Don't Believe a Word

When Thin Lizzy were recording their 1976 album Johnny the Fox, their head honcho Phil Lynott had been working on a new song: it was a stripped down, bluesy affair that spoke of broken hearts and romantic deceit. The tempo of the song suggested it was probably best heard at three in the morning wafting from a smokey subterranean speakeasy.
However, Brian Robertson, the band's young hotshot lead guitarist at the time, heard it and told Lynott in no uncertain terms he thought it was shite. Lynott was crushed and left the sessions, not returning till a several days later. In which time Robertson had written a new riff to it and speeded it up by a factor of 3X.

I still prefer the original arrangement - featured here with Gary Moore, it's from a 1979 episode of the Whistle Test and Moore's instrument looks it's about to be read its last rites. No matter, even with the five remaining strings he gives the rest of the band* a guitar masterclass.

Gary Moore - Don't Believe a Word 

* Billed as Gary Moore and Friends, of the five musicians on stage only two of them are still the right side of the grass

Gary Moore (1952-2011)

Phil Lynott (1949-1986)

Cozy Powell** (1947-1998)

Scott Gorham (1951-)

Don Airey (1949-)

** Until today I was blissfully unaware that Cozy Powell's real name was Colin Trevor Flooks

I always get chocolate stains on my pants

In 1977 you couldn't move for punk rockers. They'd taken over the country. They'd taken over our airwaves and they'd taken over our TV screens. It was wall to wall Clash, Sex Pistols and The Damned. It was Anarchy.

Maybe in a parallel universe the punks really did take over. In reality, apart from the aforementioned stalwarts, the UK punk and new wave scene was essentially John Peel's nocturnal Top Gear radio show and Billy Idol curling his top lip and miming on Top of the Pops. And Sounds on the newsstand every Thursday, of course.

Which is why, despite numerous attempts to rewrite music history (1976 - Ground Zero anyone?), much of the old guard carried on with business as usual. Not least Thin Lizzy. Their leader, Phil Lynott, like Pete Townshend, befriended many of the young upstarts and actually found a lot of common ground. Lynott would go on to front The Greedies with Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the rudderless Sex Pistols and play both Lizzy and Pistols favourites; you couldn't slide a cigarette paper between them.

In 1977, whilst the music industry was allegedly knee deep in gob, Thin Lizzy released Bad Reputation - one of their most commercial albums. And on it was one of the catchiest tunes put out as a single all year. It has finger clicking. It has a sax break. It positively sashays off the turntable; I swear Brian Downey, Lizzy's drummer, is using brushes. Dancing in the Moonlight has it all.