{"id":4901,"date":"2012-04-01T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4901"},"modified":"2012-04-01T00:11:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T05:11:41","slug":"you-might-laugh-but-you-wont-see-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4901","title":{"rendered":"It’s Just The Motion"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first started this series, “The Real Eighties”, at a time when I was getting fed up with my kids’ schools throwing “Eighties”-themed parties that went as deep as “Flock of Seagulls”, Members Only jackets, and “Walking On Sunshine”.<\/p>\n

And I’ve written about an absolute ton of music in this past three years. \u00a0Check it out for yourself<\/a>. And there’s a bunch more to come.<\/p>\n

But the original motivation for the entire series was my inner monologue responding to some bobblehead who’d sniveled that “eighties music was so stupid”.<\/p>\n

And I thought “then you haven’t heard\u00a0Shoot Out the Lights<\/a><\/em>, by Richard and Linda Thompson which, as it happens, came out thirty years ago today.<\/p>\n

And that day, June 8 of 2009., I started the whoooole three year long series by starting the article you’re reading. \u00a0This piece has been sitting on the schedule for 33 months, now.<\/p>\n

Just saying.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Rock and roll is full of breakup songs; boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy pines for girl.<\/p>\n

What rock and roll is not <\/em>full of is music that slices into the bloody mess when the real, true love of one’s life slowly erodes, and then quickly collapses, into a mocking ruin.<\/p>\n

There’s a reason for that; it’s easy to write breakup songs. \u00a0Breakups come and go; they’re the stuff of a million songs.<\/p>\n

But music about the breakup of a relationship with some mileage – marriage, children, commitment, a shared body of life’s work? \u00a0Not so much. \u00a0The pain doesn’t lend itself to three chords and a hook line – and the pain and loss is just the beginning, leading to layers of recrimination, crippling self-doubt and worse.<\/p>\n

It was thirty years ago today that Richard and Linda Thompson released “Shoot Out The Lights”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The album and attendant tour happened as the couple’s nine year marriage spiraled into the toilet; by the time the album was released, \u00a0 \u00a0The couple – who’d met in one of the middle incarnations of the classic British folk-rock band Fairport Convention, of which Richard was a founding member – had put out five albums before. \u00a0All were commercial outliers and critical blockbusters, capped by 1974’s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, <\/em>generally regarded as one of the great accomplishments of either of their careers.<\/p>\n

The previous year had been a period of immense stress; the Thompsons’ marital breakup was exacerbated by professional turmoil; they’d been released from one minor-label contract, had recorded an entire album floated by Thompson’s friend, the late Gerry Rafferty, a process that led to the end of the guitarists’ friendship. \u00a0But in the aftermath of the Rafferty fiasco, the Thompsons – their marriage foundering, with Linda pregnant with the couple’s third child – went into the studio with producer Joe Boyd, and produced an album that was…<\/p>\n

…not <\/em>about marital discord. \u00a0So they said. \u00a0And that’s been their story for thirty years, and they’ve stuck by it religiously.<\/p>\n

And yet there are mixed messages, as the album ping-pongs between the battlin’ Thompsons. \u00a0The album opens with “Don’t Renege On Our Love”<\/p>\n

Remember when we were hand in hand?<\/p>\n

Remember we sealed it with a golden band?<\/p>\n

Now your eyes don’t meet mine,<\/p>\n

you got a pulse like fever.<\/p>\n

Do I take you for a lover, or just a deceiver?<\/p>\n

Well simple is simple and plain is plain,<\/p>\n

if you leave me now, you won’t come back again.<\/p>\n

Don’t renege on our love, don’t renege on our love…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

z