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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