Few bands command the affection and respect of Thin Lizzy. From Phil Lynott’s poetic, street-tough lyricism to the contributions of a stellar lineup of game-changing guitarists – Eric Bell, Gary Moore, Scott Gorham, Brian Robertson, Snowy White, John Sykes – Lizzy’s legacy is a mix of genuine, pantheon greatness and frustrating, unfulfilled promise.
But which songs truly define their swagger? We sat down with actual rock royalty – including members of Metallica, Black Sabbath and Def Leppard – to pick the anthems that shaped the legend.
Honesty Is No Excuse (Thin Lizzy, 1971)
Mikael Åkerfeldt, Opeth
I love Thin Lizzy. I love their hits like Don’t Believe A Word and Jailbreak. Black Rose is another great song of theirs, also Emerald. I expect other people will have picked those songs, so I’m going to say something completely different. Let’s go all the way back to the very first [self-titled] Thin Lizzy record for Honesty Is No Excuse. It’s so great. It starts as an acoustic number and it even has Mellotron on it. What an awesome song.
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Whiskey In The Jar (Non-album single, 1972)
Francis Rossi, Status Quo
There are several others that I could have chosen, I liked Sarah and stuff, but my favourite is probably Whiskey In The Jar. I liked it because we had just met them at the time it came out, and also that it sounded very, very Irish. It was also very Philip.
Later on, the record company tried to mould them into being a [generic] rock band. The Boys Are Back In Town? I could see why it was a hit, but that lyric: ‘If the boys wanna fight you’d better let ’em’, for fuck’s sake.
Philip was such a nice man. A really lovely man. He’d been pissed on quite a lot in life with the racism thing, and he could have played on that but he didn’t. He was a delightful bloke. Lizzy were building at the same time as us, and we played around together a lot. Because they were coming up behind us, people often ask if we were in competition with them.
I suppose there was somewhat, much less so than other bands because I liked Philip so much. With some bands you’d see them for the first time and go: “Jesus, they’re fucking good”, and then before too long you’d realise they weren’t. That wasn’t the case with Thin Lizzy. That very first hit of theirs was true and honest. I still love it.
Joe Bonamassa
Obviously, The Boys Are Back In Town is the hit. That’s their equivalent of All Right Now by Free, one that you hear on classic rock radio and maybe don’t even know it’s Thin Lizzy. For me, Whiskey In The Jar is the song that encapsulates what I regard as their classic line-up.
Diehard fans will be able to pick a much deeper track, and I understand why some people might take issue with my statement about preferring them as a trio – believe me, I’m very much a Gary Moore guy; some of the music they made with him was so ferocious, and at the other end of the scale I really loved that studio version of Still In Love With You – but Whiskey In The Jar was the most Irish that Lizzy ever sounded, and I kind of like that.
Suzi Quatro
My first UK tour with my English band was about five months before I had my first No.1, Can The Can [in 1973]. Slade were headlining their first UK national tour, supported by Thin Lizzy, with me as opening act. We were on the road for about two and a half weeks, so of course we all got to be quite friendly. The song of theirs that I liked most was Whiskey In The Jar. Even though they didn’t write it, to me it was the Thin Lizzy song.
Crispian Mills, Kula Shaker
I’m not what you would call a hard-core Thin Lizzy fan. I like them like I like a walk in the park – they’re a part of our world now. I’m going to go with the Irish song of theirs that became such a huge hit. It’s gone so deeply into my musical subconscious that it teaches me to play and how to think about music.
It’s one of those songs that once you’ve heard it, it’s always going to be one of your favourite records. It’s so well-crafted and played so effortlessly. I find myself playing and thinking: “Oh, that sounds like Whiskey In The Jar.” It’s wonderful when a heavy rock band has a song you can play on an acoustic guitar or busk on a street corner.
Black Boys On The Corner (B-side to Whiskey In The Jar, 1972)
Dave Wyndorf, Monster Magnet
Thin Lizzy are fucking great. I’ve been into that band since I was eleven years old. I can’t tell you how much their song Black Boys On The Corner turns me on. It sounds so fucking badass. It’s got enough funk in it to sound authentic. That part that speeds up [he imitates the track], you can hear the tubes in the amps.
Believe me, I’ve bought a lot of hard rock records, and I can’t think of another band that brings the funk the way Phil Lynott and those guys did. They were Irish, not American or English. They were a combination of different influences and they pulled them off perfectly. You couldn’t fit them into just one category.
It’s Only Money (Nightlife, 1974)
Geoff Downes, Asia/Yes
I always loved that track and the album Nightlife. Gorham and Robertson duelling with their banjos, with a few proggy bits thrown in.
Still In Love With You (Nightlife, 1974)
Glenn Hughes
The slower one with Gary [Moore], that’s the one I really like. I mean, Gary was a good friend, and Phil, you know, the last ten years of his life we were really good mates. That’s another story. But I love that song. And Phil, oh my god, what a talented guy.
Spike, The Quireboys
I love that song, but it has to be the version sung by Frankie Miller [on Nightlife]. We did a tribute gig at the Mayfair [in Newcastle] when my dad passed away, and I was supposed have sung that with Robbo on guitar. I don’t know why it didn’t happen. Nobody could sing it better. When Frankie’s voice comes in, it still gives me goosebumps.
Wild One (Fighting, 1975)
Tyla, The Dogs D’Amour
When I first saw Thin Lizzy on the TV I thought they were American, because they looked it, and… well one of them was. I was fifteen going on sixteen, and even got my hair permed by a girl from school who had a Saturday job at the local hairdressers. Got my left ear pierced and whacked in a gold earring, too. I bought a black Les Paul copy as well… But I digress.
I love every Thin Lizzy song, and at one point had just about everything they had ever released, but I stopped at Black Rose because I didn’t really like anything after that. Weird, eh? But I still love all the older ones like Still In Love With You with Frankie Miller, and also Wild One, which I’ve covered and I think we did a good job.
Rosalie (Fighting, 1975)
Rosalie Cunningham
I’m cheating a bit, as Rosalie isn’t really a Thin Lizzy song, it’s a Bob Seger cover. I’m not the biggest Thin Lizzy fan in the world. Growing up it made my name cool, and as a kid I always hoped it would be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy to be named after such a cool chick in a song.
Ballad Of A Hard Man (Fighting, 1975)
King Diamond
There’s too much great playing and singing on too many great albums by Thin Lizzy for me to have just one favourite, so I’ve chosen a song for different reasons. I saw Lizzy for the first time in 1975 when they toured in support of Fighting. The gig was at the Hard Rock Café in Copenhagen, a relatively small club, but very packed. Afterwards, I saw them every time they came to Copenhagen until the day we lost Phil Lynott.
Three days after Lizzy’s show in 1975, I went to a Blue Öyster Cult gig, and to my astonishment there was Thin Lizzy sitting at the bar. When I asked for autographs they were incredibly nice, but I didn’t have any paper. Back then, attending a concert you received a pamphlet or flyer with a photo of the headliner and their discography on one side, with the other blank. So I folded and tore mine in half.
Fifty years later the four perfect signatures of Phil Lynott, Scott Gorham, Brian Downey and Brian Robertson remain visible. I’ve still got my souvenir, and the song Ballad Of A Hard Man from that same 1975 album always takes me back to a precious moment that I will never forget.
Jailbreak (Jailbreak, 1976)
Merv Goldsworthy, FM
Thin Lizzy were always my favourite band. Through the years I saw the Famous Four – the Gorham and Robbo line-up – maybe forty times. The first time, they were opening for BachmanTurner Overdrive. I think it was 1975. I was introduced to Phil Lynott by my good friend John Sykes after the band had played at the Reading Festival in 1983 [Lynott’s final UK show with the group].
They say that you should never meet your heroes. Well, I met mine, and it was one of the greatest moments of my life. He was charming and funny, everything you wanted him to be. John and Phil were the real deal, and I was privileged to hang out with Phil a lot before he died. He even lent me his bass to play when we recorded Indiscreet [FM’s debut album, 1986].
Jon Bon Jovi
My favourite Thin Lizzy song is Jailbreak. I used to play it a lot. It’s a great lyric, and you can really feel the energy. But the first song I was ever really passionate about playing was actually The Boys Are Back In Town. It was on the radio a lot, and I remember I had the sheet music and I was so excited to learn the chord progression.
The band actually covered it once on a charity record [Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell, featuring bands who played the Moscow Music Peace Festival] back in the late eighties, and we used to play both that and Jailbreak a lot live. I loved Phil, and love Lizzy, love Lizzy, love Lizzy.
Warriors (Jailbreak, 1976)
John Bush, Armored Saint
They had so many truly amazing songs, but Warriors is killer. The riffs are amazing. It’s the ultimate cool-factor song, from the album that I consider Thin Lizzy’s best. When Phil sang: ‘I am a warrior’, with the echo on his voice, that summarised his complete and utter coolness. He was a black Irishman who had nothing but soul. The earlier Thin Lizzy stuff had a more folkier feel, and I really liked that. He became one of my favourite singers. Phil didn’t have an incredible range, but who cares? It was all about the style.
The Boys Are Back In Town (Jailbreak, 1976)
James Hetfield, Metallica
There are so many great Thin Lizzy songs, they’re all just amazing pieces of songwriting, and they’ve all got their moods and their place. My walkout music would be The Boys Are Back In Town, there’s no doubt about it. That song makes me smile, and it gets me pumped up. There’s a feeling of ‘family’ or a gathering – a gang – and the harmony solos are so catchy and memorable. It’s the perfect length of song, too, it’s got a little breakdown, it’s got it all! A good vibe and it always, always puts me in a great mood.
Jonathan Cain, Journey
Everything about The Boys Are Back In Town is incredible – the guitar riff, the hook, the production and the lead vocal. It’s a masterpiece. It’s brilliant. What I love most about that song is the picture that it paints. It puts you inside the song. That’s something that we, as Journey, also try to do. That’s what Don’t Stop Believin’ was all about – an attempt to insert them and their lives into the music.
Emerson Lake & Palmer did it with Karn Evil 9 – ‘Step inside and see the show’. When it works it’s genius. You think about Hotel California, with those guitars playing the harmonies together, and it makes you think: “I wonder where Don Felder got that idea”. My regret is that I never met Phil. He was a big hero of mine. I know that Neal [Schon] got to play with him.
Mick Box, Uriah Heep
For me it’s a simple choice. We [Heep] were touring America at the same time they released it, and in every city we played we heard The Boys Are Back In Town. Whenever you turned on the radio, there it was. It was such a great song. The best thing was that it summed up everything Thin Lizzy was about, because they really were like a gang. A great title and a great song from a great band, it really resonated with me. The Boys Are Back In Town was just built for radio, and it still sounds fantastic today.
Tony Iommi
It’s a really catchy tune, and Thin Lizzy had so many of those. Phil Lynott was such a great character. I met him at the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles back in the seventies. I had to laugh when he said to me: “I should join your band. Then it really would be black Sabbath.”
Johnny Van Zant, Lynyrd Skynyrd
I love lots of Thin Lizzy songs, but my go-to song of theirs was always The Boys Are Back In Town. That’s a song that was so huge for them here in America. When it came out the radio played it all the time. It really appeals to me as a lyricist. I love the way it celebrates being part of a gang, and that chorus is pure gold.
Jay Jay French, Twisted Sister
After Dee Snider and I saw Thin Lizzy open for Queen at the Nassau Coliseum in New York in 1975, we added [Queen’s] Tie Your Mother Down to our set. Because we were always looking to be a little different, for a while we put Jailbreak together with [Elvis’s] Jailhouse Rock and [Lieber & Stoller’s] Riot In Cell Block Number Nine in something we called The Jailhouse Rock Trilogy.
Jailbreak was a great song, but when The Boys Are Back In Town came out as a single… wow. What an incredible song. We covered it a lot, and it’s far, far harder than you’d think. Those chord progressions are extraordinarily difficult. They’re full of augmented… diminished… I don’t know the terminology, but every line is a new chord. This is not standard ZZ Top blues-rock fare.
We played The Boys Are Back In Town so many times back then, whenever I hear it now the hairs on the back of my neck go up. It takes me right back to the days of Twisted Sister in the clubs. Many years later, Twisted Sister were fortunate to be a part of a Monsters Of Rock festival tour in Europe, which included Thin Lizzy’s very last show in Nuremberg, Germany [on September 4, 1983]. Every band on the bill – us, Blue Öyster Cult, Meat Loaf, Motörhead and Whitesnake – stood at the side of the stage and was crying. It still makes me emotional to think about it. As a band, Thin Lizzy were so damned great.
Jaz Coleman, Killing Joke
My first interaction with Thin Lizzy was when they played Cheltenham Town Hall in the mid-seventies. They were on a tour for Jailbreak and the single The Boys Are Back In Town. In those days I used to help load in the equipment and get in for free. The place was absolutely packed.
Phil Lynott was so incredibly charismatic. He had a kind of Hendrix-style aura about him, but of course he played bass. That concert still sticks in my mind as it was the first I’d seen by someone of mixed race leading a rock band. It gave me, as an Anglo-Indian, the incentive to go out and do the same thing.
Fast forward to the 1980s and I got to know Brian Robertson. I think he was playing in Motörhead at the time. Robbo often came around to my place in Portobello Road, and we used to talk a lot about his days with Lizzy.
I really love folk music; I’ve had a lot of success with taking that music and scoring it for an orchestra. That’s where my other favourite Thin Lizzy song, Whiskey In The Jar, comes in. It began as an ancient folk song about an Irish military hero that goes back to the seventeenth century, but Lynott rearranged it and made it famous. Rightly so, because it’s a magnificent piece of music.
Phil’s sojourn with Jones and Cook from the Sex Pistols in The Greedies was what really endeared me to him the most, because he was daring to mix rock music with punk. Those two came to all of our early gigs and became great proponents of Killing Joke. It was so sad that Phil went so soon. It can be a wake-up call when you see somebody as talented as that die, a bit like our own Geordie Walker. That’s why I hate alcohol. I will never recover from Geordie’s death, because he is irreplaceable. When he played he sounded like three or four guitarists.
Kory Clarke, Warrior Soul
I really like The Boys Are Back in Town because it’s a fucking good song. The autobiographical nature of Thin Lizzy’s songs has always resonated with me, and I heard The Boys… the day it came out, on our local radio station in Detroit where it got heavy airplay. It always reminds me of the feeling you get when starting a tour.
Lita Ford
I have always loved Thin Lizzy. They could play the Yellow Pages – is Yellow Pages even a thing any more? – and I would be happy. I went to a lot of their shows and my favourite thing to watch was always those dual-guitar harmonies. I could listen to those all day long. The Boys Are Back In Town is a song I could sing all day, every day.
Eric Gales
The Boys Are Back In Town has that catchy boogie, and to me it’s also got that kind of biker attitude. Like: “Hey man, we are here, we are back in town – what you gonna do about it?”
Graham Bonnet
I used to know the guys in Thin Lizzy pretty well. The song of theirs that I always loved was The Boys Are Back In Town. It’s such a straightforward rock’n’roll track, and so well sung. Phil sang it like Hendrix. He used to say [in a strong Irish accent]: “If anyone plays Jimi in a film it should be me.”
Dave Hill, Slade
[He hums the riff, then bursts out laughing]. That is such a great song. I knew Phil. The combination of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson was all over that song – it’s like the end of Hotel California where Joe Walsh and Don Felder step forward to take the spotlight. Both songs became classics thanks to their guitar parts. Scott and Brian’s style worked real magic on The Boys Are Back In Town. When it took off in America I was really pleased for Phil. It was so sad that he died young, because he had so much more to give.
Emerald (Jailbreak, 1976)
Blaze Bayley
This was quite a test for me, because lyrically I would have to choose The Boys Are Back In Town. I love the way Phil made that song into a conversation at the bar: ‘If that girl don’t wanna know, forget her.’ But from a musical perspective I will never forget hearing the Jailbreak album for the first time and being blown away by track nine, Emerald.
Back then we used to listen to music on cassette tapes, and I had Jailbreak on one side of a C90. There’s something about the final track of an album. I know of albums where a band leaves its worst song till the end. However, Emerald is a sleeping giant. It’s not one of those songs you skip, instead you’re actually looking forward to hearing it.
I was already in love with electric guitars, but those riffs and solos and the fierce, Celtic-inspired melody of Emerald… For me, that cemented the whole thing. The melody is the butterfly that a songwriter should always try to catch, and with Emerald Thin Lizzy achieved it.
Cowboy Song (Jailbreak, 1976)
Scott Ian, Anthrax
Cowboy Song was one of the songs that I played live at my sixtieth birthday party, the forty-four songs that had most affected my life. It was a four-hour show with the music in chronological order, from The Beatles onwards. We did a great version of Cowboy Song with the country artist Cody James on vocals because it had played a big part in the way I fell in love with music.
Anthrax had covered Cowboy Song with John Bush on vocals [as a bonus track on 1993’s The Sound Of White Noise]. It’s such an evocative piece of music. Whenever I hear it on Live And Dangerous I always picture myself in that audience.
Ginger Wildheart
Thin Lizzy were royalty when I was a kid, and Jailbreak was as ubiquitous as Ziggy Stardust. The Cowboy Song was just one of those songs. Perfect from top to bottom. It really did imprint itself on my DNA. All these years later I can hear this and be back in my bedroom as a kid, dreaming of making music my life.
Don’t Believe A Word (Johnny The Fox, 1976)
Michael ‘Padge’ Paget, Bullet For My Valentine
I absolutely love Thin Lizzy. Phil Lynott was such an amazing frontman, bassist and writer. The first album of theirs I bought was Live And Dangerous. It’s still one of my favourite live albums ever. Many moons ago I played in a covers band and we always used to do Don’t Believe A Word. It has such a cool shuffle that’s really important to play correctly. Get it wrong and the song falls to bits.
Massacre (Johnny The Fox, 1976)
Neil Fallon, Clutch
First of all, I love this song because the riff rules. But equally importantly it’s a textbook example of Brian Downey’s drumming. It’s a shuffle, but the way he plays it is smooth as silk. Most hard rock or heavy metal bands play [the beat] as hard and as straight as possible. That’s not how Thin Lizzy did things. As a rule, Downey’s snare drum work is insane, but on Massacre it’s almost creamy.
We were lucky enough to play some dates with Thin Lizzy, and Brian was so cool to watch. I’m not a drummer, but most nights I’d be there by the side of the stage, taking it all in. The guy made it all look so effortless. Hearing Lizzy on the radio is one thing, but getting to see them perform live was a bit of a revelation, kinda like: “Oh man, all of these songs are shuffles.” That made Thin Lizzy unique and very, very cool.
Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me In Its Spotlight) (Bad Reputation, 1977)
Danny Bowes, Thunder
I had to think long and hard about this. When I was a kid I saw Thin Lizzy more than any other band. I first saw them by accident, in a manner of speaking, when a mate and I went to Woolwich Town Hall intending to see Judas Priest.
This would have been just before Lizzy released the Fighting album, when the twin-guitar thing between Gorham and Robertson was starting to happen. However, Priest didn’t show up, and instead we got Thin Lizzy. I had no clue who they were but they blew my mind. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I was converted right there and then.
Every time they played, I went. In the end I chose Dancing In The Moonlight for two reasons. Firstly because it’s the most wonderful pop song, and secondly for having one of the best guitar solos that has ever been played, in this instance by Scott Gorham. I know because I once asked him.
Still In Love With You (Live) (Live And Dangerous, 1978)
Joe Elliott, Def Leppard
Emerald, The Boys Are Back In Town and Jailbreak are my three favourite Thin Lizzy songs, but if you really want me to narrow it down to one, I’m picking something based on performance, and that’s the version of Still In Love With You from Live And Dangerous. Robbo’s solo in the middle is to die for, but so is the one by Scott Gorham at the end. They both get to shine within the same song, and it’s so, so melodic.
My favourite memory of Phil Lynott is bittersweet. I met him in the bathroom at Frank’s Funny Farm [an after-hours drinking club in London] in 1982. I couldn’t help myself. After washing my hands I politely introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Joe from Def Leppard. I’m a big fan.” He replied: “I’ve heard your album” – which was Pyromania, although it wasn’t out yet [Lizzy and Leppard were both part of PolyGram] – “and it’s the reason I’m splitting the band up.”
I wish I’d had the guts, bravado and experience to ram him against the wall and tell him: “No. No, you’re not. You’re going to go into the studio. You’ll take what we’ve done as competition and you’ll make another fantastic album.” That’s what I should have said, but I was left speechless. This was someone whose band I’d seen live at every stage of their career, bar the [first] line-up with Eric Bell.
Thin Lizzy were a huge inspiration to me, and to us [Def Leppard]. The first song we learned to play was Suffragette City, but the second was Jailbreak. On a more positive note, I met them all on the Johnny The Fox tour. After the show, they let fans into the dressing room three or four at a time, which I thought incredibly cool. I was a seventeen-year-old. And of course I did get to meet Phil again that second time, but what he said to me was tough to take. In some ways it was the ultimate back-handed compliment.
Rosalie/Cowgirl’s Song (Live) (Live And Dangerous, 1978)
Joel O’Keeffe, Airbourne
There are several reasons that Rosalie/Cowgirl’s Song from Live And Dangerous will always be my favourite Thin Lizzy song. It’s among the first Thin Lizzy tracks that I learned to play on guitar. Also, I have a beautiful rescue dog named Rosalie. And I saw Motörhead soundcheck with it many, many times when we toured with them. I loved the way Lemmy sang it. Those two, Lemmy and Phil, were great friends, very prolific writers and poets.
The thing I loved about Thin Lizzy is that, like AC/DC, Status Quo and Motörhead, they were true rock’n’roll. You could really believe in them. When you’re alone in the world and growing up, maybe your friends like a different kind of music, you don’t relate to the other kids at school, you can immediately relate to a song like Thin Lizzy’s The Rocker. That one really resonated with me.
I wasn’t a football player, but I was a rocker. Phil’s writing was as good as almost anyone you can name. I would put him right up there next to Bob Dylan.
Got To Give It Up (Black Rose: A Rock Legend, 1979)
Tuk Smith, Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts
Black Rose is one of those albums that’s been a soundtrack to my life. I always come back to that one, and a song like Got to Give it Up really resonated with me as an aspiring songwriter. At the time, not a lot of rock bands were singing about drug and alcohol addiction the way Phil was in this song. This was not a glorification, but the cautionary tale of going off the deep end, a heart-on-your-sleeve truth teller backed by a gang of fist-pumping riffs. This was my favourite line-up of Thin Lizzy. The guitar playing is unbelievable on this album, and this song is no exception.
Toughest Street In Town (Black Rose: A Rock Legend, 1979)
Don Barnes, 38 Special
We loved Thin Lizzy. We played with them, and I remember watching them from the side of the stage. But here’s the thing, several of their songs kind of reminded me of us. Toughest Street In Town had that big sing-along thing and also the big, aggressive guitar from Gary Moore.
We have this thing on our songs, for want of a better word we called them ‘beacons’, that would drag in the listener. Very few of them started with a chorus or a verse. There would be a guitar figure or a songwriting trick that jumped out to grab the attention. Thin Lizzy did that too, of course. Lyrically speaking, Toughest Street In Town also rang a bell with us because it could have been written about the West Side of Jacksonville, Florida, where we came from. Those words really chimed.
Sarah (Black Rose: A Rock Legend, 1979)
Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers
Thin Lizzy was always a pin badge on my denim jacket when I was younger. Such an immaculate band, weren’t they? I’d like to have chosen Dear Miss Lonely Hearts, but that’s a Phil Lynott solo song. There’s a live version of that song that I absolutely love, which I think is the B-side of a single.
I’m going with Sarah. There are two reasons for my selection. One is that I absolutely love Sarah. It’s one of those great songs that saw Phil wear his heart on his sleeve [it was written about his newly born daughter]. And secondly, James [Dean Bradfield, Manics frontman] had a girlfriend called Sarah who dumped him, and we used to take the piss out of him by playing that song on the tour bus.
Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend (Black Rose: A Rock Legend, 1979)
Björn ‘Speed’ Strid, Night Flight Orchestra
Their melodies were always fantastic. My first Thin Lizzy albums were Jailbreak and Black Rose, and both are really special to me. As I got more and more into the twin-guitar harmony thing, they really started to inspire me. The title track from Black Rose is very, very melodic but it also tells a story. Gary Moore’s guitar playing on that album… well, he was just amazing.
Chinatown (Chinatown, 1980)
Danny Vaughn, Tyketto
When Thin Lizzy came along we hadn’t heard anything like them. Their singer wasn’t trying to sound like anybody else, their guitarists, with those amazing double lead harmonies, were taking their sound to a place that nobody else had tried yet. And Phil Lynott was an exceptional songwriter who was unafraid to show some jazz roots mixed in with his Celtic heritage in his lyric delivery. Musically, Phil was an intrepid explorer.
So why Chinatown? Sometimes it’s not only the song that stands out but, just as importantly, the situation of where you were and what you were doing when you first heard it. I was at the house of my buddy Jeff, the guitarist in my first band, when he slammed this delicious piece of vinyl onto his turntable. Admittedly, the first song we heard was We Will Be Strong, which was a serious eye-opener in itself. But while I was still ogling the gorgeous Jim Fitzpatrick dragon cover, song number two arrived.
That riff. Standing all by itself, right in your face. Oh my god, what is that?! And then that awesome pentatonic riff cascading down into the meat of the song. As budding guitarists we were gobsmacked. And it just kept coming. The song is relentless. The guitars just seared themselves right into our brains. And Brian Downey’s drumming on this song is nothing short of ferocious. It contains all the adrenaline you would need from an entire album. And the entire album is flawless.
Jay Pepper, Tigertailz
Thin Lizzy may have arguably reached their pinnacle on earlier albums, but the title track of this album is an absolute banger! From its opening riff to the thunderous arrival of Brian Downey’s drums, this is classic Lizzy. If anyone was missing Robbo or Gary Moore, then think again, because Snowy White steps up to be the perfect complement to Scott Gorham. Those dual guitar licks are hot enough to have you reaching for the Kleenex, but not to wipe your brow!
Chinatown is classic Lizzy, and proof that changing some of the team players means you don’t have to close the football club. I’ll never forget seeing Lizzy in Cardiff on the last date of this tour in 1980. A band called The Lookalikes supported, and the poor fellas were going down very badly. So, Phil Lynott came out to play with them during their last song, using the mirror scratch plate on his bass to reflect the spotlight beam into the crowd, and suddenly the legions of fans came together as one.
Sweetheart (Chinatown, 1980)
Claudio Sanchez, Coheed And Cambria
I discovered Thin Lizzy on the MTV show Headbanger’s Ball. Until then I had never heard of them, and didn’t know that Phil had passed, but the video sent me down the rabbit hole. It’s probably an unlikely choice, but I absolutely love Sweetheart, from Chinatown.
I fell in love with Phil’s delivery: ‘If I was to stand in a general election, would you tell me about your close inspection/And how I never stood for detection, or would you take another man?’ The way he sings those words is so percussive, and as a guy he carried such a swagger. Even now, it’s giving me goosebumps to talk about.
The Sun Goes Down (Thunder And Lightning, 1983)
Mike Tramp
Everyone that knows me is aware of my fascination with Phil Lynott. So for me to pick a favourite song of his, I will back off from the easy choices and go with something a little different. I always loved Phil’s voice and he sings The Sun Goes Down in a much lower register. No, it doesn’t have the duelling guitars of Emerald or Rosalie or the microphone histrionics, but it brings comfort. The song tells a story and it draws you in. What you are hearing is a true human voice. I think it’s wonderful.
The Holy War (Thunder And Lightning, 1983)
Erik Grönwall
I wasn’t aware of this song until recently, but after being the designated driver for a bunch of drunk Swedes on a long night out, my older brother put it on, and I was instantly hooked. It’s got a badass groove, evocative lyrics that leave plenty of room for interpretation, and just when you’re expecting the chorus to launch into a big melodic anthem, Thin Lizzy says nope, we’re just gonna keep being cool as hell.
Michael Weikath, Helloween
I love the Thin Lizzy albums. I’m going to go with a later one. Kai Hansen [Helloween guitarist and vocalist] and I used to play The Holy War in my band, before the formation of Helloween [the following year]. We used a rehearsal room in Hamburg, and we would hang out at a chicken kiosk at the subway station.
We listened to the Thunder And Lightning album again and again, over and over. It’s such a great album; it’s really heavy. It had such a great sound. When it came out it had such magic. It was the logical next step for them to take. And of course I was really impressed by John Sykes on guitar. I had followed him since the Tygers Of Pan Tang. He was an English guy with a Schenker-esque talent.
Cold Sweat (Thunder And Lightning, 1983)
Andreas Kisser, Sepultura
Although Thin Lizzy were so diverse, I really love Cold Sweat because it was one of the heaviest songs that they ever wrote. It’s from a phase of theirs which had a spirit of heavy metal, with John Sykes on guitar. I had the privilege of seeing John live at Rock In Rio in 1985 in a line-up of Whitesnake that also had Cozy Powell on drums.
Seeing John Sykes live had such an impact on me, the way he destroyed with his lead solos. His influence is so evident on Cold Sweat. It’s heavy metal but it has melody and, of course, a beautiful lead solo.
Still In Love With You (Live) (Life, 1983)
Dave Meniketti, Y&T
There are so many favourites from Thin Lizzy, but as a guy that made a couple of blues-rock records of his own, Still In Love With You still stops me in my tracks and makes me go: “Oh man, that is so special.” The version with Gary Moore [from Nightlife] is so wonderful, but the one on Live And Dangerous is absolutely awesome as well.
I will never forget the late, great Chris Tsangarides, who produced our Mean Streak record, sitting me down and playing a version of Still In Love With You that he had produced for another Lizzy live record, Life. At the end of a long day of recording, he dimmed the lights of the control room, put the tape on one of the reel-to-reel machines and said: “Listen to this, you’ve gotta hear it.” It was John Sykes on guitar, and he was just killing it. That moment will stay with me forever.
Dedication (Dedication: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy, 1991)
Tobias Sammet, Avantasia/Edguy
This is a slightly unusual choice, because Dedication only appeared as the title track of a Best Of collection, having started out as a song by Phil’s post-Thin Lizzy band Grand Slam, but it’s always been my favourite, probably because it’s the first song of theirs that I knew. I saw the video on MTV Headbangers Ball when I was a teenager and fell in love with it. Purists would probably crucify me, but that song was very important in my life at the time.