Richard Thompson: Solitary Life

In the music business,

if you're not a self-promoting megalomaniac, you don't fit in.

For 35 years, Richard Thompson has been one of our best-kept secrets,

a teenage founder of Fairport Convention in England's hippy era.

He was the guy who kicked folk music's ass.

In the late '60s, Richard and Fairport invented folk rock.

# I'm never gonna run away... #

As a duo with his wife, Linda, Richard confronted the early '70s with songs of spiritual yearning.

It's a very spiritual thing to play music, at any level.

# Shoot out the lights... #

Since parting with Linda in 1981, Richard has pursued an acclaimed solo career from California.

He leads a very interesting path through this show-business world,

manoeuvring his ship independent of that slag heap most of us are in!

# It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952... #

I won't call him the English Bob Dylan - more vice versa.

I was a shy kid. To get on a stage, expressing myself was a revelation.

Hello! I'm over here!

He's one of the most engaging personas in music. He doesn't seem impressed with himself on stage,

which is so un-rock'n'roll.

This is a real suburb - a classic American suburb.

This was a middle-income area, but it's going up, up, up,

with people like me moving in!

You feel like saying, "God, look at those hideous windows!"

"She's left her laundry out again!"

Oh, a hideous new fence! It's the same as ours!

It's a love-hate thing with the suburbs.

The suburbs I grew up in were very, very dull. But it was a very dull time.

# Sometimes I long for the solitary life

# Parents long gone No kids, no wife

# Sister somewhere in Australia

# Never did keep in touch

# Sex no more than a how-d'you-do

# And a copy of Titbits in the loo

# At work considered a bit of a failure Don't seem to try too much

# A solitary life... #

He was my slightly younger brother. Richard was shy.

He played for hours with soldiers, all his armies out on the floor.

He was... He liked trainspotting.

I was just very shy as a kid.

I was really kind of a social cripple,

and I think my music was an escape.

# ..Railway, soldiers in lead

# Join the suburban boffins of Britain Experts on trivial things... #

Yeah, my...my father's Scottish, and, um...

and culturally our house was quite Scottish - lots of Scottish music.

I love pipe music, that kind of...

Our father was very strict -

authoritarian, Scottish, a Scotland Yard detective...

..who we were rather afraid of.

I used to stutter as a child, and I still do, in stressful situations -

talking to the Inland Revenue or something!

The stuttering Richard, I think,

was a reaction to the strictness and, you know, this dominant father.

My father would tell him, "Stop stuttering!" which makes it worse.

And of course singing - you don't stutter when you sing.

# I said, kidzz

# Do you do what your teacher tells you?

# Do you do what your momma say?

# Are you goody-two-shoes? I like you that way Like you that way... #

The first rock'n'roll I heard was probably Bill Haley. My sister had good records - Buddy Holly,

Jerry Lee Lewis records, Everly Brothers records.

I do remember it having an impact on my brain.

# Don't make trouble Thinking for yourself

# Don't make trouble Thinking for yourself... #

After World War II, the generation that fought the war really wanted to settle down to a safe life.

For kids, it was a bit stifling. The generation really took to rebellious music, rock'n'roll.

It makes you wanna dance and slash cinema seats!

# Kidzz We scoop you like guacamole

# We suck out your brains like toothpaste

# We gobble you down like teenage casserole, teenage casserole... #

I've still got a quiff! You can't quite see it.

'As soon as I was really able to get my hands on a instrument, I tried to play.'

My boyfriends would come and collect me to take me out,

and I was, of course, never ready,

so they'd strum along with Richard on his guitar.

That was when he started playing.

# Oh, kidzz Ah, kidzz. #

I can't say my parents approved of playing music.

I think they were probably worried.

My mum only gave up on me getting a proper job about five years ago.

Finally, she thinks it's legit, you know?

My dad was quite torn - he was a policeman, but a guitar player too,

so he loved the idea that I played the guitar and actually listened to his Django Reinhardt records.

Influenced by his dad's guitar playing and records,

Richard developed an eclectic musical taste way beyond his years.

Richard's talents began to find expression

in this fairly ordinary-looking suburban house in Muswell Hill.

Here we are - the old place.

It was my family home at the time the band came together.

We were renting it out, and a series of people passed through it,

amongst them Ashley Hutchings.

I had a room on the second floor,

which I painted red entirely -

the walls, the ceiling, everything. It WAS 1967.

And a neighbour of Ashley's was in the same class as Richard at school,

and through him, Richard was introduced into this sort of coterie of floating musicians.

When I started to play in the band with Simon and Ashley,

this was a logical rehearsal space.

It was first floor - I'm not sure which window.

GUITAR SOLO

Richard would be playing these fantastic solos at 15, 16 years old.

He would stand stock still, and barely a movement of the head.

He seemed to show no emotion.

Um...it was all coming through the fingers.

Like any newly-formed band, they needed a name -

befitting the times, preferably one with at least six syllables.

We convened there, so it was Fairport Convention.

We took the name in May of 1967, Fairport Convention, and, um...

within three months or so we'd signed a recording contract.

It was a very happening period.

# Hey, come and make music... #

The psychedelic clubs sprang up. The UFO club was the main one.

They'd have a light show or two or three,

the projector and the bubbly things going, lava lamps everywhere.

There were people smoking banana skins and we thought, "Wow, this is really far out!"

One time when we were playing at the UFO Club with, um...

Pink Floyd, Joe Boyd came down to see us.

There was this group of very nice Muswell Hill grammar school boys

and a girl,

playing American music -

Leonard Cohen songs and Richard Farina songs and Bob Dylan songs,

all being done in a kind of West Coasty rock style.

# And there ain't no time like the time that you're wasting

# And you waste just about what you choose

# There's a man at the table and you know he's been able

# To return all the odds that you lay

# And you can't feed your hunger And you ain't getting younger

# And your tongue ain't got nothing to say... #

'And then came the guitar solo, and Richard played an amazing solo.'

He played a solo which quotes from Django, from Charlie Christian...

you know, an incredibly sophisticated little solo.

And that really amazed me - the breadth of his sophistication.

On stage, Richard was very shy.

He didn't talk a lot.

He seemed very serious and absorbed

and he was kind of hunched over his guitar, concentrated on his music.

And Richard was aged 17.

So...at the end of the gig I was in the dressing room, saying, "Would you guys like to make a record?"

Fairport Convention's first records were hip enough, though they didn't exactly set the charts alight.

But these were some of the best times for what was fast becoming a rollicking good-time band,

playing universities and festivals all over the country.

These were the days when beer money, or whatever other substances you purchased with it,

actually seemed to be enough.

Richard was rapidly emerging as the main writer in the band,

alongside new vocalist Sandy Denny.

Although it was the era of peace, love and brown rice,

his songs already possessed a weary fatalism.

When I was singing his songs,

he was developing his style, learning his art.

He spent a lot of time in his room, writing songs.

I think the special ones at that time were few and far between.

But Meet On The Ledge was a very special song.

# We used to say There'd come the day

# We'd all be making songs

# Or finding better words

# These ideas never lasted long... #

# The way is up

# Along the road

# The air is growing thin

# Too many friends who tried

# Swept off this mountain with the wind

# Meet on the ledge We're going to meet on the ledge

# When my time is up

# I'm going to see all my friends... #

# Meet on the ledge

# We're going to meet on the ledge

# If you really mean it

# It all comes around again... #

'I always thought of a ledge as a ledge you jump off,

'a ledge you stand on prior to jumping so that people can talk you down...or not.'

What he's saying is it's a risky business being alive.

It's...this is...

This is all a sham.

This is all paper-thin. It could go tomorrow.

# Meet on the ledge

# We're going to meet on the ledge

# When my time is up

# I'm going to see all of my friends

# Meet on the ledge

# We're going to meet on the ledge

# If you really mean it

# It all comes round again. #

"The way is up, along the road, the air is getting thin.

"Too many friends who died,

"blown off this mountain with the wind.

"Meet on the ledge."

It's about music and artists -

how people just give themselves to what they've got to do, and...

..get blown away by it sometimes.

Either drink, drugs or insanity...

..or just lousy, lousy luck.

It was just another drive home after a gig -

a Birmingham club called Mother's that we'd done numerous times.

We drove back to London after shows.

And Harvey, our tour manager,

had been ill all day with an upset stomach,

was definitely not feeling himself,

and nobody really knows what caused it, but he lost control of the vehicle.

I was sitting in the front and awake, so I saw it all happen.

Um...very scary. The van somersaulted.

I was out. We were all out - out the windows, out the doors.

When I came to, minutes later,

I was the only person left inside the van. Everybody else was ejected.

The crash caused the deaths of drummer Martin Lamble

and Richard's girlfriend, designer Jeannie Franklyn.

You question your theories of existence when young people die.

It's a very hard thing to bear. You look for the meaning in that.

And the answers aren't easy. When people die, you miss them,

you know?

# Oh, oh

# Helpless and slow... #

When Unhalfbricking - the band's third LP, recorded before the crash - was released,

the remaining Fairports considered whether they still had a future.

We were so shaken up, it was very hard to see sense at the time,

and I think we resolved at that point to really...

to kind of reinvent ourselves as interpreters of traditional music.

We conceived Liege And Lief

to explore the world of the traditional song as interpreted by a young English rock'n'roll band,

and make centuries-old songs sound like they were written yesterday,

and also to make new songs sound hundreds of years old.

We went down into the countryside, into Hampshire,

and our manager, Joe Boyd, rented a lovely Queen Anne house,

and that's where we started to form folk-rock music.

# Come all ye roving minstrels

# And together we'll try... #

Fairport, already joined by Sandy Denny, the great folk singer,

had now enlisted Dave Swarbrick,

the folk scene's leading fiddle player.

Although influenced by the American roots music of the Band,

amongst others, Fairport looked to the traditions and mysteries in their own back garden.

# "Well, tell me now, young Tamlyn," she says, "if a mortal man you be?"

# "I'll tell you no lies, sweet Margaret,

# "I was christened as good as thee, as thee

# "I was christened as good as thee." #

We thought when we did electric versions of traditional tunes

that this would be something people would recognise as their own -

their own culture, contemporised and made a bit more vital.

# ..And the stars they blazed like day

# And the Queen of Elfin, she gave a thrilling cry

# Young Tamlyn's away, away... #

# I forbid you maidens all

# That wear gold in your hair

# To travel to Carterhaugh

# For young Tam Lin is there... #

Richard's contribution was everything.

It was the amazing business

of him actually playing electric guitar lead jigs and reels,

which no-one had thought of before,

and playing in unison with Dave Swarbrick.

I thought rock'n'roll was the hardest music in the world then.

What I did was bring folk music into it, and that was new to them.

There was a musical battle going on between Swarb and Richard,

but it wasn't an egotistical battle, it was them firing off each other.

"Play that, then swing into this."

Swarbrick was breathtaking, and I knew that from other bands before.

But Richard Thompson made me listen different. I thought, "Ooh, who's this?"

He's the guy who kicked folk music's ass and gave it that youth thing -

gave it a beautiful stage and colour to stand on and be seen,

as a sexy thing, you know?

You're singing a song about a transvestite highway robber - come on! Behave yourself!

Get into the game here!

Ooh-yee! Howling violins!

That's the way to do it!

Whereas the fatsos with the corduroy were all giving it...

Get out of here! You know? That was then, this is now, boom!

People loved it on stage, to see these two guys wind each other up -

who could play that set of triplets faster?

DAVE SWARBRICK: That was the point of it - to make a bloody row!

Two can do that better than one!

He's one of those endless players - goes over the cliff again and again.

I think Swarb was very excited at playing with the band,

and he liked to push the tempos up till they were almost unplayable.

We kept turbo-charging.

We got carried away.

Perhaps not least with a serious case of folk-rock-guitarist's repetitive strain injury,

after one further album, Richard left Fairport Convention.

I sort of imploded. I had a feeling I had to try stuff on my own.

# Don't expect the words to ring Too sweetly on the ear Live in fear... #

Richard's first solo LP was the oddly titled Henry The Human Fly,

still beloved of devotees, not least for its cover picture.

I wanted a really good human fly costume,

but the budget came to £4/2s/6d.

Henry The Human Fly is a bit of an eccentric record.

It only sold eight copies, so there's eccentrics out there who are missing out.

# ..Listen to the scratchy voices Eating at your nerves... #

The singing on that album is not very confident, that's the problem.

I really wanted to sing the songs, but, um...I didn't do a good job.

Having launched himself on an unsuspecting world disguised as a fly,

Richard wisely teamed up with another singer.

Linda Peters, a friend of the Fairports, had done lucrative work singing on commercials.

Together with Richard, she formed one of the defining non-mainstream acts of the '70s.

It was a partnership that was always gonna happen.

She had always been in love with Richard.

They started singing together and it seemed a partnership made in heaven.

SISTER: Linda was the front person for his words. She was a glamorous-looking female singer,

and she became his stage presence by speaking for him, singing for him.

# I'm sorry for the things I've said

# The things I've done

# Sorry for the restless thief I've been

# Please don't make me pay for my deceiving heart

# Just turn up your lamp and let me in

# I wish I was a fool for you again

# I wish I was a fool for you...

# I wish I was a fool for you again

# I wish I was a fool for you...

# I wish I was a fool for you, yeah

# I wish I was a fool for you

# I wish I was a fool for you again... #

'Richard was quiet and interesting and mysterious, and that's attractive in a young person.'

There was some symbiotic thing between us, if that's the word. We could kind of...

You know, maybe we were just the same... miserable youth at the time.

We just sort of worked together, I guess. It worked well.

We got married, um... I wanted to get married much more than he did.

I always say I asked him to marry me, but then he says he asked me. I'm sure I asked him.

# I know the way

# That I feel about you

# I'm never gonna run away

# I'm never gonna run away... #

Richard and Linda reigned over those of us with any claim to an alternative philosophy of life

in the drab early 1970s,

blending a folk fatalism with a yearning for a better world than Britain during the three-day week.

# A heart needs a home... #

Island Records had trouble marketing the husband-and-wife duo,

not least because said duo seemed rather unconcerned with their own career curve.

Richard was a very shy and private man at that time.

I found him quite difficult to deal with, in a not unpleasant way.

But he certainly wasn't someone who was looking to grab fame with both hands and squeeze it dry -

quite the opposite. He shied away from it.

We weren't a commercial act.

I, actually, am a rampant snob. I adored being the critics' darling.

I loved being admired by my peers, and I didn't give a shit, really,

about selling thousands of records.

It has been speculated that this lack of wider success

might partly have been due to Richard's songs themselves.

Where his lyrics asked the big questions, his answers were often distinctly bleak.

You write sometimes from a mood -

you don't write a song necessarily thinking, "I should take a balanced view about this."

You write songs in fits of emotion.

You do push it all the way. You do push it to the limit.

But that doesn't mean that's where you live.

# I feel for you, you little horror

# Safe at your mother's breast

# No lucky break for you around the corner

# Cos your father is a bully

# And he thinks that you're a pest

# And your sister She's no better than a whore... #

I think it's a phenomenal song about a child coming into this crazy world.

And it was just after our first child was born.

And I was, you know, pinned to the wall by it. I thought, "My God!"

But so many people say to me,

"Were you insulted? It's a terrible song to write about a child."

I don't understand that logic.

# Life seems so rosy

# In the cradle

# But I'll be a friend

# I'll tell you what's in store

# There's nothing at the end of the rainbow

# There's nothing to grow up for any more. #

Some of his songs go into areas that are almost unthinkable.

I hope that, in writing such bleak material sometimes,

it actually helps him.

You know, he can ease his burden because it seems some of the songs seem so tortuous

that the person who made that song must be suffering a lot of anguish.

Music is spiritual stuff. It's a very spiritual thing to play music at any level, I believe.

It's very spiritual stuff and we have a duty as musicians to explore that side of ourselves.

That's an important thing to do. We've got to ask ourselves, "What are we doing as human beings?"

In the mid 1970s, Richard became a Sufi.

Sufism, which is the inside of Islam,

it all seemed laid out like a map.

If you pray at fixed points,

it gives you a certain change of perspective...

..it keeps you on a certain line.

You never stray too far from that line because you have to keep coming back to that line.

That makes life a lot easier.

I don't think there's a conversion. You just realise who you are.

# Dancing till my feet don't touch the ground

# I lose my mind and dance for ever

# Lose my mind and dance for ever

# Turn my world around

# Turn my world around. #

Richard became a Muslim, then I became a Muslim.

When you go into something like that, you tend to go into it wholeheartedly, and we both did.

He was, you know, a pain about it. He was very prudish and a pain, but so was I.

Not unusually for the '70s,

Richard and Linda, with their young family, went to live in a commune,

initially, a Sufi community in East Anglia, perhaps not unlike this one in London from the same time.

I didn't like it at all. It was hard going.

Nobody held a gun to my head, but in retrospect, I, you know...

..I sort of surrendered myself to an insane degree.

# Take my hand

# O, real companion

# And we'll dance We'll dance till we fade away. #

When Richard and Linda converted to Sufism, it made quite a difference.

They were pretty ascetic at the time, in person.

To interviewers and on stage, they were not forthcoming.

It wasn't like dealing with Roxy Music.

If you come across something that gives you what you think are the answers,

it has a profound impact on what you do.

It's probably the most profound impact of anything in my life.

Although Richard practises his faith to this day,

he, Linda and their family left the commune after two years.

The duo gradually re-emerged into the music business world.

Their satirical album Sunnyvista was not well received, however.

With typical irony, they had their greatest success with what was their last album together,

both as a duo and as man and wife.

Having a young family and being on the road was difficult.

-Eventually it counted against the marriage.

-We were together for about ten years.

It was like 20 years for a normal couple because we were together during the day and in the evening.

# ..Hides like a child... #

There's a tendency to bring your work home with you and to take home to work and you never get a rest.

It's non-stop.

Difficult situation.

# ..He can't stand the day

# Shoot out the lights

# Shoot out the lights... #

People do say that the songs on Shoot Out The Lights are about our disintegrating marriage,

but the songs were written well before we broke up, so I wasn't thinking, "Oh, look,

"I've just written a song. It must mean the marriage is on the rocks."

It's more, "That's a dark song, but I like it."

# Just watching the dark... #

I hate to necessarily associate

people's lives with how I appreciate their music.

The music was already powerful.

It was pretty clear that something was up...or down.

# Shoot out the lights

# Shoot out the lights. #

It seemed to be tailor-made for the film of them falling apart. It was so sort of spooky.

It was breathtaking how accurately it portrayed what was about to happen to them.

During that record, I was pregnant and was concentrating on that more than the record.

When I listened to those songs after the split,

you'd have to be brain-dead not to see what was going on, but I didn't.

# When you're rocked on the ocean, rocked up and down, don't worry

# When you're spinning and turning round and round, don't worry... #

There were a lot of songs about disintegration of relationships, but I was used to those.

I sang a lot of those in my time!

# Your mind is confused and you can't seem to speak... #

'He said, "I'm in love with somebody else," and left.'

# It's just the motion

# It's just the motion. #

The LP, though, became something of a success,

especially in America, going on to be voted one of Rolling Stone's top LPs of the '80s.

The newly separated Richard and Linda were expected to capitalise on this success and go on tour.

Our manager was twisting our arms and saying, "If you don't do this tour, you'll never work again."

Richard said, "Linda, you'd be mad to go!" And I said, "I'm going."

It was difficult, yeah. There was a lot of personal animosity and...

..somehow...

we did it.

# Oh, it's just the motion, Oh, it's just the motion

# Oh-h... #

People say, "We saw that tour and it was fantastic!

"You were kicking him on stage and hitting him!"

I wasn't doing it all the time, but there was a load of tension.

I had been praying five times a day and covering myself up,

so here I was getting drunk, living on tranquillisers and singing.

# I've only sad stories to tell to this town

# My dreams have... #

Linda was a new definition of loose cannon.

I just looked around for the emergency exits, made sure I knew where they were.

When she wasn't in a quivering heap of jelly, she was capable

of really singing some of those terribly hard lyrics,

"Walking on a wire", excuse me?

Walking On A Wire was just about hanging onto a life disintegrating.

# I wish I could please you tonight

# But my medicine just won't come out right

# I'm walking on a wire I'm walking on a wire

# And I'm falling. #

I never say many good things about myself as a singer, but I CAN say, "I'm not kidding."

# Oh, it scares you when you don't know

# Whichever way the wind might blow. #

I was in the audience.

They were great shows and there was a lot of tension on stage.

It was truthful, you know. They didn't come out and pretend that something wasn't going on.

# I'm walking on a wire... #

As entertainment, you couldn't beat it.

# And I'm fall...falling

# Oh-h... #

I remember thinking Richard was being incredibly brave,

incredibly stoic

and probably extremely stupid, for putting us all through this.

The feedback I've got over the years is that it was a very tough tour to do!

All credit to everybody for getting through it.

And then the day I had to fly home, I thought, "I'm not going to drink any more." I threw the pills away.

I came home and started again. You know, one wasn't in great shape, but came home and started again.

While Linda went on to remarry and vary her involvement in music,

the tour had begun to establish Richard in America,

where he now has a bigger audience than in his own country.

God knows what his career would have been like had he stayed in Britain.

There is this syndrome in England about the tall poppy

and it does encourage people to kind of put their heads down and be a bit more tugging of their forelock.

America opens you up a little bit more to the idea of, "Yeah, I'm here.

"Come. Experience ME now," to a fault, as we all know,

but I think it's been good for Richard because that can take a big weight off you,

if you've been slogging through the music business for years. It's not a nice business.

# Time to ring some changes Time to ring some changes... #

It was during a solo tour of America that Richard had met that certain someone else, Nancy Covey,

who ran the folk club McCabe's and was to become the future Mrs Richard Thompson.

I hired Richard to play at McCabe's, the club that I ran in Los Angeles.

I didn't know how it would go. I knew he was a great musician,

but, boy, people came out of the woodwork!

The people in the know all showed up for those shows.

When I went to see the show -

I brought my dad with me - and I said, "Look at this line, Dad.

"This is the highest IQ in one place that I've ever seen in Los Angeles."

# Time to ring some changes

# Time to ring some changes... #

I remember he sat in a chair and he was very quiet.

He just played and I thought, "This is kind of a depressing guy."

You know, the music was incredible.

But, entertainment-wise, it was pretty hardcore stuff.

I was really surprised at how he was on stage,

-because the person

-I

-met

was this witty, charming, interesting, really fun, humorous guy.

That's who I'm married to.

After initially setting up home in London,

Richard and Nancy now spend much of the year in Los Angeles, where their son, Jack, goes to school.

The thing I noticed after he and Nancy got together

was that he deliberately shifted his focus of professional interest to the other side of the Atlantic.

It was immediately obvious that he was going to concentrate on raising his profile in that marketplace.

After his somewhat haphazard path through the '70s,

the '80s saw a more focused and career-minded Thompson emerge

with an increasingly scornful world view evident in his songwriting.

# I keep my nose clean I keep my speech plain

# I keep my promises She twists the knife again

# I shut my memory I close my eyes and then

# She takes another bite She twists the knife again

# In the middle of a kiss She twists the knife again

# When I get up off my knees She twists the knife again

# When I think I'm off the hook She gets me

# She twists the knife again She twists the knife again... #

It felt like this ghost of his relationship with Linda was still hanging around.

Every review focused on his personal life and tied the songs to it

and I would imagine that's pretty wearying.

# She twists that knife again! #

This is where we started to see more character stories, more narrative songs,

as opposed to the ones that were soul and agony - his own soul and agony, as it seemed,

and he might deny that they were about him, but they certainly seemed that they were from his life.

I suppose it was time to move into new territory.

While he settled into a life lived mainly in California,

Richard's thoughts, especially when he was writing, often turned to home.

I've always written about Britain. You kind of carry the landscape around with you.

Because I'm not a beach boy,

it doesn't sit right with me to use this as the landscape for the drama.

I have to put the characters back into a landscape I understand.

I'm a writer from a tradition.

Traditional models are very good, because it's such distilled music.

You're taking a story and following it through using ballad language, this very bright language.

# Says Red Molly to James

# "That's a fine motorbike

# "A girl could feel special on any such like!"

# Says James to Red Molly

# "My hat's off to you

# "It's a Vincent Black Lightning 1952

# "And I've seen you at the corners and cafes, it seems

# "Red hair and black leather My favourite colour scheme!"

# And he pulled her on behind

# And down to Boxhill

# They did ride... #

Vincent Black Lightning is a racing specification bike.

When I was a kid, that was always the one you'd go, "Ooh, wow!"

I've always looked for English ideas that didn't sound corny, around which you could pin a song.

And this song started with a motorcycle, with the Vincent.

It was a good lodestar around which the song could revolve.

# Oh, he reached for her hand And he slipped her the keys

# Said, "I've got no further use for these

# "I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome

# "Swooping down from heaven to carry me home."

# And he gave her one last kiss and died

# And he gave her his Vincent

# To ride. #

To find myself as a solo performer, I really had to work.

Quick!

Well, I had to be the frontman, which is OK...

Hello. ..I'm over here! Hello!

Richard was always the quiet person at the back.

It's so amazing that he now holds an audience in the palm of his hand.

Mother and I can never get over it.

We can never believe that that's the shy Richard.

MAN: It's like a state of grace, in a way.

You get to be light and charming and as not weighed down by your demons as you know yourself to be.

It's a lot to carry, but...!

He's roaming through this catalogue of profoundly dark and disturbing music, in a lot of ways,

and just tiptoeing through it and picking a dark flower here and a black rose there!

# This is the nearest to being alive

# Oh, let me take my chances on the wall of death... #

The listener is a very important part of the process.

You want a mirror, some criticism and you want some love back. You're doing it for love.

# ..on the wall of death! #

Enough praise to keep you floating.

Enough lubrication to keep the joints oiled and keep the wheel turning.

By the 1990s, Richard was getting appreciation from many quarters.

The head of Capitol Records was a fan

and signed Richard to the label where he recorded five albums over the next decade.

# But I'm misunderstood... #

During this time, Richard was also nominated for a Grammy,

as well as being honoured back in Britain with an Ivor Novello award

for his outstanding achievements in songwriting.

He goes deeper and says more original things than most songwriters.

I don't like to compare any songwriter to another. There's Randy Newman, Paul Simon and Dylan

and Richard Thompson's working at least on that level.

I'm in love with those ballads of Richard's.

Dimming Of The Day is one of the most beautiful songs and heart-breaking songs I've recorded.

# Now all the bonny birds have wheeled away

# And I need you at the dimming of the day... #

He's funny and he's not self-involved

and loves his life being a dad.

He's a beacon for people that are traversing the more occupational hazard part of rock'n'roll!

Richard seemed to have all the fun without all the dastardly results the rest of us had!

I'm on the road tomorrow, so I'll have to do a bit of laundry.

'I don't see him hanging out at the scene too much when there's big parties with Don Henley!

'He's a grown-up.

'I've been over there and it's a lovely, beautiful garden.'

I've learned to be loud with my plant choices.

Pastelly English pastoral look doesn't quite work here.

Things pop into your head.

Ideas come to you because you're not thinking about it.

I think a lot of the problem is switching your brain off.

Once you've switched your brain off then good things happen.

Unlike several rock'n'rollers one could mention,

Richard follows a regular work routine.

I live the way I live.

Creatively, to be more efficient, I get up really early. That's age as well. That's getting old!

But it's very convenient for me because I can work longer hours.

It's all work in progress. We don't discuss things while they're being processed.

You can talk something into the dustbin. That's why I won't.

We don't talk about it.

He does that job, but we refer to it as his job, his work.

I never even say, "How's the music going, honey?"

We just don't talk about it!

And it's because...I respect that, we have that distance,

we don't have to live the music all the time.

I think that that's what's worked for 20 years.

There's times when I've wanted to get some work finished,

so I'll do office hours - 9 to 4, 9 to 5 -

and plough through stuff. Sometimes that's a month or two.

My family doesn't like me during that period. They find me moody and withdrawn and difficult.

# Gloom and misery Gloom and misery... #

NANCY: Living with a creative guy,

well, it has its positives and negatives. It's not like living with John Denver.

Of course I hear little snippets of it around the house,

but I never even admit that I'm listening to that.

# Like perfume in the air... #

I'd love to hear those songs in progress. It would be great!

I'd love to have a little microphone into what he hears. I don't know what he hears in there.

# She may quit you She may forsake you... #

HE SWITCHES MUSIC OFF

-Why did you switch that off?

-It's me. I don't like to listen to me!

If you're a writer, you live in society, but you're kind of on the edge of it.

You have to find your source material.

That's people walking down the street and people in the newspaper and all the stuff you remember,

all the past social situations.

Scary!

You need fuel and so you need to be out there with your eyes open.

-Me?

-No, the man you're filming!

-I'm not a big personality. I'm a very small one.

-You remind me of someone.

-I'm a musician.

-What kind of a musician?

-A folk musician.

-Like Peter, Paul and Mary?

-Exactly.

BILLY CONNOLLY: He doesn't look passionate. He's a quiet guy.

He looks like a big English wally in his shorts and he knows it and doesn't care.

And he's got a funny Army hat. He's almost an anorak!

If you met Richard on a train, you'd think he was a big anorak.

You wouldn't think he was the guy with the gold Les Paul shaking the town!

# Well, there's a house in an alley

# In the squats and low-rise

# Of a town with no future

# But that's where my future lies... #

He's a suburban being. He'll never escape that.

# It's a rule, but no rule... #

Richard's driven from inside. He goes on writing songs, playing

and singing his songs because he has no choice. He goes at it with a will.

# Oh, now, my name it is Mulvaney

# And I'm known quite famously

# People speak my name in whispers

# What higher praise can there be?

# But I'd trade my fine mohair

# For tie-dyes and faded jeans

# If she wanted me some other way

# She's my Cooksferry Queen

# She gave me one pill to get bigger

# Gave me one pill to get small

# I saw snakes dancing all around her feet

# And dead men coming through the wall

# Well, I'm the prince of this parish

# I've been ruthless and I've been mean

# But she blew my mind as she opened my eyes

# She's my Cooksferry Queen

# Hey! He-ey! #

Subtitles by BBC Broadcast - 2003

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