In 1976, Thin Lizzy had their one and only Top 40 U.S hit with “The Boys Are Back in Town.” The song by the Irish rock band, from their album Jailbreak, peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 24, 1976.
Rolling Stone ranked “The Boys Are Back in Town” as one of the greatest songs of all time, noting that the hard rock hit was “powered by the twin guitar attack of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson and frontman Phil Lynott’s rowdy-night-out lyrics.”
But while the song ultimately marked the U.S. commercial breakthrough for the band, it almost didn’t make the cut for Thin Lizzy’s sixth album.
"The Boys Are Back in Town” was written by Lynott. It was originally titled “GI Joe,” and it wasn’t initially considered a frontrunner for the Jailbreak album.
“We had demoed about fifteen tracks for what became the Jailbreak album, and we’d selected those we felt were the ten best ones,” guitarist Scott Gorham told Classic Rock in an interview. “Then our co-manager Chris O’Donnell came down to listen to the songs, and we played him all fifteen. He picked up on something we’d titled ‘GI Joe,’ but we had already rejected it as not good enough for the album. He liked it and told us that we should include it.”
Gorham continued, “We accepted his judgment, but there was still work to be done, because the lyrics were anti-war, which wasn’t really right for us, and musically it wasn’t there. However, we sorted it all out, and ‘GI Joe’ turned into ‘The Boys Are Back In Town.’”
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In a separate interview with HotPress.com, Gorham explained that Lynott agreed that the anti-war theme had already been “overdone” by so many other bands. “He turned it into more of a gang song,” the guitarist said of “The Boys Are Back in Town.”
“He looked at all of us: what do we do on a Saturday night? We go out, we have a lot of drinks, try to pull the chicks and have a great time,” Gorham recalled. “And that is what that song is: it’s Saturday night with all your buddies. That’s what the song is all about, nothing more.”
Two disc jockeys gave the song traction
Once they reworked “The Boys Are Back in Town,” the Thin Lizzy bandmates still didn’t think it had hit potential.
“To us, this was a decent album track, no more. We certainly did not think it could be a single!” Gorham admitted to Classic Rock.
He explained that two disc jockeys in Kentucky began to play the album track, which spawned requests for it at other radio stations. “Suddenly it was everywhere. The States, it seemed, had fallen in love with this tune,” he said.
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Even with the radio buzz, the band remained unsure about the song and didn’t even include it in their shows.
"Truth be told, we didn't even have it on the short list to put it on the album,” Gorham once told Express UK, adding that the band was playing a club gig in the U.S. when they got news from their manager: "Well, boys, looks like we've got a hit on our hands here in America!"
"And honest to God, Phil said, 'Well, I guess we'd better put it back in the set!'’ Gorham recalled. “That's how unsure we were of what was going to be a single."
Thin Lizzy’s U.S. record label, Mercury, ultimately released “The Boys Are Back in Town” as a single in April 1976.
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