, it's 75% live. Guitarist Brian Robertson insists that the whole thing is live, and that overdubs would have been impossible because of the lack of acoustic separation.^note When a band records live, chances are that any given mic will record more than just the source it's supposed to record. If a part is played badly or contains obvious clams, it will therefore be potentially audible on more than one track. Overdubbing that part won't work, because the original part will be audible in the background of other tracks. The only solution is either acoustic separation, in which each track contains only the instrument or voice it's supposed to contain and which is impossible to achieve in a live recording, or else re-recording the whole performance. Some of the soundboard recordings for what would become the album are available on YouTube, and indicate that the truth is somewhere in between Visconti's and Robertson's assertions. The only thing everyone agrees on is that it's one of the band's best albums.
• No Export for You: Every American tour they attempted was plagued by problems and usually cancelled, possibly contributing to their lack of worldwide success and probably the reason they are relatively little known across the Atlantic.
  • In June 1976, the band was set to tour America with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow after the success of their Jailbreak album; unfortunately Lynott contracted hepatitis right before the tour was set to start and he was flown home to recuperate while Lizzy were replaced with another band.
  • In November that same year, literally on the eve of another American tour, this time supporting their Johnny the Fox album, Brian Robertson injured his hand in a bar fight (which, ironically enough, was not even his fault—he put his hand out to protect his friend and fellow Scottish musician Frankie Miller from getting hit with a glass bottle). He was unable to play, and Lynott was furious and fired him immediately. The band eventually replaced him with Gary Moore and toured America with Queen, but the damage was done.
  • For reasons that nobody really understands, the B-Side 'Cruising In The Lizzymobile' (originally released as 'A Ride In The Lizzy Mobile'), was only released during the band's lifespan in Germany, as the B-Side to The Rocker. All other territories got Here I Go Again as the B-Side, and 'Lizzy Mobile' was somehow skipped over for all the Decca cash-in compilations. The first place where it appeared outside Germany was on the box set "Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels" and was later on the deluxe edition of Vagabonds Of The Western World. 'Lizzy Mobile' is generally considered one of the greatest hard rock tracks of the Eric Bell era, so it may be that the label just forgot about it for years.
    • The band's first single, "The Farmer"/"I Need You", was released only in Ireland on Parlophone Records (prior to the band signing to Decca), under the slightly different spelling of Thin Lizzie. Whilst 500 copies were pressed, something like only 238 copies were sold, and the remaining unsold copies were returned to the label and destroyed. The record has been bootlegged, but only "The Farmer" has officially appeared on CD. It isn't known why "I Need You" wasn't, although the band only recorded it because the studio owner asked them (it was his composition, and quite different in style, but at this stage, Thin Lizzy often did songs in different styles).
• One-Hit Wonder: Annoyingly they are best known only for their two biggest hits, "The Boys Are Back In Town", and "Whiskey In The Jar" (which was later covered by Metallica).
  • They have many hits in the UK which still get airplay (the most commonly played nowadays being Dancing In The Moonlight and Sarah). In the UK, Metallica's version of "Whiskey" is nowhere near as popular as the Lizzy version. Metallica rarely get airplay on anything other than specialist stations.
• The Pete Best: Keyboardist Eric Wrixon, who was part of the band's original lineup as a cover band and made his sole recorded appearance on their first single "The Farmer"/"I Need You".
  • To a lesser extent, original guitarist Eric Bell, whose leaving the band paved the way for them to rearrange their sound over the twin guitar sound of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, making the early folk and blues inspired material somewhat Early-Installment Weirdness. Unlike Wrixon, however, Bell made the occasional guest appearance live, such as on the "Life" album, and has benefitted from the continued popularity of "Whiskey In The Jar" and "The Rocker", both of which he played on.
• Troubled Production: "Don't Believe A Word" on Johnny the Fox was originally written as a slow, sad, bluesy song, but Brian Robertson hated it. Lynott was so annoyed and hurt that he left the studio and didn't return for some days, during which Robertson decided he'd been too harsh and he and Downey reworked it into a fast, menacing shuffle. When Lynott returned he liked the result and that's how it ended up on the album, but then when the album came out Lynott had sole credit, which annoyed Robertson, who felt that he and Downey should have had some credit too. The band plays the slow version on the Life album, where it becomes a Suspiciously Similar Song to "Still In Love With You".
• What Could Have Been: The original plan for the Bad Reputation album was to have a number of guest guitarists playing alongside Scott Gorham (possibly including Brian May and Ritchie Blackmore). Eventually the idea was dropped and Gorham played most of the guitar on the album himself, though he left a few songs without solos so that Brian Robertson, who was recovering from his hand injury, could contribute.
  • Scott Gorham originally left the US in 1973 and travelled to the UK because Bob Siebenberg (Scott's brother-in-law) thought he'd be able to join Supertramp. This didn't end up happening, and eventually after scraping some work from playing in pub bands for a few months, his visa soon due to expire, Scott eventually found some luck and joined Thin Lizzy in 1974.

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