Though we’ve heard from Richard Thompson in this series,
today’s song is the first from the duo Thompson formed with his wife Linda. I
first heard them with the album that ended their marriage and their
collaborative recording career: Shoot Out
the Lights (1982), which is indeed a great album of the early Eighties.
Then came Thompson’s solo career and I’ve heard all his studio LPs. In going
back to Richard & Linda, I've picked a song that was released on a Thompson
retrospective, guitar/vocal (1976)
that I picked up early in my conversion to CDs. It’s an interesting collection,
featuring unreleased tracks of Thompson with Fairport Convention, including a
lovely “The Ballad of Easy Rider,” and some live tracks such as today’s cover
of a song written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman, who had set out to write one of
the best songs for cheaters, ever.
The version that the Thompsons provide—which has subsequently
been included as a bonus track on the CD of Pour Down Like Silver (1975)—seems to find
its inspiration in the version Gram Parsons recorded with the Flying Burrito
Brothers on The Gilded Palace of Sin
(1969). The song was also covered by Linda Ronstadt, on Heart Like a Wheel (1974), by Elvis Costello on the bonus disc to The Delivery Man (2004), and by Cat
Power on her EP, Dark End of the Street
(2008). But the Thompsons’ version was the first I heard, and is still the
best, in my estimation—which means I’d rather hear Linda Thompson sing it than anyone else.
It’s a song for cuddling up with someone you shouldn’t
oughta be with. Maybe it’s been covered so many times because there’s a lot of
guilty consciences out there trying to come clean.
At the dark end of the
street / That’s where we’d always meet / Just a shadow where we don’t belong /
Living in darkness to hide our wrong / You and me / At the dark end of the
street
Furtive it is, this ode to clandestine love. All about
avoiding the eyes of accusers who would know what you were up to if they saw
you, out and about with someone other than your significant other. It’s a sin
and we know it’s wrong / Ah, but our love keeps goin’ on strong / Just you and
me, at the dark end of the street.
The overlapping of the Thompsons’ voices, with Linda on lead
and Richard on harmony, creates a gripping effect that no other version I’ve
heard comes close to. One suspects that there’s a certain amount of expiation
taking place as they—a married couple—perform this song about secretive flings.
Lord knows that in the public sphere for most performers there are many temptations and opportunities for actions one might not care to admit to by the
cold light of day. Though married, the Thompsons seem able to put out there the
thrill and the sadness of the extramarital affair, and the compelling strum and
vocal spike of “They’re gonna find us / Someday” makes that public sphere the
arena not only of possibility but also of accusation and exposure.
The part, in the lyrics, I find most striking is the part
that tries to apologize to one’s adulterous flame: If you should take a walk downtown / And you take the time to look
around / If you should see me and I walk on by / Oh, darling, please don’t cry
/ Tonight we’ll meet / At the dark end of the street. The image of the
married lover seeing his/her extramarital lover while they’re both out and about
but unable to acknowledge it is sharply drawn and I was reminded of it recently
while watching one of those Peyton Place-style
furtive fling movies, Strangers When We
Meet (1960), starring Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak as a couple, married to
other people, who just can’t seem to help themselves. Or, rather, they do help
themselves, to each other.
But that idea of hiding feelings in plain sight is what the song
manages to dramatize very economically. In the Thompsons’ version the way they
duet back and forth on “just you and me” is powerful, becoming almost hypnotic,
a classic rendition of the folie à deux, perhaps, but, still. Somehow the song
feels both chastened and determined, elegiac and nostalgic. As anyone might
well be about the stirring and satisfying of wayward passions. Perhaps, for some, the
effort to keep something even more private than one’s general private life is
the spice that brings out the flavor.
We’ll steal away / To
the dark end of the street / Just you and me
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