{"id":518321,"date":"2026-03-06T14:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/518321\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T14:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:37:15","slug":"the-boys-are-back-in-town-by-thin-lizzy-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/518321\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy – The story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may be difficult to believe, but Thin Lizzy<\/a> came very close to dumping what went on to be arguably the most iconic song of their career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had demoed about fifteen tracks for what became the Jailbreak album, and we\u2019d selected those we felt were the ten best ones,\u201d explains guitarist Scott Gorham<\/a>. \u201cThen our co-manager Chris O\u2019Donnell came down to listen to the songs, and we played him all fifteen. He picked up on something we\u2019d titled GI Joe, but we had already rejected it as not good enough for the album.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“He liked it, and told us that we should include it. We accepted his judgement, but there was still work to be done, because the lyrics were anti-war, which wasn\u2019t really right for us, and musically it wasn\u2019t there. However, we sorted it all out, and GI Joe turned into The Boys Are Back In Town.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gorham remembers vividly when he first heard the idea that would turn into this seminal track: \u201cI was at Phil Lynott<\/a>\u2019s house, and we were in his living room, going over songs we\u2019d been working on for the album. At the end of the sessions, Phil played me this bass line and asked what I thought of it. He then started to scat sing some lyrical notions he had in his head. From there we fleshed out a verse and a chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just Phil and me involved. But the next day at a band rehearsal, all four of us \u2013 including Brian Robertson<\/a> and Brian Downey<\/a> \u2013 played through the skeleton of the track. Brian Downey did this shuffle on the drums, and that\u2019s when things began to take shape. Because I got the idea from him for what became the guitar harmony you hear now. We had an eight-track recorder in the rehearsal room, which was used to demo songs, and that\u2019s when we did the version of GI Joe which our manager heard and liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back In Town (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Thin<\/p>\n

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However, the song still wasn\u2019t fully realised when Lizzy went into Ramport Studios in South London during late 1975 to record the Jailbreak album with producer John Alcock. \u201cNo, it wasn\u2019t a complete track even by this time,\u201d Gorham recalls. \u201cWe actually still didn\u2019t have the title. But then one day. Phil came into the studio and said he wanted to call the song The Boys Are Back Town.<\/p>\n

“He also had the lyrics written, and I read through them, thinking: \u2018Hey, now this is fucking cool!\u2019 Brian Robertson and I then got the guitar harmonies finished to our satisfaction. Although the guitar part in the middle of the song that helped to make it work so well came from Phil. He played it on the bass, and then Brian and I adapted it to the guitar.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have to say that recording this track was a pretty quick process. It wasn\u2019t easy, but nor was it too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no belief from the band, though, that what they had was the game changer it would soon become. \u201cTo us, this was a decent album track, no more. We certainly did not think it could be a single!\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened next was a happy accident, as the finished The Boys Are Back In Town took on a life of its own. \u201cWe were out in America touring in 1976. We had no fan base there, and had achieved no success at all. But two radio DJs in Louisville, Kentucky heard the Jailbreak album and began to play it on air. They especially loved The Boys Are Back In Town, and gave it multiple spins every day.<\/p>\n

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“People then began phoning the station, requesting the song. Then other radio stations picked up on it and also gave it a lot of exposure. Suddenly it was everywhere. The States, it seemed, had fallen in love with this tune.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back In Town (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube
\n\"Thin<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

It was at this stage that Thin Lizzy\u2019s US label, Mercury (in the UK they were on Vertigo), decided to put out The Boys Are Back In Town as a single.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you listen to what the record company say now, of course they take full credit for releasing the single,\u201d says Gorham. \u201cBut it was the backing we had from radio stations up and down America that forced their hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the enthusiasm of those DJs, incredibly the band still had little faith in the track, as Gorham amusingly admits. \u201cOne night, Chris O\u2019Donnell came into our dressing room while we were touring in the States and said: \u2018Well, guys, it looks like we have a massive hit single on our hands.\u2019 We just said to him: \u2018Hmm, maybe it\u2019s time to put this song into our set.\u2019 Can you believe we weren\u2019t actually playing it live at the time? Leave it to musicians to get things wrong!\u201d<\/p>\n

For the band, the success of The Boys Are Back In Town was never going to lead to a repeat of the formula in the search for another hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, there was some pressure from the label. But that was never gonna work for us,\u201d says Gorham. \u201cEvery album we did was different, and we were not the sort of band who would follow a formula, however successful it might have made us.<\/p>\n

“I think this is what true fans loved about Thin Lizzy \u2013 the fact we were unique. But it inevitably prevented us from appealing to a mass audience the way in which Styx or Journey did at the time. That\u2019s part of the reason why we never became a big name in the States.<\/p>\n

THIN LIZZY The Boys Are Back In Town live Sydney Opera 1978 (w. Gary Moore) – YouTube
\n\"THIN<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important impact The Boys Are Back In Town had on us as musicians was that it allowed the band to make further albums and to continue developing our style. Jailbreak was our third for the label, and it really was make or break. If it hadn\u2019t sold, then I\u2019m sure we\u2019d have been dropped, and who knows what would have happened.<\/p>\n

“As it was, The Boys Are Back In Town ensured the album sold well and therefore we could carry on. We owe a lot to that single, and to the foresight of Chris O\u2019Donnell and those DJs in Louisville, who saw in it something we as a band had missed.”<\/p>\n

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 276, published in July 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may be difficult to believe, but Thin Lizzy came very close to dumping what went on to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-518321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}