BRIGHTEST LIGHTS
EARPHONES HALOING a head which, From HIs first pHotos As A FounDEr mEmBEr oF BrItIsH FolK-roCK tItAns FAIrport ConvEntIon, sEEmED BorrowED From A mEDIAEvAl sAInt, RICHArD THompson spEAKs to MOJO From HIs BAsEmEnt. It’s ClosE to tHE InFAmous NEw JErsEy TurnpIKE As CElEBrAtED In sonG By CHuCK AnD BruCE AnD on sCrEEn In THE SoprAnos, wHICH tICKlEs tHE sInGEr-sonGwrItEr/ GuItAr wIzArD Enormously.
“WHEn tHEy filmED It, tHEy usED loCAtIons All ovEr NEw JErsEy ExCEpt For tHE town oF BloomfiElD, AnD tHAt’s BECAusE tHAt’s wHErE tHE MAfiA ACtuAlly lIvE,” HE CHuCKlEs. “It’s Just two mIlEs Down tHE roAD From mE; you Go to tHEsE GrEAt mom AnD pop ItAlIAn rEstAurAnts AnD sIttInG At tHE BAr ArE tHEsE rEAlly BEEFy Guys. OooKAAAAAy, HAHA!”
Your dad was a Scotland Yard detective who played
Thompson’s high five on 33.
Bix Beiderbecke Young Man With A Horn 1924-1930 (NIMBUS, 2010)
The Shadows Greatest Hits (COLUMBIA, 1963)
The Watersons Frost And Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs (TOPIC, 1965)
The Left Banke Walk Away Renée/ Pretty Ballerina (SMASH, 1967)
Brìghde Chaimbeul with Colin Stetson Carry Them With Us (GLITTERBEAT, 2023)
From your terrific new album Ship To Shore, The Fear Never Leaves is bleak even by the standards of a songbook suffused with dread. Do you, like your old friend Nick Drake, wrestle with the black dog?
I’m fairly optimistic but I know what darkness is. I wrote this song after watching a documentary about the Falklands and the special units. These guys are tough but suffer from serious PTSD after a brief skirmish, so God knows what they suffer in Ukraine, what my parents suffered after World War Two, my grandfather after World War One. I try to express what those people go through in order to understand the bigger picture
– mental health, where we are in the modern world. in a police band. Did you also inherit a sense of our capacity for badness?
On the bookshelves at home were lots of Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Border ballads and criminology. I read some of them so I’ve always been interested in police procedure. I’d be out with my father and he’d say, “Describe the guy who just walked past,” so the next time I was ready. Twenty years ago there was a breakin next door, and I could say exactly what the two guys looked like, their height, what they were wearing.
In 1988 you deplored The Pogues, in particular Shane MacGowan’s image of “fall-down drunk Irishman representing the new wave of Irish traditional music.” Have you a puritan streak that can’t appreciate the cavalier?
I was concerned with the image of Irish music and Ireland generally. People see a land of drinkers and Irish musicians as absolutely legless. We did the Dominion, Tottenham Court Road, back in the ’80s and thought it would be great to introduce some young punk-folk bands like The Pogues to an older audience. It was a disaster. Pogues fans came in large numbers and were really disruptive, abusive and obnoxious. I thought I was doing the right thing, and you and your fans turned on an old codger and treated the music I played with zero respect: screw you! People asked me what a great songwriter Shane MacGowan is. I’d just be noncommittal.
Then there was Sinéad O’Connor…
I had really difficult personal relations with her. I know she had mental health issues, but it was above and beyond. People asked, “Are you going to sing at the tribute show?” Sorry, sometimes people’s personality gets in the way of their art, and I just can’t go there.
Your 2021 song When I Was Drunk tells a tragic tale. Before your 1974 conversion to Sufism you were no exception in a thirsty folk rock milieu, with Fairport’s Sandy Denny a tragic victim. Did you need Sufism’s discipline if not to slide down that slope yourself?
At the point I encountered Sufism, I felt completely drained and empty, nothing left. To have that spiritual connection was such a relief. I stopped drinking on a sixpence, from healthy consumption to zero. I never missed it and still don’t miss it. I was filling the empty space with nutrition, meaning and connection. That’s not for everybody. But the way out of addiction has to be spiritual. Otherwise, you’re just gonna go back around again.
“I thought I was doing the right thing… screw you!” RICHARD THOMPSON
Tell us something you’ve never told an interviewer before.
I shouldn’t mention masturbation – that would be going too far. But I practise kickboxing on a punch bag here in my basement.
Ship To Shore is out on May 31 via New West records.