Books read in 2026 #31 - “Cowboy Song” by Graeme Thomson.
It’s 1976 an a friend turns up with a cool looking new album with a comics style cover called “Jailbreak.”
A few years later I’m at the Empire theater in Liverpool watching and photographing the same band in action in what I still consider one of the top three gigs I ever attended.
Jump forward a few more years and I met this cute girl on the first day of college and we find out we both love the rocking sounds of that same band.
Thin Lizzy has been a constant in our lives for 50 years, but it’s taken me a while to get around to reading this biography of the man out front.
At times it’s an absorbing read about how an abandoned child could remake himself, about the soul of a poet inspired by the mythology of his adopted home, about a man who knew he was on a path to perform.
Yet it’s also a difficult read of missed opportunities, insecurity, controlling behavior, jealousy, and addiction.
A sad tale of an amazing talent that could handle almost everything life threw at him, except the one thing he craved, fame.













