SOD: Richard & Linda Thompson -- Shoot Out The Lights

The story goes like this, man and woman singers fall in love, get married, and record and release six albums over eight years together before divorcing. They are British singer/songwriters Richard and Linda Thompson, and their final record, Shoot Out the Lights, from 1982, is their most successful, but also their darkest.

The title cut opens side two of the LP, a very Springsteen move to put a song so heavy and powerful in that position. I read the song as a man hiding in his apartment after a breakup, metaphorical gun in hand, hurt, scared, and alone, unable to leave his place during the day, but trapped inside the echoes of his own mind at night. Don't miss the searing guitar solo at the end. It shakes me and I don't even like guitar solos.

I've put off listening to this album for years, despite that fact that it's heralded by all my favorite rock critics, including Bob Boilen from NPR, who I agree with on almost everything (except The Who; how can he like them so much?), but now I've gotten to a place where I want to hear a lot more of Richard Thompson.

Key Lyric:

Keep the blind down on the window

Keep the pain on the inside

Just watching the dark

Just watching the dark