(33 1/3)

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Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights is undeniably one of the most harrowing albums in the canon of rock music. Long interpreted as documenting the break-up of the Thompsons' marriage, the reality - as presented by Hayden Childs in his interesting 33 1/3 series book on the album - is something else entirely.

As Childs explains, much of Shoot Out The Lights had been written before the couple's divorce, and better than a year before the album was released in its familiar form...which, perhaps, requires an explanation of its own. An earlier version of Shoot Out The Lights had been recorded at the expense of producer Gerry Rafferty, he late of Stealer's Wheel (and the saccharine folk-pop hit "Stuck In The Middle With You"), in 1981. Overproduced and lacking the sparking emotions of the later recording, the Rafferty sessions remain unreleased, tho' available to Thompson fans as various bootleg recordings.

In 1982, producer Joe Boyd, who Richard Thompson had worked with during his Fairport Convention days, launched the Hannibal Records label. Boyd was interested in recording the couple, and with his steady hand behind the board, the Thompsons created the critically-acclaimed version of Shoot Out The Lights we all know and love.

By this time, the Thompson's relationship was in complete shambles. Linda was pregnant and Richard's affections had turned elsewhere. The palatable tension between the two artists translated into a unique dynamic in the studio, breathing new life and fire into the established songs while driving the newer material to greater heights.

This, in a nutshell, is the story behind Shoot Out The Lights, but Childs provides both more information and a larger context for the album. Using an unusual literary construct in his interpretation of the album, Childs creates a fictional narrator whose make-believe life parallels that of Richard Thompson's - his doppelganger, as it were.

Comparing Thompson's "descent into hell" with Dante's Inferno, Childs' protagonist recounts his own spiral into the underworld's lower circles as he travels from Florida to New York to claim his recently deceased ex-wife's body. Obsessed with the Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights album, Childs' downtrodden character Virgil (also the name of Dante's guide into hell), compares the aspects of his life to that of Richard Thompson's.

If all this sounds confusing, well, it is... Childs provides a completely different way of looking at an album from the couple dozen previous 33 1/3 series books that I've read, and the first three or four chapters are difficult to slog through. By the end of the sixth chapter, though, the damn thing begins to make sense, and if you stay on the ride through the end, the insight proffered by Childs is rewarding as well as eye-opening.

Hayden Childs has definitely broken beyond the normal form of rock criticism with his take on Shoot Out The Lights, creating a review of some depth and intelligence, his critique as layered and textured as the album it explores. Whether you're a longtime fan of the Thompsons, or a listener just discovering the brilliant and disturbing Shoot Out The Lights, Childs' book provides the perfect guide to this difficult album. REV. KEITH A. GORDON