You don’t have to be a boy to be one of the boys. All you need are good times, good friends, and the kind of self-acceptance that comes with looking around knowingly and nodding in appreciation. When you hang with the boys, there’s a bunch that gets said, but there’s a bunch more that goes without saying—that you’re leaving your worries behind, that this right here, being with the boys, this is the real living, and everything else is what you navigate to get here. It feels good to be with the boys. You lose yourself a little bit, sitting in your camp chair or at some wooden picnic table or in the corner booth of your local bar and grill. You feel a little bit bigger, too.
Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott seemed like he felt this way even when nobody was around. He always believed he was a superstar, and on the song that finally proved it, he swells with the feeling of what’s coming. “The Boys Are Back in Town” is a romantic proclamation, Lynott the grinning town crier with a pack of cigs tucked into his shirt sleeve who sings with the pluck of someone who thinks this time, he might join them. Guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson crack open the song with a thunderous chord and they sign their names to the chorus in battery acid, twin-tagging it with a heroic pride and triumphant humor that makes them sound like John Williams scoring Woody Woodpecker. The danger is totally theatrical, mostly theoretical. The boys want to fight each other for the girls, the girls aren’t all that impressed, and this is all happening where? A place called Dino’s Bar and Grill. It’s pure romance, pure bullshit, exactly the kind of story you tell over a pint, knowing and not caring how stupid it sounds. It’s a perfect rock’n’roll song.
Like many songs of its era, “The Boys Are Back in Town” evangelizes the poseur myth of rock’n’roll: It wants you to believe that the music can whisk you away from who you actually are. On Jailbreak—their most focused, most confident album—Thin Lizzy’s unwavering belief in their power as a band and the simple joy they get from playing together is so strong, it nearly makes the legend feel like it’s worth believing in, no matter if you know how all of these stories pan out. Who wouldn’t want to feel this free, even if the freedom dies the moment the record’s over?