Music |
Teddy Thompson: Top 5
By
Published: Feb 02, 2015
Category:
Rock
“No amount of hype,” Bruce Springsteen has said, “is as powerful as one kid saying to another, ‘Man, you should have seen that.’
Well, I’m that kid. I saw it. Sadly for you, you missed Teddy Thompson performing with his family at City Winery.
There were half a dozen Thompsons on stage that night, but for our purposes there were only two.
Richard Thompson is a legendary talent. Clapton, Knopfler, Thompson — as a guitarist, that’s his league. Alas, he was influential before big fame and big money were possible; his cult is knowledgeable but not huge. In performance, he suffers from a powerful case of self-esteem; you can feel the testosterone in the back row.
Teddy Thompson is Richard’s second son. He too is prodigiously gifted. Young. Handsome as an English prince. And if you’ve read my interviews with him — here and here — you know that he has Issues. One is primal. Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s former collaborator, described his relationship with his father as “like moose with antlers locked — can’t get closer, can’t get loose.” That’s Teddy and Richard.
It was Teddy’s idea to make a record with his parents and siblings. At one level, this was a conciliatory gesture — his parents’ divorce was nasty and public. At another, it was a shrewd career move, as Teddy’s uniformly terrific records just don’t break through the clutter. Smart? Very. The project got a huge write-up in the Times and excellent reviews. [To buy the “Family” CD and get a free MP3 download from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
And then, of course, there was a tour. Everybody on one stage. Or, for those with a taste for drama, Richard and Teddy on one stage.
Teddy began the show, singing the title song of the CD.
My father is one of the greats to ever step on a stage
My mother has the most beautiful voice in the world
And I am betwixt and between
Sean Lennon, you know what I mean
Born to the manor, never quite clamoring free
It’s family
Brave stuff. And typical of Teddy. On his most recent CD, he sings “Some time ago, I came up with a plan/ Shit on myself so that no one else can”— and in another verse of “Family,” he did just that:
I am the middle child
Born with red hair and no smile
Not too secure
very unsure who to be
And then this:
My grandmother gave us all the love she had
She lived for us kids
Never a thought for herself
But she never dealt with her pain
And I’ve done exactly the same
Pushing it down
Trying to push it away
Maybe I can imagine writing a song this unvarnished. I cannot imagine singing it in front of my father. Because Richard Thompson also has issues. In London, when Teddy sang the first line of “Family,” a critic reported that Richard turned away, with what might be described as a smirk.
But it was when Teddy sang “Separate Ways” that I really felt I was watching a battle of the bands — well, of the band, singular.
“Separate Ways,” the title song from his flawless second CD, is a brutal confessional. The singer is madly in love. And he’s been dumped. [To read more about “Separate Ways” on Head Butler, click here. To buy the absolutely essential, not-a-clinker-on-it CD and get an MP3 download free for a ridiculous $8.99 from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
Come rolling into town unaware
Of the power that you have over me
And what am I to do
With hello how are you
Nothing’s ever said that should be
And I don’t care about you
If you don’t care about me
We can go our separate ways
If you want to
The ties of love are strong
But they can be undone
And we’ll go our separate ways
If you want to
I’m turning into me, not you
I can change my mind not my blood
And not all who love are blind
Some of us are just too kind
We forgive too much
And never speak our minds
Well, he speaks his mind here:
I stood out in the rain, holding my breath
Waiting for you, you never came
You broke my heart, you broke my heart
I know who’s to blame, you’re to blame
The sound on the video could be better. And it’s always different when you’re there. But…oh, just watch:
What I see: that rarest of on-stage events, when performance merges with persona. A man singing with his hair on fire. Singing for his life. Not just recreating the pain — the physical experience of heartbreak — that led to the song, but locked in painful, unending competition with the guitar god who shares the stage. And putting out everything he’s got, not so much to win as to survive, to have some ground of his own to stand on.
Top 5. All time Top 5.
After, Richard Thompson sang, and others did. But this was what the night was about. You should have been there, you should have seen it.
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