I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Part 3)

"Has He Got a Friend for Me" - This is another acoustic ballad, an achingly beautiful, sparse song, sung by Linda with heartbreaking control. The addition of Linda Thompson to Richard’s textural and emotional palette becomes continues to extend the remarkable range of the album. The song avoids the maudlin with careful choices of words, and Linda’s remarkable beauty and restraint make the performance utterly convincing. Lyrics like, "And nobody wants to know somebody lonely like me," put the matter of loneliness on a different level. Transcending just a mood, this is a song of negative self-definition. Of course, anyone living at this pathetic level of self-perception is going to ensure a life of loneliness. How could anyone get to this point of self-deprecation? The song does not tell us, but we know such people exist, and dwell at least partially, periodically within all (or rather most) of us.

The sad refrain of the title offers no hope. For if there was a "friend" for her, she would almost certainly doom any potential for a relationship by her self-negativity. Also, what would amount to a "pity date" would undoubtedly lower her self-esteem even further. Besides, her romanticization of her friend’s boyfriend displays the true level of her desire and secret expectation. Her misery becomes, in essence, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once again, there is no way out.

Beautiful melody, beautiful execution - and once again another perfect portrait of hell.

"The Little Beggar Girl" - This reeling, sarcastic portraiture is one of the great highlights of the album. Here, it is Linda, uncharacteristically adopting a "Human Fly" perspective and singing in the broad, lower-class English dialect that Richard had adopted for his previous album. This caricature gives the Thompson’s not only a wider wider range for the album, but a larger gallery of perspectives that deepen and enrich the vision.

What’s so fabulous about the track is the effulgence of the singing, and thus the character of the "poor little beggar girl." Her joy and satisfaction may be delusional, but her spirits burst with energy (and spite) that gives real bite to the song. "I’ll dance with my peg leg a-wiggling at the knee" may be a pathetic image, but from her perspective, she’s not nearly as miserable a sight as the spectator - ahem, make that the listener - from whose guilt she earns her living.

The little girl is quite conscious of this: "’Cause I love taking money off a snob like you," is the way she sums it up. The absence of self-pity from such a "pitiable" creature is a wonderful contrast with the obsessed singer of "Has He Got a Friend for Me."

This is one of Linda Thompson’s great, shining moments, as she transforms her beautiful voice into the insouciant character of this little waif - she is utterly convincing and shocking.
The song itself is a very traditionally styled British street stomp, accompanied by Richard’s sharp electric guitar, plus John Kirkpatrick’s beautifully played accordion. Brief excursions into traditional reels between choruses add an edge of verisimilitude and crisp urgency to the song.

The ironic high point of the song is the little girl’s rationalization of her condition:

Oh the poor they will be rich, and the rich they will be poor,
That’s according to Saul when he wrote it on the law,
And I’d much rather be rich after than before . . . "

This justification of her position is, of course, delusional, and if it is indeed the essence of her stance, the character, in all her wonder and glory, is finally tragicomical. And of course she is - I’m sure Richard Thompson would see to that. It is chiefly through Linda’s audacious vocals that allow "the little beggar girl" to emerge so triumphantly in her condition and state. She is indeed "richer," and more fully alive than any of the wretched, moneyed suckers gathered around to guiltily watch and listen to her song.

Simply amazing, this remarkable song is pulled off at what seems to be a punchy, artless (in the best sense) wollop that it simply leaves the listener stunned.