Thin Lizzy have unveiled their first every music video for ‘Whiskey In The Jar’. You can check it out below.
The video has been shared, despite the track being originally released in 1972 and featuring on their 1973 album, ‘Vagabonds of the Western World’.
Thin Lizzy’s cover of the traditional Irish song reached number one in the Irish Charts, and No 6 in the UK.
This video was animated by graphic designer and motion designer Harry French, as well as being produced by Dave Hudson and Forward Slash Studios.
Watch this video for yourselves below.
“very strange”
Speaking about how ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ came about, Thin Lizzy founding member and former guitarist Eric Bell had this to say.
“The way it came about was very strange. We were rehearsing upstairs in this pub and we couldn’t get any inspiration. I was actually reading a book I was so bored. Then Phil picked up a Fender Telecaster and started singing all these Irish songs. He was doing, ‘Wild Rover’ and stuff like that, just for a laugh. I’m just thinking, ‘When are we going home?”, he said.
He continued: “Then Phil started on ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ and I picked up my guitar and played along. Our manager, Ted Carroll, who had come in with a new amp for me to try out, asked what was that song we were playing. Phil said we were only messing about, but it was ‘Whiskey In The Jar’. Ted then said, ‘Have you got a single yet?’ and we said, ‘Yeah, ‘Black Boys On The Corner’ So he said, ‘Why not put ‘Whiskey…’ on the B-side?’.
“biggest challenge of my life”
Elsewhere, Eric Bell described recording the song as “the biggest challenge” of his life.
“Anyway, we recorded it – that was the biggest challenge of my life – I didn’t know how to approach it as it was an Irish ballad. We were used to doing rock and blues, not Irish ballads. Myself and Philip played acoustic guitars on it and after that was finished they all looked at me and said, ‘What are you going to do?’.
“I tried a few things that were really corny, so I took a cassette home and worked on it and came up with the solo. We recorded it and released it as a double A-side, so the DJs got the choice of which side to play. It had been out for about two months and we never heard anything about it. We were saying, ‘We told you it was a load of b*******’.
He also added: “Then we did this horrendous tour of Germany, doing wine bars and clubs. We got this telegram to our German hotel. One of our roadies Frank Murray came in and said ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ is No. 22 in the UK charts. We thought, ‘We’ve got to get back to England’, so we cancelled the rest of the tour, went back and ended up on Top of The Pops”.
Last November, Thin Lizzy marked the 50th anniversary of ‘Vagabonds of the Western World’ with a special reissue of the album. More on this from Nova here.
