Shoot Out the Lights album cover
Shoot Out the Lights

Linda Thompson , Richard Thompson

1982
Hannibal Records

Regularly hailed as one of the best albums of the 1980s, Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights is as notable for being a spectacularly bitter document of a failing marriage as for the power and sharpness of its songs (and Thompson’s guitar solos). Song titles like “Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?” and “A Man in Need” are not exactly subtle, and you can hear the desperation and heartache in Linda’s voice as clearly as you can in Richard’s keening, caterwauling solos. And this recording of “Walking on a Wire” is one of the most affecting performances of one of the most powerfully despairing songs in all of pop music history.

Rick Anderson

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