Richard Thompson

Pushkin.

Richard Thompson is a London born guitar virtuoso whose careers started in nineteen sixty seven as part of the groundbreaking folk band Fairport Convention. The following decade, Richard formed a duo with his former wife, Lynda Thompson, and together they released six albums, including the critically acclaimed I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and my personal favorite pour Down Like Silver. Richard then struck out on his own, writing songs that I've since been covered by artists like

Old folk songs over the years.

Richard also plays examples of his unique playing style on the guitar and talks about the time he played alongside Jimmy Hendrix. Is broken record, Real musicians, real conversations. Here's Bruce Hadlam with Richard Thompson.

You talked in your book about a big event for you is when you heard the band's first album. It helped reassure you that you're looking at Scottish music, particularly in English and Irish, Yeah made sense. Can you talk about what it was like to hear that record?

Well, the band's first album came out at a time of sort of high psychedelia, you know, the San Francisco band, So you know, some of which I thought were great, Somemmer which I thought really were not very good, but there was a kind of a looseners to it, and I kind of a kind of a drugged noodling anyway, you know, that was the provading culture at the time, and when the band came along, it was kind of a shotgend oft that the short haircuts for you know, wow,

What interests me when you when you talk about particularly that record, is you share something with the band that not a lot of writers do, which is that you write music that seems both very old and contemporary at the same time.

Yeah.

You know, people always say, well, the band songs sound like they could have been written a hundred years ago, and I think not quite, because they sound modern too.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I can't think of many writers who really pull that off.

Well, you know, you have to know your history, I think first of all, which the band obviously did. I mean, they knew their roots. You know, they jammed with Sunny Boy Williamson. You know that they really understood certainly, you know, rock rock and roll music, and as writers, particularly Robbie. You know, it was a history buff you know, so perhaps almost to a fault because I think some of the lates stuff is a bit more labored. Things like

It started in the library. Yeah, okay, So how did you go back to investigate Scottish music? You grew up with some, but there's a whole history there. Yeah, and this is going to sound like a naive question. Are there great resources that you could go to? Was it just old records when you started looking back to research this stuff? What were you looking at?

Various sources. You've got a great resource in London called the Social Sharp House, which has a big library of traditional music and there's what champions of traditional music and preservas of traditional music. So you can go there and look stuff up, you know. Yeah, you can get the Child ballads, you know, the five volumes collected by Francis James Child, which has like, you know, four hundred English, Irish Scottish ballads in there. That's another great resource. There

Then?

So he said, oh yeah, well if you take this one from this source and that blah blah, you know. So in a sense what we were compiling ballads from all over the place really to come up with a version that we felt really, you really did it, you know, it really told the story. One of the great things about some of those old songs it is how colorful they are in a sense that they describe things in a very colorful way, in a very immediate way that suits you know, a rock band actually could quite well.

Were there songs that just resisted it you thought, no, this song, it just belongs to another age. We can't.

Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, I think sometimes there was a feeling, you know, that the song was too pastoral and that wasn't really our lives in the twentieth century, you know, where we were kind of urban nights or suburban nights and a song about you know, you know, I Sow the seeds of love. I think we eventually recorded a bit, but I was a bit reluctant to do it because

So did that that in a sense gave you your vocabulary for your own music?

I think partly?

Yeah, for sure, you're known as a very depressing writer. Of course, because so many of your songs are about love a band and love scorned being alone.

Well I suppose. I mean, you know thematically, you write about what you know, and you write about you know, human states that have been written about for hundreds of years, so that there are a kind of a tradition. There's an overlap. But I'd be very interested. I'd be very sorry. I'm influenced by the language of traditional music.

Now when you get these songs, they wouldn't come with harmonies. Were they mostly melodies?

Like?

Did you have to re harmonize a lot of these things?

Yes? We did.

Yeah, American music, I guess, because so much is influenced by blues. Just it's got such a strong resolution, you know, just heads towards that final chord, and I find a lot of the music you were playing a lot of the folk music, it sort of expands, it doesn't have that that same drive towards sort of the final resolution.

I think, well, I think people, you know, people like Davey Graham, people like Martin Cathy developed a way of accompanying traditional music in a way that reflected more what you're hearing a solo vocal performance, so that a lack of resolution. And the way you did that is through suspensions really you know, through not resolving. So that's the tuning that the Davey Graham I think it was the

So he was the first to use like a dead get suspension.

Yeah yeah, it's.

A suspension because it's a it's a sixth yeah right yeah, okay.

So that some may start that when it may finished that way as well, which is good, which is just leaves it open. I mean, it doesn't resolve anything, you know, is it for you know, something like she moves with a fair.

My young love said to me, my parents will, Ma, my father will like you for your lack a harp.

Come.

And she let her hand on me, and then she did.

Say, what will not long?

Yeah? Sorry, kind of rings over. You have a nice thing about those kind of open tunings is if you're a solo guitarist, you get a bit size, you get a bit more volume out of the guitar. But because so many notes are ringing over, gives the illusion that you're a best guitar player than you actually are.

I'm going to remember that now. Some of your songs walking on the wires a song, Yeah, I think of that, and I know it does resolve in the end, but it almost feels like it could end on the fourth, it could end on other tones. The Great Valerio is another one to me that it feels very much like that. You seem to like these songs that don't have the just they just have a different I don't know if it's the form that's different. I don't quite know how to describe it.

Yeah, well know you mean, and I do like that, you know, I like that like a resolution in a sense. But again, I think it all comes from vocal music. I think it comes from hearing somebody sing a song unaccompanied and you imply what the harmony is. And if you're schooled in you know, you get kind of Mozart kind of harmony or something, then you're going to accompany it that way. If you come from a more traditional background, or if you're Mars and Carthy or Davey Graham, you're

Now, do you use a lot of drone notes?

Yeah?

Does that? Does that come from bagpipe?

Yeah? Pretty much.

And so when you're doing that, do you do you try and you try and use an open string for the drone?

Yeah?

And is it always the tonic or.

They're practicularly it's either going to be the G or the D.

It's funny because in you know, a lot of jazz, it'll be the high note will be uh, particularly in the piano. Yeah, that's how they'll harmonize a lot of like little runs and things like you'd have you'll have the high tonic. And then do you ever use like the high e for.

The well, yeah you can, you can do do it the other way around that exactly.

So yeah, you also use you use an enormous number of like trills on your Is that again the bagpipe influence.

It's traditionally influence you bagpipes, you know, Scottish, Irish fiddle players, accordion players. There's a lot of grace notes, a lot of extra notes around the note that that would be a big part of the expression or where you're playing. In something like a dance tune, that's pretty much sets you know, this is the tune that, this is how you play it. To make it more interesting, you might add more flourishes and bits and pieces, you know that kind of you know that kind of stuff.

Well, is there any and I don't even know if the harp is a is a Celtic instrument?

Sure is? You know the original Western European and instrument for a companying voice was there was the harp, you know, the small harp the ballad hop right, So people like Richard the first Richard the Lionheart, who was a singer songwriter, thank you very much. His mother was Eleanor Vakatain, who was a champion of the arts. But if you were

Would stroke it out and say blonde is the color?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, so we still got Adde Bollyn's head anywhere. Yeah, check the hair color. Yeah. Didn't write green sleeves, so that came a little late, but that was accredited to him for a while. So yeah. So if you if you're if you're a king, courts you singer songwriter.

Like all great songwriters, he took credit for things he didn't actually write. Well, when you're king, very country. Yeah, when you're king, you say, oh, I think I wrote this one. Of course you did, your majesty. Is there any harp influence in your playing?

Yeah? Any any kind of guitar or covered with with your finger picking. It's a very hard like and if if you use, if you use those kind of strings that ring over, you know, those kind.

Of tell me what you mean that when you say strings that are ringing over.

Well, you know, like like I see, I suppose to call straight flat picking more jazz style.

So for people who would be casual listeners, they might think you were born somewhere on a Scottish glen to goatherds.

Well, that sounds romantic.

It does, as it turns out. It turns out I'm really from London, suburban London. Suburban London suburbs are a wonderful place. It all comes from the suburbs. The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, inner sense come from the suburbs, you know, the Kings come from the suburbs fairly close to where I grew up as well.

Yeah. Yeah, but my father was Scottish, so that's always been a strand in the music, you know, and as a kid I was kind of transfixed by Scottish music, but by things like bagpipes, you know, hearing bagpipes outdoors where where you get that that kind of Doppler effect or that kind of phasing thing. You know.

Oh, even as a kid, you like that.

Well, you know, just one of the first music I ever heard was probably going with my parents up to Edinburgh Castle. I'm watching the military tattoo, you know, with these incredible pipe bands. I suppose I could have been attracted to the incredible drumming, but it was it was more the you know, Scottish use of melody. I think hit me for very young, my melody and drone, which you know, it's an old It's an old human thing,

Is there something distinctive about Scottish melodies? Are there certain tones they emphasize?

You know that there's an interesting Scottish use of the pentatonic scale. And you know, if if you think of country music where that comes from, a lot of it comes from Scottish music. The Scots were a notable ethnic group in the Appalachians and that you know that that that classic country you know, major pentatonic scale do you do? You do?

You do that?

That's all over country music and it's all over Scottish music as well. And so so that there's that pentatonic scale, there's a there's another Scottish pentatonic scale which doesn't have a third in it. There's no major or minor.

I see, So how would you if you were going to harmonize that?

You know, the classic way to harmonize Scottish music is basically to use the the root called and one, so I k d you use the sea as well as.

There's almost a mixed Ildien sound.

Yeah, and it's kind of I would say it's unique to Scottish music, but it's it's it's fairly unusual and it's almost a bit lonesome in a sense, you know, Yeah, yeah, you get this kind of spaciousness. Well, work with that particular scale, I find which it was suitable for the backpipe, you know, which is out there you know playing on yeah, up in the mountains or you know, at the end

We'll be back with more from Richard Thompson and Bruce Headlam after the break.

When did you first pick up a guitar?

I think I was probably ten. Yeah, my father was was an amateur guitar player. You know, no, they're not actually very good, and one day he bought him a guitar one of his old army mates. We worked in a guitar shop in at the West End of London, and I had this damaged guitar, like the side had split open in transit, and my father, being I would work, you know, glued it up and thought this is great, I'm going to play it. But I grabbed it before anybody else could get their hands on it and basically

You know.

So you know, the guitar was a very hip thing. And also in Britain you had an instrumental bank called the Shadows, which they were kind of British Adventures if you like. But actually much better players are much much better recorded.

I wanted to ask you about the Shadows because they loomed so large. Oh they did in England. People here would know their stuff because they associated with surf music.

And Canada as well. Actually, you know, a more local hotspot for for the Shadows, was that, right. Neil Younger claims he was a huge Shadows fan, okay, and you can hear in his playing actually it's used to that, you know, the wammy bar.

And everything, right, yeah, and you like them as well well, yeah.

I mean it was a great sound, of very deductive sound, and it was something that you could get together with with your with your friends and and that was the kind of the beginning of playing in a group, you know, of learning from each other, which is what happens when you joined a banner. You kind of pick stuff up from the other people in the band and you slowly spiral upwards. We hope you know as musicians. But yeah, the Shadows were very influential on every body of a

Yeah, could he play a strat well, well.

The story is at that time that there was a band on American imports of instruments for some reasons, so you couldn't buy a Fender, you couldn't buy Gibson. So Cliff Richard, who the Shadows, used to back well when I was at the States because he had a hit record here and and he brought back the first actual Fender stratocaster to go into England and he came to Hank so that was a big thing. And then they all got kitted out with fenders, you know, so exciting stuff.

This is has such a distinct, beautiful sound.

Yeah, yeah, it's all about tone, and you used you know, like these so fairly primitive these days, but but you know, to tape eco device it's for portable tapeco machines to give him a bit of extra reverb.

There are other players that you've talked about, and one and again not someone people over here have listened to is Davey Graham.

Yeah, he's kind of the first guy through the door, you know. But maybe mid mid fifties. Davy was acoustic guitar pler, and I should stress that first of all.

It strikes me that that you're a more disciplined player that like when you talk about chance putting sort of blues in Scottish, you don't do that as much like when you're playing a more bluesy style, which is a more rock style for you, not you don't really do blues. You tend to play a little more formally. Is that true?

Yeah?

Or is that unfair?

Well?

I think not so much. Formally it's different. You know. I think I realized in about nineteen sixty seven that there's a lot of competition in London for blues guitar players, you know. You know, but in my school back yet we were playing blues r and be all that kind of stuff. But at a certain point, I thought, you know, you know, yeah, you've got a piece of green out.

I think there's twenty named Jimmy yeah alone.

Yeah. So so I thought, well, you know, I'm really going to be different. You know, the the you know, the blues and I says that they don't have a place in my vocabulary, but but Kelsey music does. And you're in Kelsey music. You also you have you have bent notes, you know, you have a kind of soulful kind of phrasing, you know. So I thought, well, I'll I'll exploit that more than the blues. Inevitably, I've got technique that probably comes from BB King. I mean that's

You made you mentioned you mentioned bent notes in Scottish music, Well what tones are you bending to and from?

Then? From Scottish Irish music, there's more bends in Irish music for sure, mostly going up to the but bending up to the seventh, right, bending up to the octave, bending up to this to a second, I.

See, And that's more Scottish, that's more Irish and more Irish pardan me is that is that because the instruments they were using.

Yeah, you know, Scottish pipers now under the influencer of Irish pipers bend notes they're they never used to. But the bending is it's more of a vocal tradition in Scotland. Like work songs in the Hebridies, you know, you have you have more notes that get the kind of bend up to the note that not much going down, but a lot of times bending up to the note. You know. So, so I tried to develop a different vocabulary. Really, I didn't want to sound like all these other blues players.

You know.

The yard Bud's just sounded like little boys, you know, and they couldn't do the feel, you know that the feel of the rhythm section, it was all wrong. But you know, but I thought when the yardbirds did original songs, it was far more interesting when they did for Your Love or something. Thought well, this is actually a really good pop song and the blues influences coming in, and that's fine, you know, I thought that was a more interesting use of influences.

In your book, you mentioned being on stage I think just once with Jimmy Hendrix.

Oh but probably three times.

And what was that like.

We used to play this late night club called the Speakeasy in London, and you know, birds would roll in, you know, usually after midnight from playing out of town. You know, they come back from Birmingham, my magister, and they'd be hungry so that they come in and to eat really but there was always a live band on

Experience, did he because he played a left guitar, right.

He just take my guitar and then turn it upside down and play with great facility either way, you know really.

Yeah, did he string his guitar that way or did he? I'm not sure he strung it.

I mean for a left handed guitar player. Yeah, but he could play mine basically upside you know, he turned it upside down and figure out everything in the reverse genius will or will.

Out he gave it back to you. Did you just smash it and leave? That's quite something.

No, he didn't set fire to it. He didn't smash it.

But no, I was thinking, maybe you did. Well, I can't do that anymore.

Well, think with Hendrix. I mean you could kind of figure out what he was doing, you know, harmonically, it wasn't that that uh, you know, it was sophisticated. There was basically a blues play. But he could always up the game. You know, he could always play with his teeth, you could have sex with the guitar, you know, he could you know, play behind his back. You know, he had all the tricks that he'd learned, you know, playing

What was it about London? I guess England at that point. I mean the Beatles and the Stones are sort of you know, they broke the ice. Yeah, but there seemed to be so many You were playing all the time. There were clubs, there were colleges, and there was John Peel, who's this huge influential figure who was recording guys like you before anybody else.

What to start with it with John Peel? John Peel, what was a British DJ? You kind of emerged about sixty seven, you know, with the rise of psychedelia, flower power, and he had a show on the BBC. They had a couple of sho he had a late night show and he had a show where bands would come into the studio and record, especially for that show. So you come in and if you had a new record out, you'd record, especially for the BBC, four songs and they'd

They should thank him on the sleeve.

I think I should have a special album dedicated to Horrid.

Because you know, there's an argument in the United States now but protectionism and tariffs and all these things. It's interesting to think back at a time that the government said no, you know, BBC had to use live performances. They didn't want taped music because they're very strong unions colleges needed to hire live musicians.

Well, it's extruding. It was a thing that didn't last forever, you know. Again, I mean that kind of changed. I think the other good thing about that time was that the record companies hadn't figured out what was going on. You get these moments in music where the business is lagging behind the creativity, and that's when things really pop, you know, that's when stuff is exciting. And it took

How important was live performing for you back then? In learning what it was?

Everything? You know, I think it was and it still is. The light Live performance is always the focus because it's that thing that happens, is that transaction that happens between a performer and the audience in which the performer is almost just like like the conduit for creativity.

Is that how it feels when you're up there?

Yeah, a good day. Yeah.

You mentioned in your autobiography that I guess just because of the kind of clubs you were playing in the demands, you get pretty good at doing long solo.

Yeah.

I don't know if you watch the Get Back documentary, but there's a scene that always sticks out to me, which is George Harrison is talking about Eric Clapton. He said, you know, he can just play and play and play, and Harrison says, I can't do that. Yeah, he can solo within the confines of a song.

Oh absolutely, And George would kind of figure out a solo as well. He wouldn't be improvising a solid necessarily, but for use improvisations. Oh yeah. But that's as the school that I came out of. That that was what was not only permitted at the time, but expected at the time. So if you're a band and you had a guitar player in the band, the guitar player will

And it never that was never intimidating. You always had not the charms.

I mean, it was something that we did because maybe we hadn't rehearsed, you know, more than an hour of music. Sometimes you'd be playing three sets at the aforementioned speakeasy and you think, well, okay, third set, we'll just do a longer solo and on this particular song, you know, that'll be that'll be half a set. So that was another consideration. But and I just got used to it, you know, and in a sense, you know, into the seventies,

I guess it's hard for me to think of you in that way because you are such a your songwriting is so strong and your songs are so well constructed as forms, and I tend to think of those players not being great songwriters.

Understand, Yeah, but I wouldn't do it in every song. And some songs you almost want to have a surah that's pretty much written, you know that you refer back to. You might do little variations on it, but it's kind of part of the structure. But then maybe a couple of songs in an evening you might just let go and figure that the emotion of the song will carry

One last break and we're back with Richard Thompson.

We've talked a lot about your playing. When did the writing start for you?

Well, writing can be inspired by anything. It should be inspired by anything. So it's good if you can have the flexibility to start with a melody, or start with lyrics, or start with a riff, start with a hook line, just to get you started.

You know, some people are collectors of folk music, but some people you learn to sort of transform it. When did you know? Was there a song a time you thought I found my voice? I know this is mine now?

Well, probably in the sixties. I'm playing with Fatball Convention when we started to play traditional music with electric instruments, and at that point I thought, okay that this is this is where I begin in a sense, this is this is a vocabulary I need to learn, and somehow I'm going to stay with this and I'll add to it and I subtract from it. But basically this is this is going to be my musical vocabulary, and at some point I think it gets more influenced by jazz

And you know, you had this just explosion of great songs for Fairport, and then later when you're playing with your then wife Linda, you were writing for two really great singers. You're writing for Sandy Danny, and then Linda tell me about how you went about that.

Yeah, I think it is possible to write with somebody else in mind. So you can say, I'm going to tailor this song to someone else's voice, someone like Genesis Hall, you know, with tailored to Sandy's key and to Sandy's wonderful wide ranging abilities as a singer, you know, like she could really do justice to it. So the whole way the chorus goes and moves off to sing anything. So I'd be quite comfortable doing something which would really

Really, you know, you are considered the two of you are considered the authors of one of the great breakup albums of all time. But you say that's actually not the case. That wasn't the shootout the lights was coincidental.

But I think it's a it's a journalistic lazy cliche evenstance.

In some ways, I'm a lazy journalist. That's why I use it.

It wasn't aiming at that's you. But I'll take it a previous you know, written reviews and stuff, and people will like a bit of scandal anyway that don't exit, so that they'll play that up. Plus, you know, the songs were written, you know, a year, two years earlier in some cases, so we've been living with the songs for a long time. And I'm sure you know the songs kind of subconsciously reflect on what's going on in

Did you always relate to them at the time, because you've also written story songs, You've written songs about different people other people. Yeah, in a sense, one of you know, your big hits, fifty two Vincent black Lightning. It's not about you, but in some sense it must have been about you.

Well, you know, the envy is about me. When I was a kid, one of the neighbors had a vincent black shadow which I thought was just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, this, absolutely incredible. So I remember that when I started writing the song. No, you know, I make things up and make up stories. That's a valid thing to do, I think as a songwriter.

Can I ask you about a few individual songs from your solo career Waltson for Dreamers, which is just futiful? Do you remember writing that?

Yeah, started with the title, you know, I think just as sometimes I just wrote right down titles, you know, just for fun and preferably as you know, as streamer consciously as I can. And again I think I'm making something up, but maybe it's about me. I don't know.

Can you talk about persuasion? Which saying with your son Teddy.

Well, I read that an instrumental for a film, Oh yeah, with a slightly different melody, and it's an Australian film. And my friend Tim Finn, who was actually from New Zealand, but I think he was living Australia at the time, said I like that tune. Can I put some words to it? So so we kind of sat down and, you know, tried to co write a lyric, which is

You reminded me of your relationship with Tim Finn that you've done a few songs with Crowded House, and you did a very famous guitar solo on Sister Madly. It's just so different from everything else on that album. Unexpected.

Yeah. I did a lot of tours, were opening for Credit House in Europe and in North America, and we became good, good friends, you know, and I would usually sit in on their set and we play System Madly or something else you know at the time, and credits are great because they'll they'll kind of do anything on stage. I mean, they'll mess around that, they'll mess up their set list, they don't really care, and it was always

You did a great solo version of Tempted Yeah, which I would think a song that there's no way you could do that solo, but you was.

I think we had somebody on percussion and when we did it and I think Judith I was singing harmony. He said so, so it can't be done. It's not an easy song because that the harmony is really tricky. Glenn till Brooker, who writes the melodies, you know that he loves. He's kind of moving basslines and it's sort of unexpected jazz. Course it could sneaking into a pop song.

The very the very complex songs it is yeah yeah, and his guitar playing is very.

Guitar playing is complex. The lyric is complex, and the usual rule of thumb which Squeeze ignore all the time, but get away with it is you know, complex lyric, simple melody, complex melody, simple lyric. That's the sort of standard you know from the Brial building days or before you know, but squeeze get it, get away with it with the complex lyric complex melody. They just somehow they do it, you know. So that's really nice kind of shifts and lots of majors of mine minus the major stuff.

I was going to mention you did a it was a Kennedy Center honor or something for Joni Mitchell, and you played Woodstock. Now the rumor was you weren't supposed to play Woodstock that night.

Yeah, the Stone Temple pilots Withdrew at the last minute. I don't know if someone was ill or you know, whatever reason. So I had now, which in a sense is good. But because I didn't have time to think about it, I thought I was, okay, well, you know, let me pick a key. I'll do it in d you know. And I tuned it to a modal tuning as well. And I thought, well, I don't really know the tune. You know, the lyrics are going to be on the auto que, so I'll I'll get the lyrics

So tell me, for steners, you say it's a modal tuning, what do you mean by that?

That look like a dad gut down d D.

Does that mean it relates to a particular mode or when you say modal.

It's called a modal chuning. I think because you have suspensions in it. You know, yeah, you could, you'd have a modal tuning with a second in it, but this one keeps saif keep that going, that's right. But for yeah, for whatsuck, I just.

Charted. God, you was walking a lot, that's me.

Where are you going? You're telling me? So, you know, the open tuning gave me a lot of leeway in terms of whatever the hell I was going to sing us a melody and how I was going to fit the words. But I got away with it. You know, it's not nice sometimes. Yeah, we're professional musicians here, We're supposed to be able to do this. Kind of stuff we're supposed to able to rise to the moment.

I did want to ask you about a couple more songs. First of all, fifty two vincent black Lightning, which is always a great moment in your concerts. What did what went into that? We talked about the lyrics. It was just envy what went into the well? It sounds like a traditional rock and roll song in some ways, but it's got a very different feel.

Yes, so it's I mean the tune is very very simple, nacial melody.

Just a little bit of it. So we can tell me what your Meandian.

Read to James, that's a fun motor by could feel special in his social.

Life, says James, too, red boy, what's up to you?

It's an some black light in nineteen fifty two, and I've seen you in the corners.

I'm cafes.

It seems red hair and black leather my favorite color scheme.

And they put him off behind and down to box.

Here that.

Yeah, so I see, so seize the base note. But you're now you're using uh capo as well. But but the tune is in G.

Well, it's it's a nominal G well, that's it's not B flat. Yeah. Yeah, it's just kind of c G tuning. So it works well for you know, the key of uh, you know where am I? Okay? The brief like Cad and the Beef, And I thought I'd invented this tuning, of course, and I've discovered that they've been using it in Hawaii for you know, the last hundred years.

Well, they didn't write that song, but.

But in Hawaii there's something like two hundred guitar tunings. You know that they basically explored everything. So so it's it's easy to be late to the game.

There's so much more I want to ask you, but it's you've been very, very generous.

I have been incredibly generous.

Yes, you have been incredibly generous, very English, which I appreciate.

Thank you.

And what's what's next? You did a great album last Ship to Shore.

Yeah, I keep writing stuff. I don't know where it comes from, but I'm still writing songs, and I'm excited about about the songs I'm writing, and I'm thinking I want to get back in the studio and put on another record as soon as possible.

What an absolute treat.

Thank you very much. To date.

An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Richard Thompson tracks. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast to see all of our video interviewers, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday.