These complex familial currents flood into Little Girl in Bloom, written and recorded in 1973. Almost 20 years later, history made a decent stab at repeating itself: in 1968, Lynott fathered a son who was given up for adoption without the singer ever setting eyes on him. After a few years living a tough and transitory life with his mother in the north of England, Lynott was sent to live with his grandmother in Crumlin, an estate in Southside, Dublin. Growing up, Lynott never knew his father, a Guyanese immigrant called Cecil Parris who revelled in the nickname “The Duke”. His mother, Philomena, ran away from Dublin to England and in 1949, aged 18, gave birth to her son out of wedlock. Seek out the full-length version on the excellent Vagabonds of the Western World album for maximum kicks. While it’s possible to divine tongue-in-cheek humour in this heightened self-portrait, it presented a vision of the quintessential rock star that he would find himself increasingly striving to live up to, not necessarily to his long-term benefit. On The Rocker, Lynott inhabits a new, street-smart persona, hanging with “the boys” in the juke joint, watching the “chicks” and “looking for trouble”. Bell’s extended guitar solo is monumental, and although the lyrical imagery is route one – sex, violence, music, motorbikes – it’s highly effective. The band were fresh from an eye-opening tour with Slade, and from its explosive guitar riff – a proto AC/DC thug of a thing – to its roll call of tough-guy mannerisms, The Rocker is the sound of a band shrugging off the hippyish robes of their first two albums and slipping into something considerably sharper. This floor-shaking 1973 single lays persuasive claim to being the first bona fide Thin Lizzy classic. Rooted in Lynott’s fascination with the folk and poetry scenes of 60s Dublin, this beautiful, disarming ballad suggests he could easily have followed an entirely different career trajectory. Themes of lost love, entrapment and exile are set to a gorgeously faltering melody and the gentle susurrations of acoustic guitar punctuated by eloquent electric counterpoints. Long before Lynott thought to use mythic Celtic imagery as a monolithic form of band branding, the song suggests a more conflicted relationship with Ireland. Originally written as a poem, Dublin was released a few months later on the New Day EP. Thin Lizzy were formed in 1970 by Lynott, former Them guitarist Eric Bell and ex-Black Eagle drummer Brian Downey, and released their patchy debut in April 1971. When he made his first forays into composition, the results were more Astral Weeks than Waiting for An Alibi: on early songs such as Dublin, Saga of the Ageing Orphan, Remembering and Shades of a Blue Orphanage, he reimagined his home city with the same impressionistic nostalgia Van Morrison used to conjure up postwar Belfast. During his apprenticeship as the singer in Dublin bands the Black Eagles, Skid Row and Orphanage, Philip Lynott almost exclusively sang other people’s material.
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