![]() "Phil Lynott often saw himself as a poet," acknowledges fellow countryman and loyal acolyte Bob Geldof in DVD documentary Out of Ireland. The Renegade committed all his romanticism to parchment with a quill. Soldiers of Fortune, Lizzy's classic lineup (l-r): Scott Gorham, Phil Lynott, Brian Downey, Brian Robertson, circa 1976 Fittingly, Renegade reprints only three verses of lyric to accompany the album credits. Six minutes that move from Michael Mann to Mad Max, Muhammad Ali to Vanishing Point. Jackrabbit beats leap, while the guitars hammer and run, kick and tear. His dark coffee murmur tickles your ear, Barry White, one minute, and when the Lizzymobile lurches forward like a den of thieves, Lynott's grizzly bellow leads the way. "Renegade" is both quintessential Lizzy and Phil Lynott to the core. Opening Renegade like Ebola, "Angel of Death" is an extreme version of Thin Lizzy less so as the band neared its 1983 demise but the title track is not. I hope to hell I played "Renegade" over and over and over again as I still do today. Not even me maybe it was too sad and lonely to contemplate. All were pallbearers at the funeral of the 36-year-old father of two. ![]() Staph infection, pneumonia, a broken band/marriage/heart, take your pick. His body was riddled not with AIDS, but another epidemic, hepatitis, and internal abscesses from years of heroin addiction. Whatever gremlins the singer saw that night, death came for Phil Lynott (Lih-nit) on January 4, 1986, and if he wasn't crying out in pain, to his God for mercy, mercy, it was only because he was already lost. ![]() A real disaster."Ī quarter century later, as "Angel of Death" flickers back down into cyber sleep, synthesizer snaking away with a final buzz, Phil Lynott steps out from behind the curtain at song's fade, a sheepish grin on his swashbuckler's mug. But before he died that night, he was lost insaaane. To his God he said, 'Have mercy, mercy!' His body was riddled with a disease, unknown to man so he expected no cure. Last verse and chapter: "I was standing by the bedside, the night that my father died. A holocaust, the likes of which this planet has never seen! there was a French philosopher by the name of Nostradamus, who prophesized that in the late 20th Century, an angel of death, shall waste this land. The Supreme Being, vox digitally fogged, rustles a page from the manuscript of time, slowly, deliberately, finger pointed in accusation. Smoke and sulfur clear, momentarily, Brian Downey appearing once again on the edge of his Zildjians (or the like), Darren Wharton whirling up synthesized sorcery. The blitzkrieg rages until a Les Paul cuts through the din like a saber from the Napoleonic Wars. I foresee a holocaust, an angel of death, descending to destroy the human race. I seen Hit-ler's stormtroopers, march right across the Maginot Line. "I was hanging out in Ber-lin, in the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-nine. ![]() I sat up, staring at the angry digits on the now rattling clock radio. "They went down, down deep underground. But their God didn't listen, so they were burned alive! I heard men, women, and children crying out, to their God for mercy. "I seen buildings a-blazing, blowing up in flames. "I seen the fires start in 'Frisco, the day that the earth quaked," calls down the prophet baritone, Hendrix hewn, Presley hung. A drummer sets off across his cymbals, and out of this dark apocalypse bursts a galloping bass, thundering into the foreground, guitars snapping at its flank. (The egg chamber?) Up sounds the siren once again, this time trailing off into abandon before the synthesizer slithers down from its red laser lighthouse and into the animal hold. "Oh my God," groans a voice, horror dawning. From the quickly gathered gloom rises a thick, futuristic wail, air-raid warning for alien skies. The song blinks online suddenly, with a dread, electronic tremor, displaced air rumbling like a blackened storm front. He's just a boy, that's all." "Renegade," 1981 ![]()
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