The 500 - #332 - Shoot Out The Lights - Richard and Linda Thompson

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 332

Album Title: Shoot Out The Lights

Artist: Richard and Linda Thompson

Genre: British Folk Rock

Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, U.K.

Released: March, 1982

My age at release: 16

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Shoot Out The Lights

There are six Learning Skills on which Ontario Elementary Educators evaluate their students for report cards. Of the six, Collaboration is the skill I spend most of the year helping students foster.

Collaboration is challenging, and an attribute that requires effort to master. It is more than "working with someone." I can work with anyone, especially if the desired outcome is simple, clear and measurable. Washing dishes, cooking a meal, doing  yard work with someone else is  "co-operation" rather than "collaboration". The real test of collaborative skill is co-operating on a creative project – a coming together of minds where input from each determines the outcome.

Recently, I watched the new documentary Get Back. The three-part, eight-hour series covers the making of The Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be, which was their eighth and final studio recording. It is an intimate examination of collaboration -- four creative minds   working toward an album, concert and film project over 21 days in a London studio. The film chronicles the challenges, triumphs, drudgery, levity and frustrations of the creative process. There is a moment when guitarist George Harrison jokingly suggests that his friend Bob Dylan join them in the studio. Bandmate Paul McCartney immediately retorts: "It's bad enough with four of us!"

Shoot Out The Lights is also an interesting product of strained collaboration. It is the sixth and final album from British husband and wife folk-rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It is the second album from the couple on The 500. I wrote about I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, back in July, 2019. It is at position #471.

In 1979, the couple found themselves without a record contract after disappointing sales of their fifth album, Sunnyvista. By 1980, they were touring as the opening act for Gerry Rafferty and working on new material. Rafferty offered to help finance a new record and used his connections at United Artists to help secure a new contract for the Thompsons.

Singer/Songwriter Gerry Rafferty performing with his band (1979)

However, the Thompsons' collaborative relationship with Rafferty was short-lived. The couple, Richard in particular, were unhappy with Rafferty's production work on many of the songs that would, eventually, make up the Shoot Out The Lights record. Consequently, the songs were re-recorded. The original version was eventually leaked as a bootleg recording dubbed Rafferty's Folly.

The relationship between the couple was further strained when Richard began an affair with tour promoter Nancy Covey while Linda was pregnant. By the time the record was finished and released, the couple was separated. They continued to perform together promoting the record, but the relationship was tense. In fact, the acrimony was so apparent on stage that fans of the group labelled it the "Tour From Hell".

Linda & Richard Thompson on stage (1981)

The album, which was filled with songs containing barbed metaphors about their failing marriage, was critically well received. AllMusic magazine praised it as "a meditation on love and loss in which beauty, passion and heady joy can still be found in defeat." 

Much like The Beatles accomplished a decade before them with Let It Be, Richard and Linda Thompson managed to create something remarkable while simultaneously falling apart. Collaboration in a cauldron. It is not ideal, but sometimes it works -- testimony to the value of dedication, talent and creativity.

Truth be told, I think the other Thompson record on The 500 list, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, is far superior. I am flummoxed by Shoot Out The Lights being rated higher. These thoughts were echoed by podcaster Josh Adam Meyers and a guest, Avery Pearson, on the accompanying episode of The 500 Podcast. It is well worth a listen as the comedic pair, Meyers and Pearson, take Shoot Out The Lights to task in a riotous, one-hour conversation.