Squawk Radio

Okay, in spite of my earlier threat to counter Donny with the Sex Pistols, I decided to stick with the original game plan and blog about Richard and Linda Thompson for this week’s music blog. Unfortunately, they’re no longer Richard and Linda Thompson, on account of they split up, both musically and personally. But when they were a unit (at least musically), they were magic. And this album, imo, was their best.

It’s another one that’s hard to classify. (But then, most of the best albums are.) Sorta folky, sorta rocky, it winds up having a sound all its own, punctuated by some twangy guitar and bandstand-in-the-park type horns, with the occasional mandolin and pipes thrown in. Richard’s vocals are cool and gravelly, and Linda’s voice is amazing, moving from plaintive wistfulness on some songs to brokenhearted weariness on others. The songs themselves run the gamut from playful (“Little Beggar Girl”) to deeply depressing (“The End of the Rainbow”). But most often, it is wise and wonderful.

When my son was a baby, I used to sing him several songs from this album at night before he went to bed, including the title track. Throughout his toddler and preschool years, whenever he was beset by fear of a thunderstorm or hurt by a fall, or something else that went wrong, he would always climb into my lap, ask me to sing “Bright Lights Tonight,” and then “Little Beggar Girl,” and soon everything would be all right.

I realize now that that’s one of the reasons I like this album so much, too. Even the sad songs give me comfort. There’s something encouraging in the music, and the vocals sound hopeful in spite of the sometimes gloomy--but always poetic--lyrics. And in a world--and a job--where hope is sometimes hard to find and even harder to hold onto, a few good songs can go a long way.