What’s Left To Lose: Richard Thompson Interviewed
It’s a warm day in Central London and Richard Thompson is revisiting old haunts. Guitar on his back, he’s even wearing shorts for the unexpected sight of the British summertime. CLASH catches him on Chiltern Street, gazing past the window of Howarth of London – the historic, and somewhat pricey, stringed instrument emporium. He’s far from a man of leisure, however; Richard Thompson is working with alacrity, with a new album, a tour, and a show at the Royal Albert Hall in the offing.
As we sit down in an office nearby, he’s keen to keep us in the loop. “It’s a busy time! Record release, and all that sort of stuff. We’re going on tour, so there’s a lot of rehearsals right now.”
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It’s always been this way, though. Richard Thompson is one of music’s true worker ants, amassing a huge catalogue that spans seven decades. “Being creative is a joy. It’s an absolute joy,” he says. “The only reason that you might get disciplined is aiming to become more efficient at getting to that place where creativity begins. As Picasso once said – and I’m not putting myself in the same sentence as Picasso here! – the Muse will find you but she likes to find you working.”
“If I’ve got time – a week, maybe two weeks – I’ll use that to write. I’ll get up early and work. If it’s going well I’ll continue into the afternoon. If it’s a struggle, I’ll maybe knock off at lunch… and do some emails.”
There’s a few tricks to staying this focussed. One is, remarkably, leaving a pile of half-finished ideas to return to in the future – they’re useful tools to unblock a closed mind, he insists. “It’s nice to have things that are half-finished, or not quite finished. It means you can take something, tighten it up, and get into the process. Sometimes I have songs that are – in quotes – really important songs. I’ll think, this is a great song, it’ll be fantastic – my ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ – and I’ll work on it for years. And it’ll never get finished. But in the meantime, I’ll have written all these other songs. It’s almost like a trick, except I’m tricking myself.”
It’s funny, though, as the maker himself readily admits, the simplest songs can often be the most effective. Work for a decade on a single piece of music if you wish, but don’t complain when something you coughed up in 30 seconds flat goes on to define you. “Often they’re the best songs, they’re the ones that audiences like. There’s no telling,” he shrugs. “With a song – usually – you don’t know it’s worth, you don’t know how it communicates until you get out in front of an audience. Because you hear it through their ears as well! And it’s like, oh shit – I’ve to fix verse two, or something. It’s an opportunity to go back and fix it, or just dump it. I’ll stick in a drawer and come back to it later… and of course, you never do!”
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This connection with an audience isn’t something Richard Thompson takes lightly. Fans come back show after show, album after album, investing in a certain brand of songwriting – traditional, yet devoutly modern; black as night, yet shot through with humanity, and warmth. Relaxing into this, he points out: “It’s nice to have an audience. It’s nice to have any audience!”
“In 1971, having been relatively successful with Fairport Convention, filling out city halls and so forth, that was pretty good – without selling a lot of records. I deliberately downsized after Fairport – Linda and I played folk clubs to 100 people. And there’s a limit to that but it was necessary at the time. Then we expanded again. It was clear to me that in order to survive we had to contract and expand. My motto at the time was ‘be flexible’ – don’t let your ego think that you can’t work without certain circumstances. You can always sling a guitar on your back, go down a folk club, and get 100 quid. I didn’t feel neglected in the 70s, 80s, 90s or whatever… I didn’t sell that many records, and I just thought that was the way of the world.”
“When I started to play more in America – I hadn’t been there since Fairport, with Sandy and Ian – after a 10 year gap, I was treated as a new artist, and I got on to college radio and alternative radio. I found an audience who was younger than me. It became a new lease of life, and I could expand a little bit.”
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So many of his contemporaries, however, didn’t stick around for that new audience to bloom – Nick Drake died unrecognised, Sandy Denny was never truly given her due, John Martyn’s life was tumultuous, and often unhappy. “People now appreciate Nick, they appreciate John Martyn, they appreciate Sandy and I think that’s great. They could all have used it in their lifetimes.”
A hallmark of Richard’s career is always looking forwards – no two albums sound the same. Writing his memoir – the excellent Beeswing – changed that. Part of the process was joyous and enlightening, but looking back found the artist unpicking old trauma, such as the crash which claimed the lives of Fairport Convention drummer Martin Lamble, and the guitarist’s then-girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn.
“In some ways it’s more cathartic than writing songs. It was therapeutic,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I enjoyed writing it. Up to a point. Doing a book is a bit more intense than just remembering things. You remember the things you want to remember. You think glowingly about the 60s, or something. When you write a book you have to reflect on it in more detail – the events, the people. You get more of a rounded idea of who you are.”
“I realised that when we had our accident, our drummer was killed, and.. I tend to shove that one out the way. I think about Martin, but I didn’t deal with the trauma. Because you didn’t in those days. It was all: ‘we came through the war so stiff upper lip chaps, let’s get on with it…’ I think we all had PTSD. That came out of the blue – it was something I hadn’t reflected on as I just didn’t want to.”
The past, though, is the past. Beeswing was completed during a frenetic period of activity over the pandemic, in which Richard Thompson wrote and recorded his first album in six years – the enchanting ‘Ship To Shore’ – and finished writing a further, as yet unrecorded album.
“Not playing live means you’re staying at home more, and it means you write more. Which in some ways was great – I wrote two EPs, I wrote this album, I wrote the next album. I’m so far ahead it’s ridiculous. It was good for that but it didn’t change the way I wrote. I’m still writing songs from different perspectives.”
“With regards to this record, I’m wearing different hats. Some reviewers – not mentioning names – call me a miserable sod, he’s so dysfunctional blah blah blah. But that isn’t me! Look at ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ – he wasn’t stuck in prison, he was Johnny Cash, he went on tour! But you have to convince the audience that it’s actually you… while remembering that it isn’t you.”
There’s an often-remarked darkness to Richard Thompson’s music, a factor that doesn’t comprehend the humour, the sometimes bawdy lyricism, and the sheer humanity at play in his work. Seated in his shorts, throwing out self-deprecating jokes, you feel for the man often pegged as somewhat lachrymose.
“Coming out of the folk tradition… yes, there are love songs, drinking songs, some heavy ballads – children being snatched by fairies, the lord in the castle shagging people, mining disasters… God knows what. To me, that’s normal. That’s not the dark side, that’s central. If you’re going to write songs about relationships, then to do them justice you have to go a little bit deeper. Love can be complicated, as it says on one of the songs on the new album.”
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‘Ship To Shore’ was built during the depths of winter in Woodstock, upstate New York. “Middle of an ice storm – just the worst weather ever!” he says, shaking his head at the memory. “The weight of the snow and ice pulled down trees as far as you could see. The back-up generator would run for a while, and then konk out.”
Recently leading an all-star 75th birthday party at the Royal Albert Hall, Richard Thompson is at ease with locations that spur on happy memories. From our Central London location it’s a short bus ride to Belsize Park, Hampstead, and Dartmouth Park, where he went to school. Indeed, the Royal Albert Hall is where he saw one of his first concerts – a classical bash, featuring the 1812 Overture (complete with cannons).
He’s come a long way since then – or perhaps, simply completed yet another circle. The tradition renews itself, and so does Richard Thompson, adding chapter after chapter to his storied journey.
“What drives you creatively? I don’t know. I think you can be haunted by it by things, you know, from the past… past failures or just past traumas, and then you think, well, I’ve got to resolve this or I’ve got to do better. I always think of my records: the next one is going to be that it’s going to be better.”
Casting his mind around for a metaphor, he recalls a holiday to Central America – a tropical paradise, with the opportunity for solo travel. “You could borrow a canoe and just float down the river. Nice river, you know, no crocodiles or anything…! You’d paddle for miles and miles, just for fun. You’d think: I wonder what’s round the next corner? And you’d go a bit further. And I think I think music’s a bit like that. I think you just want to know what’s next, what’s possible, and where creativity will lead you.”
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‘Ship To Shore’ is out now. For All Richard Thompson live dates check his website.
Words: Robin Murray
Photo Credit: David Kaptein
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