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Watching the Dark

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Released
  
1993

Label
  
Hannibal

Watching The Dark (1993)
  
Mirror Blue (1994)

Release date
  
20 April 1993

Length
  
2:04:11

Producer
  
Edward Haber

Artist
  
Richard Thompson

Genres
  
Rock music, Rock and roll

Watching the Dark httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen88aRT

Similar
  
Richard Thompson albums, Rock music albums

Richard thompson walking through a wasted land


Watching the Dark is an album by Richard Thompson released in 1993.

Contents

The three-CD retrospective set was compiled with Thompson's co-operation and consent. Thompson has often been reluctant to look backwards at his career and dig through the archives, but he took the pragmatic view that if somebody wants to assemble a set of this nature they'll do it anyway and so he might as well collaborate with them if possible. He had right of veto over the selections, and recorded one track ("Poor Wee Jockey Clark") specially for the project.

About a third of the selections are live, and five had never been released on any official Thompson release. Some of the material was donated by collectors of Thompson recordings.

The set extends chronologically from 1969, when Thompson was a member of Fairport Convention, through to 1992. However it is not sequenced in chronological order.

Notable inclusions are

  • A live version of "Can't Win" with an extended guitar solo
  • "From Galway to Graceland", a Thompson song that had never made it onto a commercial Thompson release
  • A live version of "A Heart Needs A Home" from 1975
  • Solo, live versions of "Jennie" and "Devonside"
  • An unreleased recording, thought to have been lost, of "A Sailor's Life" by Fairport Convention
  • Three tracks from the unreleased, Gerry Rafferty-produced version of the Shoot Out the Lights album

    • The set includes a booklet with details of each recording, some rare photographs and essays by Greil Marcus and Leslie Berman.

    Richard thompson calvary cross live 1983 from watching the dark


    Track listing

    All songs are written by Richard Thompson except where noted otherwise.

    Disc A

    1. "A Man in Need"
    2. "Can't Win"
    3. "Waltzing's for Dreamers"
    4. "Crash the Party"
    5. "I Still Dream"
    6. "Bird in God's Garden"/"Lost and Found" (Hakim Conrad Archuletta/Fred Frith)
    7. "Now Be Thankful" (Dave Swarbrick, Thompson)
    8. "A Sailor's Life" (Traditional; arranged by Sandy Denny, Thompson, Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings and Martin Lamble)
    9. "Genesis Hall"
    10. "The Knife-Edge"
    11. "Walking on a Wire"
    12. "Small Town Romance"
    13. "The Shepherd's March"/"Maggie Cameron" (Traditional; arranged by Richard Thompson)
    14. "Wall of Death"

    Disc B

    1. "For Shame of Doing Wrong"
    2. "Back Street Slide"
    3. "Strange Affair"
    4. "The Wrong Heartbeat"
    5. "Borrowed Time"
    6. "From Galway to Graceland"
    7. "Tear Stained Letter"
    8. "Keep Your Distance"
    9. "Bogie's Bonnie Belle" (Traditional; arranged by Richard Thompson)
    10. "Poor Wee Jockey Clark" (Traditional; arranged by Richard Thompson)
    11. "Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair "
    12. "Dimming of the Day"
    13. "Old Man Inside a Young Man"
    14. "Never Again"
    15. "Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song)"
    16. "A Heart Needs a Home"
    17. "Beat the Retreat"

    Disc C

    1. "Al Bowlly's in Heaven"
    2. "Walking Through a Wasted Land"
    3. "When the Spell Is Broken"
    4. "Devonside"
    5. "Little Blue Number"
    6. "I Ain't Going to Drag My Feet No More"
    7. "Withered and Died"
    8. "Nobody's Wedding"
    9. "The Poor Ditching Boy"
    10. "The Great Valerio"
    11. "Twisted"
    12. "The Calvary Cross"
    13. "Jennie"
    14. "The Hand of Kindness"
    15. "Two Left Feet "
    16. "Shoot Out the Lights"

    Songs

    1A Man in Need3:34
    2Can't Win9:13
    3Waltzing's for Dreamers4:06

    References

    Watching the Dark Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA