I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is the second album released by Richard Thompson and the first including and credited with his then wife, Linda Thompson as Richard and Linda Thompson. It was released by Island Records in the UK in 1974. Although never commercially successful and critically ignored upon its release, it is now considered by a number of critics to be a masterpiece and one of the finest works of both Richard and Linda singularly or together.
Background
After the marked lack of success achieved by his first album, Henry the Human Fly, British singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson started a personal and professional relationship with Linda Peters, a session singer. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight was the first album by the duo of Richard and Linda Thompson. Sessions for the album took place in spring 1973 at the Sound Techniques studio, in Chelsea, London with house engineer John Wood co-producing with Thompson. The album, provisionally titled Hokey Pokey, was recorded on a shoestring budget in a matter of days, but because of vinyl shortages, the album was not released until 1974. Where his first album was treated harshly by the critics, the second was eventually hailed as a masterpiece. It is now regarded as a classic of English folk rock and one of the Thompsons' finest achievements. In the sleeve notes for the 2004 CD re-release, David Suff writes: "Throughout the album Richard's sombre, dark songs are driven by his masterful understated guitar and Linda's haunting spiritual vocals. The songs detail a beautiful yet desolate world of life before the fall, the lives of the homeless, the thief and the inebriate. The songs are thoroughly English in their mood and responsibility, wry observations of the hopelessness of the human condition." Considering the song "End of the Rainbow", Suff writes:
Richard denies that the song is totally pessimistic, "there's always hope in the third verse of my songs" yet the overall effect is a magnificent evocation of disillusionment. Thompson's songs are despairing but not self-pitying, leaving the listener with an abiding sense of peace and, paradoxically hope.
Reception
Initially ignored by reviewers, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight later came to be highly regarded. Robert Christgau rated it highly when it was re-released as one-half of Live! noting that " don't sentimentalize about time gone—they simply encompass it in an endless present." When it was re-released in 1984, along with other albums in the Thompsons' catalogue, Kurt Loder writing in Rolling Stone described it as a "timeless masterpiece" with "not a single track that's less than luminous". More recent reviews are equally complimentary. AllMusic notes that the album is "nothing short of a masterpiece" and calls it "music of striking and unmistakable beauty". Q : "After his 1971 departure from Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson found his ideal foil in recent bride Linda. A hugely inventive guitarist, he gives full vent to his talent on this dark, brooding album. Indeed, he never quite recaptured the murky demons inside the likes of 'Withered and Died' ever again." It was voted number 814 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003 the album was placed at number 479 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also appeared in the Mojo "100 Greatest Albums Ever Made".
