I stumbled across this article yesterday, a reflection by David Hepworth on Richard and Linda Thompson’s folk-rock masterpiece, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. He’s right – it is a fantastic record, very much of it’s time, but no worse for that. After a few plays of that record I moved on to it’s follow-up, Pour Down Like Silver, which is where this tune jumped out.
In my book, Pour Down Like Silver isn’t quite up there with …Bright Lights…, but that’s only really because that is such an excellent record (you can find a song sheet for the title track here). The third record the Thompson’s had recorded together, it is set against a background of the couple having adopted the Sufi faith the previous year, moving into a commune in London, and the songs reflect their new faith and the relief that Richard had found in that faith. However, that was creating a tension – Thompson’s Mullah didn’t want him to play guitar, but there was also a contractual commitment to Island Records. The compromise was to record an album that had a strong spiritual aspect and was directed towards God.
That said, For Shame Of Doing Wrong isn’t one of the obvious “spiritual” tracks on the record (Dimming of the Day, Beat the Retreat, and Night Comes In are more in that category), but rather is a pensive reflection on a love gone wrong, a love betrayed by the singer, who now realises the error of their way and is pleaing for a second chance, a return to how things were.
The song has been covered by a number of other artists, including Thompson’s contemporary, Sandy Denny, and the US indie rock band Yo Le Tengo.
So here we have the songsheet. The first and most important thing to note is that I’ve transposed the song down a couple of semitones. Not only does this make it far more satisfying to play, but it transpires that this seems to be the key that it gets played in live (see here for a great version that you can play along to, but you might want to just sit back and marvel when it’s get’s to the guitar solo!). Other than that it’s quite straightforward – just three chords, and that lovely little riff that introduces the song and appears throughout – something that benefits from two D chord variants. Most of all, though – enjoy!
Uke Tunes 