Richard Thompson

24:05With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S. where you can see the sky. Best Network Based on Analysis by Ukla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. The greatest music stories aren't always in the songs themselves.

24:47They're in the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you. It's built for people who know that understanding music means understanding the human stories behind it.

25:20CLAW doesn't just compile facts. It helps you see patterns across decades of music history, ask the kinds of follow-up questions that reveal deeper truths, and works through the nuanced relationships between artists, movements, and moments. Whether you're a music journalist, industry professional, or someone who just lives for understanding the stories behind the sounds, CLAW matches your level of curiosity about what really drives great art. Try CLAW for free at clod.ai slash brokenrecord and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

25:54One of the things I think is universal to nearly everyone is that warm feeling you get when you find someone you feel comfortable sharing parts of your life with that otherwise you might just keep to yourself. Often it's a friend, sometimes it's a loved one, but in those moments you really take a load off. That's one of the things I've enjoyed most about therapy, that there's someone regularly in my life that I'm able to talk to about things I'd probably keep to myself for longer than I really needed to. And they're clinically trained and licensed to help. Plus, if you regularly see them, they have most, if not all, the context they need to really understand how this item you're sharing might be affecting you or those around you.

26:31That's where BetterHelp comes in. They've been helping people find their therapy match for over a decade. Because of their quality therapists that work according to a strict code of conduct, they have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. When did you first pick up a guitar? I think I was probably 10.

27:08My father was an amateur guitar player. Not actually very good. and um one day he brought home a guitar one of his old army mates uh worked in a guitar shop in the west end of london and they had this damaged guitar like the the side had split open in in transit and uh my father being a woodworker you know glued it up and thought this is great i'm gonna play it but i grabbed it before anybody else could get their hands on it and basically commandeered it and um you know at that time um you know it's kind of you know we're talking 1960 you know rock and roll was still around I had an older sister who had Buddy Holly records and Elvis records and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis you know so you know the guitar was a very hip thing and also in Britain you had an instrumental band called The Shadows which they were kind of British ventures if you like but actually much better players and much better recorded I wanted to ask you about The Shadows because they loom so large Oh, they did.

28:11In England. Yeah. People here would know their stuff because they associate it with surf music. In Canada as well, actually. A more local hotspot for the shadows. Is that right? Neil Young claims he was a huge shadows fan. Oh, okay. And you can hear it in his playing, actually. His use of the whammy bar and everything. Right. Yeah. And you like them as well. Well, yeah. I mean, it was a great sound, a very seductive sound. And it was something that you could get together with your friends. and uh and uh that was the kind of the beginning of playing in a group you know of uh learning from each other which is what happens when you join a band you kind of pick stuff up um from the other people in the band and you slowly spiral upwards we hope you know as uh as musicians but yeah the shadows were were uh very influential on everybody of a certain age i mean really you If you speak to Jimmy Page or somebody, he'll say, oh yeah, Hank Marvin, you know the Shadows.

29:12Yeah. Did he play a Strat? Well, the story is, at that time, there was a ban on American imports of instruments for some reason. So you couldn't buy a Fender, you couldn't buy a Gibson. So Cliff Richard, who the Shadows used to back, went over to the States because he had a hit record here. And he brought back the first actual Fender Stratocaster to go into England. but then he gave it to Hank, so that was a big thing. And then they all got kitted out with fenders, you know. It's all very exciting stuff. He just has such a distinct, beautiful sound, those records. Yeah, it's all about tone. And Hank, you used, you know, like these, fairly primitive these days, but, you know, to tape echo devices, but portable tape echo machines to give him a bit of extra reverb.

30:02There are other players that you've talked about, And one, and again, not someone people over here have listened to, is Davey Graham. Yeah, he's kind of the first guy through the door, you know. Maybe mid-50s. Davey was an acoustic guitar player. I should stress that, first of all. And he was playing kind of a blended style. He was playing something that had Scottish roots, and he was part Scottish. West Indian roots, he was part Guyanese. and, you know, throwing in jazz, kind of Thelonious Monk stuff, you know, and kind of blending it all together with a bit of, you know, maybe Moroccan music.

30:42He'd been to Morocco and kind of soaked up a bit of music down there. And it kind of blended into this style that kind of stayed in a sense, you know. That influenced Burt Yance. So Burt Yance had a kind of, you know, Scottish-English traditional style with a bit of blues thrown in, you know. Who else? Martin Carthy, you know, was also influenced by David Graham, he was just a kind of pioneer and in a sense he was kind of all over the place you know you had to kind of discipline him to make sense of his music, you know, because he'd just sit down and say, oh this is, you heard this tune from Marrakesh, you know, blah blah blah blah oh this is, yeah this is Miles Davis he'd just be, you know, all over the place so to sit him down and to have him more disciplined was quite a thing.

31:35And he was a junkie. He had a lot of issues in his life. But I saw him from time to time. He was a good man, good man. It strikes me that you're a more disciplined player, that when you talk about Per Chance putting blues in Scottish, you don't do that as much. When you're playing a more bluesy style, which is a more rock style for you you don't really do blues you tend to play a little more formally, is that true? or is that unfair? I think not so much formally as different I think I realised in about 1967 that there was a lot of competition in London for blues guitar players in my school band we were playing blues, R &B all that kind of stuff but at a certain point I thought you've got Peter Green you've got Eric Clapton, you've got Mick Taylor, you've got all these blues players, and it's a crowded field.

32:35And I'm just naming like three of them, but there's like 20 just in London. I think there's 20 named Jimmy. Yeah, 20 named Jimmy, alone, yeah. So I thought, well, I'm really going to be different. The blues, in a sense, don't have a place in my vocabulary, but Kelsey music does. and you know in Celtic music you also have bent notes you have a kind of soulful kind of phrasing so I thought well I'll exploit that more than the blues inevitably I've got technique that probably comes from B.B. King that was just something I learned at school vibrato Is your vibrato like his? No but everybody's just different but But, yeah.

33:23So you mentioned bent notes in Scottish music. Yeah. What tones are you bending to and from then? To and from. Scottish-Irish music. There's more bends in Irish music, for sure. Mostly going up to the...

33:41But bending up to the seventh. Right. Bending up to the octave. Bending up to the second. i see and that's more scottish that's more irish or more irish pardon me is that is that because the instruments they were using yeah yeah you know scottish pipers net now under the influence of irish pipers uh bend notes they never used to but um the the bending is more of a vocal tradition in scotland like work songs in the hebrides you know you have you have more notes that kind of bend up to the note. Not so much going down, but a lot of times bending up to the note. So I tried to develop a different vocabulary, really.

34:24I didn't want to sound like all these other blues players. I always thought it was kind of cultural exploitation somehow, you know, all these white guitar players in London, you know, but buying chess records, never been to Chicago, you know, never been to Mississippi, but, you know, they love the music, absolutely love the music. But I thought, well, is that enough? you know is it enough to love it at what point are you just a like like a kind of a slavish um imitator you know a dilettante a colonial exploiter this is all going through my head when i'm like you know 18 years old you know i i thought well well you know you know the interesting stuff for me like you know when the yardbirds were playing i'm a man you know i thought this is you know it's pathetic you know when you think of the nobility of the original version you know um the the Mighty Waters version.

35:15It's just got such authority and such a nobility to it. You know, the Yardbirds just sound like little boys, you know, and they couldn't do the feel, you know, the feel of the rhythm section, it was all wrong. But, you know, but I thought when the Yardbirds did original songs, it was far more interesting when they did For Your Love or something. Well, this is actually a really good pop song. And their blues influences coming in, and that's fine, you know. I thought that was a more interesting use of influences. In your book, you mentioned being on stage, I think, just once with Jimi Hendrix. Oh, probably three times.

35:50And what was that like? We used to play this late night club called the Speakeasy in London. And, you know, bands would roll in, you know, usually after midnight from playing out of town. You know, they'd come back from Birmingham or Manchester. And they'd be hungry so that they'd come in to eat, really. But there was always a live band on and there was a dance floor. we used to play there a couple of times a month at least. And Jimmy would, about 1 o 'clock, 2 o 'clock in the morning, after a few drinks, would want to get up and play. So he'd just sit in with us, which was fantastic. A bit intimidating, of course.

36:30But it was a nice experience. And he was a very sweet man, in my experience. Did he, because he played a left guitar, right? He'd just take my guitar and then turn it upside down and play with great facility either way. Really? Yeah. Did he string his guitar that way or did he, I'm not sure. No, he strung it, I mean, for a left-handed guitar player. Yeah. But he could play mine basically upside, he'd turn it upside down and figure out everything in reverse. Hmm. Genius will out somehow. When he gave it back to you, did you just smash it and leave the room? That's quite something. No, he didn't set fire to it, he didn't smash it.

37:09No, I was thinking maybe you did. because you were like, well, I can't do that anymore. Well, I think of Hendrix. I mean, you could kind of figure out what he was doing. Harmonically, it wasn't that sophisticated. It was basically a blues player. But he could always up the game. He could always play with his teeth. He could have sex with the guitar. He could play behind his back. He had all the tricks that he'd learned playing on the Chitlin circuit in America. yeah but uh yeah he was an interesting presence on the on the london music scene and i think he intimidated all those guitar players the claptons of jeff beck so that they were totally intimidated because in a sense you know they've been learning off records and and they developed this uh this way of playing the blues and r &b and then this guy turns up he's kind of the real thing you know and he he can take it to another level you know they're all you know they're all utterly intimidating there's a great story of uh i think one of jimmy's first um bigger performances in london and it was the week that sergeant pepper came out and all the guitar players turned up pete townsend jeff beck eric clapton i think paul mccartney was there as well they're all sitting in the audience you know and of course jimmy's opening song is sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club but which he's he'd learned knowing that there'd be a beetle in in the audience so of course he like destroys it you know he plays it pretty straight for about a chorus and then all hell lets loose and uh and he goes into his uh stratospheric jimmy and uh and at the end of the song you know these guitars completely out of tune he's just destroyed the tuning So he says, hey, Eric, are you out there?

39:02Meaning Eric Clapton. It's a little sort of puny voice. Yes. And he says, could you come and tune this for me? Oh. Oh. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So he was a presence on the scene. What was it about London, I guess England at that point? I mean, the Beatles and the Stones had sort of, you know, they broke the ice. Yeah. But there seemed to be so many. You were playing all the time. There were clubs. There were colleges. And there was John Peel, who's this huge influential figure who is recording guys like you before anybody else. Well, to start with John Peel. John Peel was a British DJ who kind of emerged about 67 with the rise of psychedelia flower power.

39:50And he had a show on the BBC. he had a couple of shows he had a late night show and he had a show where bands would come into the studio and record especially for that show so you'd come in and if you had a new record out you'd record especially for the BBC four songs and they'd be broadcast and anybody and everybody was on that show Pink Floyd would come in and spend hours trying to reproduce their latest record which they spent months on but they'd manage it And his producer was a great guy. Bernie Andrews did just a wonderful character. The engineers were great. And the BBC somehow allowed this to happen.

40:33In a sense, the BBC was very conservative, but let things slip through sometimes, like Monty Python's Flying Circus. I mean, they just allowed it all to happen because they weren't really paying attention. Yes, so that's the radio. In terms of places to play, there were a lot of places to play. There were clubs, first of all. In London, you had half a dozen clubs where everybody would play. So that was great because that was a kind of a fallback. That was income. And also at that time, every university in London was basically free. There was no fees for tuition. And also they all had entertainment budgets from the then socialist government in Britain.

41:16so they'd be booking these incredibly anti-establishment bands like Soft Machine and Pink Floyd the crazy world of Arthur Brown and Fairport Convention, thank you very much so in a sense this whole counter-cultural thing was subsidized by the British Labour government so Pink Floyd would probably owe their existence to Harold Wilson more than anybody else they should thank him on the sleeve I think I should do a special album dedicated to Harold Wilson. Because, you know, there's an argument in the United States now about protectionism and tariffs and all these things. It's interesting to think back at a time that the government said, no, you know, BBC had to use live performances.

41:58They didn't want taped music because they had very strong unions. Colleges needed to hire live musicians. Well, it's extraordinary. And it was a thing that didn't last forever. You know, again, I mean, that kind of changed. I think the other good thing about that time was that the record companies hadn't figured out what was going on. You get these moments in music where the business is lagging behind the creativity. And that's when things really pop. You know, that's when stuff is exciting. And it took them a while to catch up. The same thing happened with punk. You know, basically, it took about two years to figure out what the Sex Pistols were up to, you know.

42:36But by which time, a lot of stuff had slipped through. So you had record companies scrambling to sign everybody. And they pretty much did. I mean, any band of any shape or size was basically signed, just in case, in case they were the next big thing. So that was good. So you have people making records that maybe wouldn't have ever made records. People like the Incredible String Band, who made, to my mind, fantastic records. But they might never have been signed. How important was live performing for you back then in learning what you were doing? I think it was everything. I think it was and it still is.

43:15Live performance is always the focus because it's that thing that happens. It's that transaction that happens between a performer and the audience in which the performer is almost just like the conduit for creativity. Is that how it feels when you're up there? Yeah. On a good day, yeah. You mentioned in your autobiography that, I guess just because of the kind of clubs you were playing and the demands, you got pretty good at doing long solos. Yeah. I don't know if you watched the Get Back documentary, but there's a scene that always sticks out to me, which is George Harrison is talking about Eric Clapton.

43:53He said, you know, he can just play and play and play. And Harrison says, I can't do that. Yeah. He can solo within the confines of a song. Oh, absolutely. And George would kind of figure out a solo as well. he wouldn't be improvising a solo necessarily. But for you, it was improvisation? Oh, yeah. But that's almost the school that I came out of. That was what was not only permitted at the time, but expected at the time. So if you're a band and you had a guitar player in the band, the guitar player will be expected to stretch out. I mean, the same thing in the States, with the psychedelic bands from San Francisco, the Quicksilver Messenger Service or something.

44:29There was no real restriction on how long a solo would be. It could be two minutes, it could be half an hour. It depended on probably the drug balance of the band and how people were feeling and how the audience were responding. So that's just the school I came out of. So I'd go and watch bands and I'd see people like Jeff Beck playing a 10-minute solo and I'd think, okay, fair enough. And that was never intimidating? You always had the chops? I mean, it was something that we did, because maybe we hadn't rehearsed, you know, more than an hour of music. Sometimes you'd be playing three sets at the aforementioned speakeasy, and you think, well, okay, third set, we'll just do a longer solo on this particular song, you know, and that'll be half a set.

45:19So that was another consideration. But I just got used to it, you know, and in a sense, you know, into the 70s, I'm still doing the same thing sometimes. I'm hoping the audience isn't falling asleep, of course, but it just became a thing. And after a while, you know, the audience expects it. You know, the guitar nerds in the audience are waiting for the guitar solos, you know. I guess it's hard for me to think of you in that way because you are such a, your songwriting is so strong and your songs are so well-constructed as forms. And I tend to think of those players not being great songwriters.

45:54I understand, yeah. But I wouldn't do it in every song. In some songs, you almost want to have a cellar that's pretty much written, that you refer back to. You might do little variations on it, but it's kind of part of the structure. But then maybe a couple of songs in an evening, you might just let go and figure that the emotion of the song will carry you into the instrumental passage. You start off with a lyric, and the lyric has a certain emotion to it. and you think, well, maybe you don't even think about it, you just go instrumentally. And if the band goes with you, that's great, and you might play for another 10 minutes, and it's still musical.

46:40You're not being self-indulgent necessarily, you're just being carried on the wave of whatever the song is, the emotion of the song. And you kind of know when you get to the end. One last break, and we'll be back with Richard Thompson. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at an Ooclas speed test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

47:22With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity, even in times of high demand. With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.

48:03where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ukla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. The greatest music stories aren't always in the songs themselves. They're in the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you.

48:44It's built for people who know that understanding music means understanding the human stories behind it. Claude doesn't just compile facts. It helps you see patterns across decades of music history, ask the kinds of follow-up questions that reveal deeper truths, and works through the nuanced relationships between artists, movements, and moments. Whether you're a music journalist, industry professional, or someone who just lives for understanding the stories behind the sounds, Claude matches your level of curiosity about what really drives great art. Try Claude for free at Claude.ai slash brokenrecord and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

49:22Lexus is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard, which I can appreciate as someone who holds themselves to lofty if not ridiculous standards, especially with the car I drive. The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus measures success by the feeling and emotions evoked in a driver, like exhilaration and joy. Amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level. The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. Machines that make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing.

49:59Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. We've talked a lot about your playing. When did the writing start for you? Well, writing can be inspired by anything. It should be inspired by anything. So it's good if you can have the flexibility to start with a melody or start with lyrics, or start with a riff, start with a hook line, just to get you started, you know. Some people are collectors of folk music, but some people, you learn to sort of transform it. When did you know, was there a song, a time you thought, I found my voice, I know this is mine now? well probably in the 60s um playing with with fairport convention um when we started to um play traditional music with electric instruments and at that point i thought okay this is this is where i begin in a sense um this is this is a vocabulary i i need to learn and somehow i'm going to stay with this and i'll add to it and i'll subtract from it but but Basically, this is going to be my musical vocabulary.

51:03And at some point, I think it gets more influenced by jazz and by classical music harmonically. I'm not afraid to kind of extend that vocabulary pretty much anywhere. But I think if you've got a strong root, if you've got a strong base, then you're free to bring other things into it. And it's still your music. So you can say, oh, that's a great idea in that Jamaican song. I'm just going to grab that. I'm going to incorporate it into what I do. And it won't sound Jamaican, it won't sound like what I do. Yeah, I think at a certain point you have a distinctive vocabulary. And songwriting as well, I mean, at the same point, I figured out, OK, this is the kind of song I want to write.

51:44This is a song that has roots in where I come from. And I'm not going to lose that. But I can also change the rhythm sometimes. I can import a rhythm from somewhere else. I can use this Indonesian something or other. That's an inspirational idea. But you can kind of make it yours. I think people have always done that. And you had this just explosion of great songs for Fairport and then later when you were playing with your then wife. Linda, you were writing for two really great singers. You were writing for Sandy Denny and then Linda. Tell me about how you went about that. Yeah, I think it is possible to write with somebody else in mind.

52:30So you can say, okay, I'm going to tailor this song to someone else's voice. A song like Genesis Hall was tailored to Sandy's key and to Sandy's wonderful, wide-ranging abilities as a singer. She could really do justice to it. So the whole way the chorus goes and moves up. Sandy could sing anything. So I'd be quite comfortable doing something which would really use all of her range. And for Linda, you know, I'd write songs and then we would discuss them and we'd say, okay, you should sing this one. You know, this one is more of a kind of a male song, perhaps I should be singing this one. You know, it's more what we could emotionally identify with, really.

53:15You know, you are considered, the two of you are considered the authors of one of the great breakup albums of all time, but you say that's actually not the case. That wasn't, that Shoot Out the Lights was coincidental, but... I think it's a journalistic, lazy cliche in some ways. I'm a lazy journalist, that's why I use it. Wasn't aiming at that at you, but... I'll take it. Previous, you know, written reviews and stuff. And people like a bit of Scandal anyway, so they'll play that up. Plus, you know, the songs were written, you know, a year, two years earlier in some cases. So we've been living with the songs for a long time.

53:56And I'm sure the songs kind of subconsciously reflect on what's going on in your lives. But to me, it's just an album of songs, some of which I still enjoy and some of which I still perform. Yeah, it's funny when you've got albums that are sort of, you know, 45 years old and 55 years old, and you're thinking, gosh, I'm still playing this song. So it must be a good song if you're still there. Did you always relate to them at the time? Because you've also written story songs. You've written songs about different people, other people. Yeah. In a sense, one of your big hits, 52 Vincent, Black Lightning, is not about you, but in some sense it must have been about you.

54:38Well, you know, the envy is about me. When I was a kid, one of the neighbors had a Vincent Black Shadow, which I thought was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It's absolutely incredible. So I remember that when I started writing the song. I make things up. I make up stories. That's a valid thing to do, I think, as a songwriter. Can I ask you about a few individual songs from your solo career? Waltzing for Dreamers, which is just a beautiful song. Do you remember writing that? Yeah. It started with the title. As long as I just write down titles just for fun. and preferably as streamer-consciously as I can.

55:23And again, I think I'm making something up, but maybe it's about me. I don't know. Can you talk about Persuasion, which you're saying with your son Teddy? Well, I wrote that as an instrumental for a film. Oh. Yeah, with a slightly different melody. And it's an Australian film. And my friend Tim Finn, who's actually from New Zealand, but I think he was living in Australia at the time, said, oh, I like that tune. Can I put some words to it? So we kind of sat down and tried to co-write a lyric, which is a very difficult thing to do. So I said, Tim, take it away and just run with it because I'm struggling here to find some mutual experience so we can really write about.

56:09So he went away and wrote the lyric. And he recorded it first. And then I thought, well, I like this song, so I'll do a version. And then I did a version with Teddy. And that was a very popular kind of radio hit, actually. And whenever I sit with Teddy or he sits in with me and we sing a few songs together, that's when the audience wants to hear. you reminded me of your relationship with tim finn that you've done a few songs with crowded house and you did a very famous guitar solo on sister madly yeah it's just so different from everything else on that album uh it's so unexpected yeah um i did a lot of tours with opening for crowded house in europe and in north america and we became good good friends you know and i would usually sit in on their set, and we'd play Sister Madly, or something else at the time.

57:08And Credit House is great, because they'll kind of do anything on stage. They'll mess around. They'll mess up their set list. They don't really care. And it was always great fun to play with them. So I got to do the record, the Sister Madly record. In fact, last May, I did a 75th birthday. I've just given my age away, good heavens. 75th birthday concert in London at the Albert Hall in London and Crally House came and played on that so I just sat in with them for a few songs which was great so we got to do Weather With You and Don't Dream It's Over one of my favourite bands I think Neil is one of my favourite songwriters which had Squeeze on the bill as well my favourite British band.

58:00You did a great solo version of Tempted. Yeah. Which I would think a song that, there's no way you could do that solo, but you pulled it off. I think we had somebody on percussion when we did it, and I think Judith Owen was singing harmonies, so it can be done. It's not an easy song, because the harmony is really tricky. Glenn Tilbrook, who writes the melodies, he loves these kind of moving bass lines, and it's sort of unexpected jazz chords that kind of sneak in into a pop song. They're very complex songs. It is, yeah, yeah. And his guitar playing is very... Guitar playing is complex. The lyric is complex.

58:39The usual rule of thumb, which Squeeze ignore all the time but get away with it, is complex lyric, simple melody, complex melody, simple lyric. That's the sort of standard, you know, from the brew building days or before, you know. But Squeeze get away with it with the complex lyric, complex melody. They just, somehow they do it.

59:27Really nice kind of shifts and things. And lots of majors and minor, but minor is the major stuff. I was going to mention you did a, it was a Kennedy Center Honor or something for Joni Mitchell. And you played Woodstock. Now the rumor was you weren't supposed to play Woodstock that night. Yeah, the Stone Temple pilots withdrew at the last minute. I don't know if someone was ill or, you know, whatever reason. So I had an hour. which in a sense is good but because i didn't have time to think about it i thought i was so okay well you know let me pick a key i'll do it in d you know and i tuned to a modal tuning as well and i thought well um i don't really know the tune you know the the lyrics are going to be on the autocue so so i'll i'll i'll get the lyrics from there i kind of know them but sometimes you You think you know something, and you don't.

1:00:22And I just went out cold, and I didn't have time to get nervous. I didn't have time to think about what I was doing. I didn't have time to think, oh, there's Joni up there on the balcony. So sometimes you just have to shut stuff out and concentrate. So that was good. And people seemed to respond to that very well. But basically, I was just making it up, honestly. So tell me, for our listeners, you say it's a modal tuning. what do you mean by that? like a dad got now does that mean it relates to a particular mode or when you say modal tuning well it's called a modal tuning I think because it has suspensions in it you know you could have a modal tuning with a second in it

1:01:15but this one keeps the keeps that going that's alright

1:01:30but for uh yeah for Woodstock I just uh

1:01:45so I you know um The opportunity gave me a lot of leeway in terms of whatever the hell I was going to sing as a melody and how I was going to fit the words in. But I got away with it. It's nice sometimes. We're professional musicians here. We're supposed to be able to do this kind of stuff. We're supposed to be able to rise to the moment. I did want to ask you about a couple more songs. First of all, 52 Vincent, Black Lightning, which is always a great moment in your concerts. What went into that? We've talked about the lyrics. It was just envy. What went into the... It sounds like a traditional rock and roll song in some ways, but it's got a very different feel.

1:02:29Yes, so it's...

1:02:36I mean, the tune is very, very simple, the actual melody. Can you play just a little bit of it so he can tell me what you mean? Yeah. Said Red Molly to James That's a fine motorbike Love could feel special in his search line Says James, it's a red molly My hat's off to you It's a vince and black light in 1952 And I've seen you at the corners And cafes it seems Red hair and black leather My favorite color scheme And he put her arm behind And down to Box Hill There did a run

1:03:41Yeah, so... Oh, I see. So C's the bass note, but you're using a capo as well. But the tune is in G. It's in nominal G. It's now B flat. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a C-G tuning. So it works well for the key of, you know, where am I? Okay. The B flat chord and the E flat chord. And I thought I'd invented this tuning, of course, and I've discovered that they've been using it in Hawaii for the last hundred years. Well, they didn't write that song. But in Hawaii, there's something like 200 guitar tunings. They've basically explored everything. So it's easy to be late to the game. There's so much more I want to ask you, but you've been very, very generous.

1:04:38I have been incredibly generous, yes. You have been incredibly generous, very English, which I appreciate. Thank you. And what's next? You did a great album last year, Ship to Shore. Yeah. I keep writing stuff. I don't know where it comes from, but I'm still writing songs and I'm excited about the songs I'm writing. And I'm thinking, I want to get back in the studio and put out another record as soon as possible. What an absolute treat. Thank you very much indeed. In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Richard Thompson tracks. Be sure to check out youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast to see all of our video interviews.

1:05:16And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Toleday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

1:05:47The more you learn about your favorite artists, the more you want to know. Claude helps you keep digging, finding new threads and rabbit holes to explore. Whether it's discovering deeper meaning behind a detail in an interview or figuring out the influence behind an artist's particular era, Claude thinks with you to find the next clue. If you can't get enough of the stories behind your favorite music and artists, Claude will help you discover new layers you didn't know existed. Try Claude for free at Claude.ai slash Broken Record. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve.

1:06:20Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah, with Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you will earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. And the card gets you into Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences. Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next week in escape, discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC.

1:06:57Subject to credit approval, terms apply. You've probably heard me say this. Connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness. And one of my favorite ways to build that, scruffy hospitality. Inviting people over even when things aren't perfect. Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking, makes you feel good. That's why I love Bosch. Bosch fridges with VitaFresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer, so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment. Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter. Learn more. Visit BoschHomeUS.com.

1:07:35This is an iHeart Podcast.