Day After Day #66: Don't Believe a Word

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Don't Believe a Word (1976)

Rock history is filled with bright lights who were taken too soon. One of those is Phil Lynott, the founder, singer, bassist and main songwriter for the Irish hard rock act Thin Lizzy. A charismatic stage presence with a commanding voice, Lynott led the band (which had a rotating collection of guitarists and drummers over the years) to be one of the leading touring acts of the '70s before substance abuse derailed the group in 1983. Lynott died just three years later at the age of 36. 

But over a 12-year span, Thin Lizzy released 12 albums with a wide variety of excellent songs, from outright rippers to sweet ballads to Celtic-tinged laments. In the middle of that run, the band released its seventh album Johnny the Fox in October 1976. It was the last studio album that featured on-again, off-again guitarist Brian Robertson as a full-time member. The band was notable for its use of harmony guitar parts, so Gary Moore (who was an on-again, off-again member of the group) stepped in for the tour. 

Johnny the Fox was following up Jailbreak, the band's biggest album featuring its two biggest songs, the title track and "The Boys Are Back in Town." Reviewers found it a bit underwhelming compared to the big rock sound of Jailbreak, but it has its defenders and its strong points. The strongest is the song "Don't Believe a Word," which Lynott first brought in as a slow 12-bar blues jam. Robertson told him the song was "shite" and Lynott took off for a few days. In the meantime, Robertson and drummer Brian Downey reworked the song to be faster and heavier, and when Lynott returned, he liked what he heard. 

"Don't Believe a Word" packs a lot into its 2:20 as Lynott sings some decidedly unromantic words to a would-be partner. The protagonist is unfaithful but wracked with guilt as he tells his lover she shouldn't believe anything he says.

"Don't believe a word/Words are only spoken/But your heart is like a promise/Made to be broken/Don't believe a word/Words can tell lies/And lies are no company/When there's tears in your eyes."

The song ended up going to #12 on the UK Singles Chart, the only hit from that album. The live version below from the Midnight Special show in 1977 is a great display of the raw power of the band at that time. Moore ended up recording the original slower version of the song for his 1978 album Back on the Streets, featuring Lynott on bass and Downey on drums (see a live version below).

Thin Lizzy was a veritable Spinal Tap of guitarists, even bringing in Midge Ure (who about to join new wave act Ultravox, which is where he found fame and fortune) to replace Moore after the latter had abruptly quit in the middle of a tour. The last Thin Lizzy album, 1983's Thunder and Lightning, featured John Sykes (later of Whitesnake and Blue Murder) on guitar. With multiple band members, including Lynott, struggling with addiction, the band split up in late '83. Lynott started a new band called Grand Slam but it never really got off the ground. He contributed to Moore's solo album Run for Cover in 1985, garnering a UK hit with "Out in the Fields." 

Lynott was planning to reform Thin Lizzy in 1986, but he ended up in the hospital in December 1985, suffered multiple organ failure and died in January '86. Sykes reformed Lizzy in 1996 with various former members joining over the years to play concerts but not record new material. Sykes left and Scott Gorham took over, playing shows as Thin Lizzy and then eventually recording new songs as Black Star Riders. 

Lynott is beloved in his hometown Dublin, where a memorial statue of him was erected in 2005. I never saw Lynott in action, but when we were in Dublin seven years ago, I was able to get a picture with the statue, which was pretty cool in and of itself.

Through the Past Dorkily: Rockin' Every Night

Editor's note: Through the Past Dorkily is a recurring feature that looks back at the embarrassingly dorky diary I kept as a 16-year-old in 1984.

Sunday, January 15, 1984

This was the day boredom is made of. Got up at around 10, had breakfast and did homework. After lunch, we decided to go to the Methuen Mall. I bought 3 magazines and a Judas Priest pin. I lost my Rush pin last week. Came home, did more homework, went to bed.

What a day!

- The Barbarian

Postscript: A few words about the Methuen Mall, which no longer exists. Back in the early '80s, we used to go there fairly often because it was the closest real mall (i.e., non-strip mall) to our podunk town. My favorite spot there was Midland Records, a great little record shop. While my mother would go to Sears or wherever, I would hunker down at Midland and browse through the vinyl from A to Z. They had a great import section. I was mostly interested in hard rock and metal, so I would pick up things like Gary Moore's Rockin' Every Night, a live album only released in Japan (this was during his post-Thin Lizzy, pre-blues, hard rockin' phase). The store also was a Ticketron outlet; I once got tickets for U2 on the Joshua Tree tour in 1987 by getting to Midland after hearing tickets were going on sale that day and getting a wristband. For hot shows like that, it was tough to get tickets. You could never get through on the phone (I failed miserably a few years later trying to get tickets for the Achtung Baby tour), so if you could get a decent spot in line at a ticket outlet, you had a chance. Even then, my seats were behind the mixing board at the Boston Garden, which weren't awful, but were still pretty far from the stage. Anyway, the Methuen Mall also holds less fun memories; my dad ended up working at the Sears there after he lost his job at the nuke plant. Those were not good times.  

Empty Rooms

As I get older, it's not so shocking anymore when musicians or actors I've admired for years die. Still sucks, though.

Today I found out about the death of Irish singer-guitarist Gary Moore at the relatively young age of 58. While not a mainstream success in the U.S., Moore was one of the best rock and blues guitarists around and acknowledged as such in Europe. He's probably best known for his multiple stints playing in Thin Lizzy in the '70s and later for his string of blues albums in the early '90s.

I first heard of Moore in late 1981 while I was still in Toronto. One of the rock stations was playing a song by Greg Lake (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame) called "Nuclear Attack" that featured a hot solo by Moore, who played on the album and toured with Lake. It wasn't until a few years later that I heard some of Moore's solo stuff on a heavy metal show on the radio and was intrigued enough to pick up his album Corridors of Power and a Japanese import of his live album Rockin' Every Night at Midland Records in the Methuen Mall. The live album especially revealed a wickedly talented guitarist who could play circles around just about anybody.

Moore was playing hard rock at this point, but I could tell instantly he had much more feel in his playing than the other guitar wank stuff I was listening to at the time. I continued to pick up his solo albums and bonded with my buddy Chris over the ridiculously fast solos Moore would play. To my mind, he was right up there with Eddie Van Halen in terms of the best guitarists of the '80s, and Eddie dropped off after DLR left the band.

I also revisited the stuff he played in Thin Lizzy, mostly for the Black Rose studio album and on the Life live album. He and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott worked well together and some of the last recordings Lynott made before he died in early 1986 were vocals on a few songs for Moore's Run for Cover album.

Moore had a minor radio hit with the Celtic-themed song "Over the Hills and Far Away" (not to be confused with the Zeppelin song) off 1987's Wild Frontier album. WBCN even simulcast a show he played at the Paradise in Boston on that tour; I taped it, but the recording quality is shite. I wish I'd gone, but I didn't have a car during the school year back then.

A few years later, he switched from the hard rock sound he'd been mining for years to electric blues and he finally found some U.S. success. The 1990 album Still Got the Blues is terrific and features some outstanding guitar as well as guest spots from George Harrison, Albert Collins and Albert King. He followed it up with After Hours, another good blues album. Then I started getting into alternative and punk and didn't keep up with Moore's output, but he made several blues albums as well as some rock releases.

I'm still bummed by the fact that I never saw him play live, but at least he left behind plenty of great music to remember him by.

Thin Lizzy - Waiting for an Alibi:



Victims of the Future:



Over the Hills and Far Away:



Still Got the Blues: