Friday 'Fro 26: Phil Lynott

Here we are at the official advent of Spring, which — combined with all the Thin Lizzy love I've been sharing this week, and Bob's earlier salient comment about the brilliance of Phil Lynott's 'fro — makes me think it's about time to give Mr. Lynott his tonsorial due.

Not only did Phil Lynott front the baddest band to ever come out of Ireland, but he surely sported the Emerald Isle's most bad-ass afro. The son of a black American sailor and a white Irish lass, Phil came by his curls naturally. Sometimes his 'fro was wild and nappy, sometimes it was as perfectly smooth and rounded as a microphone windscreen — either way, it looked absolutely killer on him.

The Spring thing comes into play because, for nearly twenty years now, I've had a personal tradition of playing the first Thin Lizzy album on the first day of Spring. Released in 1971, Thin Lizzy doesn't bear much sonic resemblance to later Lizzy classics like Jailbreak or Bad Reputation, but it's a really wonderful record in its own right. Pretty much splitting the difference between Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Jimi Hendrix's Cry of Love — the obvious musical touchstones for a groovy black rocker with poetic tendencies who came of age in late-Sixties Ireland — Thin Lizzy is raw and rough in parts, but also incredibly tender, soulful and wise.

I was introduced to the album in 1990 by my dear friend and all-time soul brother Jason, on one of those early spring days in Chicago where the sun had come out for the first time in months, and the icicles outside the window were just starting to melt. Consequently, I've never been able to hear the opening acoustic strums and mellotrons of "Honesty Is No Excuse" without picturing melting ice glowing in the sunshine, and without feeling my heart melting right along with it. 

Now that I'm living in the semi-perpetual sunshine of Los Angeles, the coming of spring is neither as dramatic as it was in Chi-town, nor do I await it with the same utter desperation that I once did. (I also no longer sport the large silver hoop earrings I used to wear in loving emulation of Phil, which almost caused my lobes to come clean off from frostbite during a couple of bitter Chicago winters.) But "Honesty Is No Excuse" still sounds as great to me in the here and now as it did back then.

Honesty_is_no_excuse.mp3

R.I.P., Phil. Goddamn, you were good.

Comments

[dsinger]

Goddamn, that is a beautiful song. And the last of the snow is finally melting....

[Viagra Online]

The Phil Lynott songs were amazing, everybody told me why I still listening his song but for me are the best.