Customer Reviews

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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In our age of hyped-up folkrock artists like Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes, it is a real eye-opener to listen to this album. The music lingers in the borderland between traditional english and american music, giving it a really original flavour.

The opener, the transcendent "When I get to the border" is probably the best "new"(to me) song I`ve heard so far this year, totally unpretentious and original and free. Like Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson attempts & fails to conceal an amazing personality and individuality which seeps through every breath of his vocal work. The same goes for the rest of the album.

Linda`s vocals are a little less original, but more than adequate compared to other singers, and anyway, the imperfections of this album adds up to become perfection as a whole.The title song, for example: A rambunctious, messy, drunken, glorious thing, complete with a marching band and a primitive bassline, totally irresistible. If you`ve heard "The basement tapes", you`ll know what I mean.

Strongly recommended.

Even though it's been in my record collection for many years, I recently listened to it OBSESSIVELY for about a month, every single day. How many albums can provoke that sort of obsession? Every single song is a thriller, a masterpiece. Some songs (particularly Calvary Cross) grew even richer with live-performance development over the years, but that just shows what marvels they were from the start! Other songs, like "The Great Valerio" and "Poor Beggar Girl", appear so richly performed that there's simply no room left for improvement.

Additionally, the balance of Richard's twanging electric guitar, earthy acoustics and mandolins, Linda's dry unaffected alto, and clean, simple production really add weight. The whole thing feels quite natural and timeless.

Timeless. Yeah, that's the best thing I can say. Well, that, and it provokes strange obsessions.

Thompson's first album with wife Linda listed as a full partner, "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" remains one of his best albums. From the stunning opening track "When I Get to the Border" it was clear that Thompson found a perfect partner to harmonize with. Linda's clear, crisp voice accented Richard's gruffer one. Linda sings "Has He Got a Friend for Me" with just the right mournful tone and perfectly captures the mood of the song. The remastering on this edition is quite good. We get lyrics and a brief essay on their musical partnership during this time.

The bonus tracks are all terrific but they do spoil the mood of the album. The first one is the title track played live and it begins right after "The Great Valerio". I'm not sure who sequenced these tracks for remastering but they should have had at least 30 seconds between the last track and the beginning of the bonus material. "Together Again" also recorded live is a terrific performance but the keeper here is "The Calvary Cross" with a blistering performance by Thompson on guitar. All three tracks are previously unreleased.

If you purchased this album previously on CD (or vinyl) it's worth the upgrade for the bonus tracks.

My partner and I have over 4,000 CDs (all types of music), and if I could only keep 10 of them, I'd keep this one.

Even for an album released in 1974, on the surface "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" seems deeply unhip. In the year when glam rock was at its peak and punk godmother Patti Smith released her first angry single, Richard and Linda Thompspon put out this album of English folk music. Some of the songs, such as "Down Where the Drunkards Roll" or "Little Beggar Girl" are so deeply rooted in the Anglo-Celtic folk tradition that it would easy to imagine they date from the eighteenth century. And yet this is part of the strength of this remarkable album. Largely unswayed by the fashions of the moment, the Thompsons produced an album of beautifully crafted and performed folk and folk-rock songs which have stood the test of time.
This is not the kind of album that has one knock-out punch. Yes, "The Calvary Cross" and "End of the Rainbow" are especially strong tracks but really this album's greatest strength is its consistency. There is not a single weak track here. Another strength is its variety of approaches and styles. "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" is a comparitively upbeat track. It is almost a rocker compared to some of the folkier arrangements. But then there are moody, haunting ballads like "The Great Valerio", which showcase Linda's exceptional voice. And some of the tracks showcase Richard's virtuosity on the electric guitar but, unlike so many mainstream seventies rock acts, never to excess.
This album will appeal to anyone who likes intelligently written and heartfelt music. It will no doubt still be around when a lot more faddish albums have dropped by the wayside.

How could a man so young be so bitter? And how could it all sound so great, even so life-affirming? Not a misstep on the record, every song here is written and exists; these are not just words set to music, they have the quality of folksongs transmitted orally over generations. Some of the really world weary, misanthropic songs that would pervade 1975's Pour Down Like Silver, but there is a little bit more af a joyous atmosphere working here, despite songs like "The End of the Rainbow": "Life seems so rosy from 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 anymore."

A true folksinger, Thompson is so at home in the genre that he is not even working within the genre, but has become it in a way... Linda Thompson has, in my opinon, one of the most affecting, if not strictly beautiful, voices I have ever heard. Listen to her on "Has He Got a Friend" where she begs for a date: "If you know someone who's graceful and wise/ doesn't mind girls who are clumsy and shy/ I don't mind going with someone who I've never seen." Or on "Down Where the Drunkards Roll": "You could be a gambler who never drew a hand/ you could be Lord Jesus, all the world would understand/ down where the drunkards roll." Her voice floors me, leaves me shaken with goosebumps.

This record is so great that it stands above some well known artists considered great in the folk rock world, names like Bob Dylan and Neil Young etc. More recent contenders are not even in the running.

I had this LP when it first came out in 1974 & it was one of my favourite albums. Now I have the CD, I play it all the time & the bonus tracks are great. Without doubt, it's a masterpiece of English folk music, definitely a must-have. If you love Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, etc., then you can't be without this one! I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

Ever since I first bought the vinyl album in the mid 1970s, this has been firmly in my list of favourite albums and remains there to this day. A definite 'Desert Island Disc' except that I'd be hard pressed to choose one track - the album is a complete entity. Song writing, vocal and instrumental performances are all top notch and I love the way the instrumentation is used to such great effect - accordions, concertinas, krummhorns and the brass band on the title track all complementing Richard's brilliant guitar work and Richard and Linda's affecting vocals. Having followed Richard's career fairly closely for near on 40 years now, this is an album I come back to time and again and never tire of it.
Now I've got the three bonus track as well!

A few days ago I put this CD on, almost at random. By the time it was half through, I had stopped what I was doing and just listened in awe. Since then, I've probably played it a dozen times, some songs (Has He Got a Friend, End of the Rainbow, Great Valerio) many more times than that. The debut album of Richard and Linda Thompson, in some ways, was never surpassed. "Shoot Out the Lights" is also incredible, but I guess as I get older, the purity of the vision on the fundamental tragedy of life that is manifest in "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" becomes more compelling. And Richard's guitar and Linda's voice are both so perfect. I want a give a special pitch for The Great Valerio. It's a perfect synthesis of poetry and music, profoundly thought provoking. Listening to this album makes me feel less lonely, like there's someone who understands.