Talk:Renegade (Thin Lizzy album)

album cover
does anybody know anything about the meaning of the album cover. it seems to be a socialist/communist flag being flown on a battle axe of some sort. (killer cover i must say) but whats the actually meaning. was thin lizzy communist/socialist? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Patrick (talk) 06:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course not - how do you see this flag as "communist/socialist"? It looks like an Irish battle flag from medieval times. 50.111.18.208 (talk) 02:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 'Of course not' is not the right response. I was unable to find any information about the cover other than that it was photographed by Graham Hughes (source, not as reliable as I'd like); he also shot the band photos. This post by Jim Fitzpatrick, who did most of their older covers, talks a little bit about the situation with the art. Accrdoing to him there was some kind of trouble with the label and Phil Lynott attempted to comission him on his own (for portraits of all the band members), but in the end the label wouldn't accept his art. So in the absence of anything else I'm not sure if this is something they managed to get the label to agree to, something the management wanted them to use, or something they had to do at the last minute with the photographer because nothing could be arranged. Anyway, it's all very surprising because, yeah, it simply must be a socialist flag. We suppose this because there are no other flags that look like this: it's red and has a gold star on it. This is common to virtually all socialist flags. It's almost identical to the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, but the star is off-center. It's also similar to the People's Republic of China but lacks the other stars.


 * Flags didn't look like this in the middle ages, and I'm not sure that any flags were used at all in Ireland then. You can look at the page for List of flags of Ireland, especially under Historical military flags, and the only flags that are similar are socialist flags. If you look up 'Irish battle flag' you'll only find the Starry Plough, the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, socialists. The cover also positions the flag, curling in the wind, parallel with a pitch-black cloud, unmistakably forming the black and red anarcho-communist flag used by many militants contemporary to the ICA such as the CNT in Spain; it would be very surprising to me if this wasn't an intentional allusion.


 * Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us too much to find an Irish band engaging with socialist imagery - socialism was such an important element of the movement for Irish independence that you cannot talk about the latter without talking about the former. Still, it's a very strange way for a band to begin this engagement, and is the only such engagement I'm aware of; also a strange time considering the strained relationship with the label. We'd also find it very surprising if a big record company was suggesting it..! You wonder if it was something that Hughes had lying around and they picked it because it felt a little 'martial' and didn't really understand the connotation. Iesbian (talk) 22:53, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

"No-One Told Him"
Written by Lynott alone - Gorham had no part in this one, even though Allmusic says he did. Bretonbanquet (talk) 19:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right, my copy (which is a completely different edition) says so too. I'm going to add a note of clarification. --Muhandes (talk) 11:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)