Thin Lizzy – Bad Reputation

Happy Mother’s Day!

What a groundbreaking band Thin Lizzy was at the time. You had a black Irish singer, Phil Lynott,  who reminded people of Van Morrison singing and a little of Springsteen in some of his writing…all in a harder rock format. Thin Lizzy revolutionized the dual synchronized guitar attack. Other bands that did the same in the future would use Thin Lizzy as a how-to guide.

The dual guitar is on display here…one playing lead and the other playing the same lead an octave higher. Other bands had two and sometimes three guitarists but they usually didn’t play in unison like Thin Lizzy. It made for a different sound. Now you can use a guitar effect to get close to that on one guitar. Brian May would do it with Queen at times on recordings.

The song was written by Brian Downey, Scott Gorham, and Phil Lynott. It was on the album Bad Reputation released in 1977. The album peaked at #4 in the UK, #39 on the Billboard Album Charts, and #44 in Canada. The album sold very well and went gold.

The song was not a hit but it was played on FM radio stations at the time. It’s one of the songs they are remembered by like Whiskey In A Jar, The Boys Are Back In Town, Jailbreak, and my personal favorite The Cowboy Song.

The members of Thin Lizzy were bassist and singer Phil Lynott, Drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Brian Robertson, and guitarist Scott Gorham. Gary Moore was a member for a few months and also Them’s keyboardist Erix Wrixon but Moore and Wrixon didn’t stay long.

Scott Gorham: “Well, I had the riff down. Phil came up and he says, ‘We need to do an off-time thing with this.’ He started to work with Brian Downey on that, and that’s when they came up with this strange timing that you don’t usually associate with Thin Lizzy. I listened to that and went, ‘Man, that is so fu–ing cool, it’s unbelievable,’ and I jumped in on it. Then it kind of developed itself from there.”

“‘Bad Reputation’ was one of those songs that came together really quickly, as soon as we had that off-timing tagline come in, everything just fell into place, all the harmony guitar work and all that, the lead guitar thing. Phil’s idea from it, from the riff itself, he just thought, you know, something along the lines of, ‘Man, this could give us a really bad reputation. That’s it. That’s what we’re going to call this song.’ And he started writing this song called ‘Bad Reputation.'”

Bad Reputation

You’ve got a bad reputationThat’s the word out on the townIt gives a certain fascinationBut it can only bring you down

You better turn yourself aroundTurn yourself aroundTurn it upside downTurn yourself around

You had bad breaks, well, that’s tough luckYou play too hard, too much rough stuffYou’re too sly, so coldThat bad reputation has made you old

Turn yourself aroundTurn yourself aroundTurn it upside downTurn yourself around

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

24 thoughts on “Thin Lizzy – Bad Reputation”

  1. Phil Lynott, Brian Downey, Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham was the best Thin Lizzy Line-up. ‘Bad Reputation’ was a good album but the ‘Live and Dangerous’ album that followed was simply great.

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  2. Live And Dangerous….what a live album and like yourself I love The Cowboy Song. Actually its amazing how many stellar 6 stringers weaved in and out in this band.

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  4. Great band. I’ve always loved their cool harmony guitar action. I didn’t know this song, but it greatly illustrates their dual guitar attack. It was also rare to see a rock band fronted by a musician of mixed, partially colored heritage. I love these kinds of stories. The color of your skin shouldn’t even be a factor, but it would be naive to think it isn’t.

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    1. I agree with you…it shouldn’t matter at all whatsoever.
      They helped start that dual guitar lead…which is really cool….and not easy! The Allmans did also a bit when Duane was alive.

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    1. I love this kind of rock at times…they were a little different at the time than the regular hard rock bands.

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    1. I’m listening to it now…I love the slowness of it…it’s something really different from them. I might have to post this one day….this is awesome! It has a little bit of the early Dylan sound in it.

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      1. Max the first time I heard it on SRR I didn’t like it, but as the playlist for the week repeated it started growing on me. Now I love it. I hope you do post it one day. It’s a winner.

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