richard thompson - Between Celtic and rock.

"Dad's Gonna Kill Me," the single criticizing the Iraq war from Richard Thompson's new Sweet Warrior album, seems to be the first thing mentioned in most all of Thompson's recent press coverage. (And yes, the Free Times is no different!) However, the disproportionate attention given to that song may give the wrong impression about Sweet Warrior overall as some kind of political protest record. In a recent phone interview, Thompson addressed the political component of his songwriting.

"Am I a political person? Yes, I am. I think the world is increasingly polarized and it's hard to avoid a political stance these days, and I think that gets reflected in songs," he says. "[But] in the past and on this album, I don't write overtly political diatribes. A song like "Dad's Gonna Kill Me' really started out as an interest in the soldiers and the kind of phrases and jargon soldiers were using in the Iraq war that I found quite interesting. There were phrases like "Dad's gonna kill me' and "Dad's in a bad mood,' referring to Baghdad. And that was the starting point for the song, in sympathy with the soldiers primarily, trying to see the war from the GI standpoint. It's only later that my own viewpoint becomes clearer and it becomes more of an anti-war song. But I think it's still too subtle to be any kind of an anti-war anthem."

Thompson defined Sweet Warrior's overarching theme as "conflict - domestic, military, all kinds of conflict and conflict resolution." Okay, so that settles the "warrior" part, but where does the "sweet" enter in?

"There are tracks that kind of have a bitter sweetness, that deal with lost love or yearning for lovers or those who have died," he says. "And on my records, that's all you're gonna get in terms of "sweetness.' This is not a Julie Andrews record."

In Thompson's songwriting, politics tends to be a context for his characters, the real subjects of the songs.

"The political songs that I've written in the past have been probably more metaphorical," he says. "They dealt with politics in the guise of other things, like in the guise of a relationship. And sometimes that's more effective. The subtler song digs deeper."

Thompson cites "Guns Are the Tongues" from Sweet Warrior as an example, saying, "It's a song about human relationships, how people manipulate each other, what they expect from each other, [set] against this background of the terrorist world. It doesn't specifically say where that world is. It could be Northern Ireland or something. It's a song about people."

Musically, Sweet Warrior is an intricate Celtic/folk/blues/ska/Middle Eastern/jazz/American-rock sort of album. Historically, Thompson's music has been an impossible-to-pigeonhole blend of musical styles. Thompson helps define it, saying, "The music I play is a synthesis, and it has been since Fairport Convention. Fairport Convention started in 1969 to try to play contemporary versions of Britain's traditional music because the tradition had kind of died. So the music I play is somewhere between Celtic and rock."

Thompson's style avoids being either academic "world music" or impenetrable avant-garde experimentalism. It sounds down-to-earth and listener-friendly, not uncomfortably alien. Thompson offered this analysis for his eclectic artistic effectiveness: "Make the musical base strong enough - which I think it is. I've got a strong enough upbringing and I've lived a long time in traditional British music. If that's strong, then you can bring in other influences, whatever they are. You can bring in bits of African music or New Orleans music or Russian music or something, and it won't sound like you're being a musical dilettante or musical colonialist. It will sound like you."

Thompson reserves certain songs for full-band tours, which only happen every two to three years due to economics. So in addition to new Sweet Warrior tracks, concertgoers should expect a noticeably different show from Thompson's recent solo appearances.

"I think it's nice to come to a town and play an acoustic set, and then the next year to come back with a band and play something that's at least 50 percent different in terms of repertoire and 100 percent different in terms of attitude," he says. "I think this keeps the audience awake and hopefully on their toes. And it keeps us on our toes."