Mama Nature Said: Thin Lizzy’s Vagabonds of the Western World at 50
For the Irish band, it was the end of one era and the beginning of another
Ireland’s Thin Lizzy arrived fully formed on their self-titled 1971 debut, a terrific album that showcases Phil Lynott’s exceptional way with both words and grooves.
A bass-led hard rock band fronted by a Black man was already an anomaly in the early-1970s — the band’s Irishness set them even further apart.
Raised primarily by his grandparents, Sarah and Frank, in Dublin, Lynott spent time with his single mother, Philomena, in Manchester when he could. His father, Cecil Parris, a Black man of British Guianan descent – known as The Duke due to his fastidious appearance – was only tangentially involved in his life.
From early on, Lynott learned to deal with racism and classicism through his wit, and when all else failed, his fists. As he states in Thin Lizzy’s liner notes, “I’m a big lad and I’d deck anybody who said anything nasty to me.” He was a poet, a romantic and an incorrigible ladies man–a lover and a fighter.
As sound engineer Peter Eustace puts it in Mark Putterford’s 1994 biography, Phil Lynott: The Rocker, “He was literally a black Irish bastard, and he was never allowed to forget that.” Co-manager Chris O’Donnell recalls that audience members at early gigs, like a 1972 date at the Manchester Free Trade Hall–at which his mother, unfortunately, was also in attendance–would yell racist crap like, “Get back to Africa.” Add Eustace, “The fact that Phil managed to rise above all that says a lot for his determination.”
Lynott also loved his native land, and he references it frequently with lyrics involving Celtic lore, Catholicism, the Great Famine, whiskey, and story songs about characters with names like Diddy Levine and Johnny Maguire. Whether he loved or loathed it, Ireland provided grist for his songwriting mill. As he sang on 1971’s “Dublin,” “How can I leave the town that brings me down / that has no jobs / is blessed by God / and makes me cry.” In fact, he did leave Dublin for London in 1971, prior to the recording of Lizzy’s second album, but he would return frequently to tour, to visit friends and relatives, and eventually to stay.
As a kid, I didn’t know any of this. I just knew that their 1976 hit single “The Boys Are Back in Town” was a jam, but it wasn’t funk, art rock, or power pop, so I didn’t investigate further, but maybe that’s partly why the band’s reputation has only grown over the years; they weren’t tied to any movements that might now be seen, even affectionately, as trendy or dated. Thin Lizzy’s genre was guitar-bass-and-drums rock.
Vagabonds of the Western World followed 1972’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage. Of their 12 studio albums, it’s my favorite, especially in the form first released in 1991 with four bonus tracks, including two singles, most significantly 1972’s “Whiskey in the Jar,” their heartfelt rendition of an Irish traditional that gained yet another lease on life when Metallica covered it on 1998’s Garage Inc.–and scored a Grammy Award for their efforts (the single also appears on the 2010 Blue Orphanage reissue). For Lizzy, it resulted in a #1 hit in Ireland and #6 in the UK. Not bad for lyrics that had been kicking around for 245 years.
If this quintessentially Irish song, with which the Dubliners previously had a hit, put Lizzy on the map, it also bummed them out. As drummer Brian Downey notes in The Rocker, he and Lynott felt that their songwriting was better than ever, and they would have preferred to have struck gold with an original, like “Black Boys on the Corner,” the bass-heavy track that appears on the B-side, but Decca insisted they reverse the order. “We were furious,” Downey remembers, “but we had to go along with it.” Notably, some lucky disc jockeys received miniature bottles of whiskey to promote the A-side, which probably didn’t hurt.
After a disappointing experience making Blue Orphanage, for which they had only had three weeks to write the songs, their third Decca release represented a chance to make up for it. They took advantage of the opportunity, and everything, from the writing to the playing, improves on its predecessor. Vagabonds is a hard-hitting album that eschews the bells and whistles of subsequent work, like the jazz melodies and female backing vocals that would pull Lizzy in a Steely Dan direction on 1974’s Nightlife. Granted, the additional musicians include string and organ players, but their contributions are barely detectable.
The album gets off to a rousing start with an impassioned plea to save the Earth before it’s too late (“Mama Nature Said”), which might seem out of character, except Lynott could be prescient in his concerns. As his mother notes in her touchingly clear-eyed 1996 memoir, My Boy, “He had also become a very observant person, ever-vigilant about whatever was going on in the world about him.” The next song, “The Hero and the Madman,” features spoken-word recitations from David “Kid” Jensen, the Radio Luxembourg DJ and great early supporter. Lizzy would pay tribute to another radio legend, Canadian taste-maker Rosalie Trombley, with their electrifying cover of Bob Seger’s “Rosalie” on 1975’s Fighting.
Other songs touch on heartbreak (“Slow Blues”), the perils of playboys (“Vagabonds of the Western World”), starting over in a new town (“Broken Dreams”), young mothers (“Little Girl in Bloom”), Led Zeppelin-style raunch and roll (“I’m Gonna Creep Up on You”), undying love (“A Song for While I’m Away”), and, of course, “The Rocker,” which would become a signature number. When Irish filmmaker Emer Reynolds made her 2020 Phil Lynott documentary, she aptly titled it: Songs for While I’m Away.
“The Rocker” features the band’s silliest lyrics, but that isn’t necessarily a dig. For all of Lynott’s poetic aspirations–he released two books of poetry–the lads could let their hair down and have as much dumb fun as any of their peers. It’s in the vein of Argent’s “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” or KISS’s “Rock and Roll All Nite” (KISS also covered the Argent number) with a touch of Lynyrd’s “Freebird.” Sample lyrics: “I am your main man if you’re looking for trouble / I’ll take no lip ’cause no ones tougher than me / If I kicked your face you’d soon be seeing double / Hey little girl, keep your hands off me ’cause I’m a rocker.”
For a hard rock band in the 1970s, it was essential to have at least one song that made their intent as clear as a bell: I’m a rocker, I live to rock, and no one will stop me from rocking. These are the songs that get audience members off their seats, arms in the air–losing themselves to the music–and after a rough start with a lot of staring at their feet, Lizzy was on the verge of becoming an absolute beast on stage. As future Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham puts it in The Rocker, “Our motto was: ‘Leave the stage covered in blood and watch the headliners slip all over it.’ We used to love to give the main band a hard time.”
Though Lynott wrote most of the songs, Downey co-wrote “Slow Blues,” Bell co-wrote “Gonna Creep Up on You,” and both co-wrote “The Rocker.” They all hoped that the latter would be a hit. The band had taken “Whiskey in the Jar” as far as it could go, including an appearance on “Top of the Pops,” but their advance was running out. Sadly, it didn’t even dent the charts, which seems inconceivable in retrospect, but touring kept them afloat until the hits started to flow again with the release of Jailbreak in 1976.
If “Whiskey in the Jar” marked the beginning of their hit-making era, however unsteadily, Vagabonds marked the end of Lizzy MK1 as founding member Bell made his last appearance with the band. Decca also withdrew its offer to renew their contract, but Phonogram stepped in just in time for Nightlife. Though the success of “Whiskey in the Jar” rankled Downey, he appreciated the higher profile it provided, while Bell could only see the downside: more business people calling the shots and less room for improvisation. His health was also suffering from too much alcohol and not enough sleep. After a disastrous New Year’s Eve gig in his native Belfast, the band gave him the boot. As Stuart Bailie puts it in his 1996 book, The Ballad of the Thin Man: The Authorised Biography of Phil Lynott & Thin Lizzy, “He was glad, really.”
Lizzy then became a quartet with Gorham, an American expatriate, and Brian “Robbo” Robertson, a 17-year-old Glaswegian, on guitar. This lineup would last through 1977’s Bad Reputation, after which Gary Moore (who had played with Lynott in Skid Row and a variety of other Lizzy variations), Snowy White, and John Sykes would fill the guitar spot Robbo had abandoned. Just as Lynott’s school chum Downey had played with him in pre-Lizzy outfits the Black Eagles and Orphanage, he would play in outer-Lizzy projects the Greedies and the solo records–true friends and collaborators until the end.
There would be more hits to come, especially during the Gorham-Robbo “harmony guitars” years, among them “Dancing in the Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in Its Spotlight”),” “Jailbreak,” and “The Boys are Back in Town,” a song inspired by soldiers returning from the Vietnam War that signified the return of most every kind of dude, from the Quality Street Gang members who congregated around Philomena’s Clifton Grange Hotel to Lizzy themselves, decked out in Carnaby Street finery when they returned to the old sod.
Lynott’s fine 1980 album Solo in Soho would also produce a hit with “Yellow Pearl,” a strange, slinky, synth-rock collaboration with Midge Ure from Ultravox (Ure would participate in several iterations of Lizzy, as well). Though it seems an unlikely choice, “Top of the Pops,” the show on which a young Phil Lynott had awkwardly mimed through “Whiskey in the Jar,” would adopt it as their theme song for several years..
If I wouldn’t rate Vagabonds as the best Lizzy release, it’s a sentimental favorite, since it’s their last all-Irish album (even though they recorded it in the UK). Eric Bell, a showband veteran, had even played with Them, and Van Morrison–who became a friend–was Lynott’s biggest influence next to Jimi Hendrix.
Afterward, Lynott would become obsessed with the United States, especially California and Texas. Jailbreak, which drew from western lore, was more thematically consistent, while Fighting offered an even punchier sound, powered by Gorham and Robbo in perfect sync. In the process, Lizzy became an international phenomenon, much like U2 in the 1980s, who would shift from songs about Irish history to songs about America as both a place and a state of consciousness. But for all Lizzy would gain, a certain hometown spirit was lost, even as Lynott never completely stopped singing about Ireland. It made him, it sustained him, and he never forgot where he came from. To Philomena, the flirtations with the UK and the US didn’t change the fact that, “He was unquestionably genuinely proud of his Irishness.”
Though not a chart success at the time–non-album track “Whiskey in the Jar” aside–Vagabonds of the Western World offered the clearest indication to date of the superstardom to come. Like all good things, though, it wouldn’t last. A decade and countless tours later, Thin Lizzy would come to an end, and in 1986, after years of hard living, Phil Lynott passed away at the age of 36, leaving his mother without a son, his daughters without a father, and the world without a wildly charismatic, multi-talented musician.
As Philomena Lynott says about her firstborn son in My Boy, “Of course, it helps that so many love his music, but I would give it all up, willingly and instantly, just to have him back in my life.”
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