thin lizzy: new day

dublin, 1911: photograph from the national archives of ireland.

Long before they became boys' rock cartoons, Dublin's Thin Lizzy wore their lyrical folk allegiance on their sleeve. Phil Lynott was still finding his feet as a writer on their Scott English produced debut for Deram, a subsidiary of Decca, and the quietly vulnerable mood of the album is at odds with much of the group's later bombastic success.

The debt beholden Jimi Hendrix is just as manifest here as in Lynott's live stage act, but it has noticeably less to do with posturing than the soft soulful burr of Hendrix's very human vocals. There is none of the pomp of rock n' roll excess and casualty.

The recording sessions for this first album were initiated on January 4th, 1971. Phil Lynott died of heart failure complicated by pneumonia exactly fifteen years later on January 4th, 1986. His life by then had been dogged by alcohol and narcotics dependency throughout many of the intervening years.

The "New Day" EP was recorded in June of 1971 and can be found on the CD reissue of the original Deram LP.

▼ THIN LIZZY: DUBLIN* from "New Day" EP (Deram) 1971 (UK)

* link deleted

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