PHIL LYNOTT: The legend lives on

On what would have been his 65th birthday, Ed Power looks at Phil Lynott’s legacy

HAD he made it, Phil Lynott would be celebrating his 65th birthday today. You can imagine him marking the milestone by squeezing into his favourite leather trousers and strapping on a guitar: the Dubliner was an inveterate rocker, for whom loud raucous music was a way of life.

But, of course, he didn’t make it. Lynott passed away on January 4, 1986, after decades of drug and alcohol abuse, another music industry casualty for whom living free meant dying young. At the time, he was believed to be at a low ebb creatively: his band, Thin Lizzy, had broken up and, to put it kindly, their legacy was not aging well. People seemed in a hurry to forget — which was perhaps why Lynott’s attempts at a solo career and a new group were not going anywhere. In the heyday of the new romantic movement and hair-metal, 36-year-old Lynott was perceived as a dinosaur, especially in the super-faddy UK music scene.