A 1978 recording of the Philip Lynott ‘Parisienne Walkways’ demo has been released as the second advance track from the forthcoming eight-disc collection The Story of My Life, offering the first chance to hear an early form of a song that would become a top 10 hit for Gary Moore the following spring. The demo arrived late last week, and what it reveals, above all, is how collaborative and transatlantic the making of that song actually was.
Two Studios, One Harmonica Part That Never Made the Final Cut
The recording was made across two locations: Ramport Studios in Battersea, London, owned by The Who, and Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. It is in that context that the demo’s most intriguing detail emerges: a harmonica part by Huey Lewis that did not appear on the finished version released by Moore. The Philip Lynott ‘Parisienne Walkways’ demo therefore preserves a small but audible fork in the song’s history, a creative decision reversed somewhere between this session and the record that reached the charts.
Lewis’s presence here is not incidental. He first became friends with Lynott after his band Clover supported Thin Lizzy in 1976, and he went on to contribute harmonica to a number of Lynott’s recordings and demos across the years that followed. That continuity of collaboration, stretching from a support slot to late-period studio sessions, is one of the quieter stories The Story of My Life seems intent on telling.
Moore’s own connection to Lynott ran deeper still, rooted in their shared history with Thin Lizzy. The song that became ‘Parisienne Walkways’ passed through Lynott’s hands before Moore made it his own, and this demo is the clearest evidence yet of what that earlier stage looked like.
Philip Lynott’s Parisienne Walkways Demo Within a Larger Retrospective
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, The Story of My Life is due for release on 30 October. Compiled by Thin Lizzy expert Nick Sharp, it marks 40 years since Lynott’s death and gathers his solo and collaborative output into a single, considered retrospective. New sleeve notes come from Mark Blake, and the set also includes archival photographs and memorabilia.
The collection brings together the albums Solo in Soho and The Philip Lynott Album, alongside recordings made with Moore, Midge Ure and John Sykes. Among its 29 previously unreleased tracks is Fatalistic Attitude, an earlier version of what became Lynott’s second solo album. That project had originally been scheduled for release in January 1982 before being substantially revised. Sharp has reconstructed its intended running order from Lynott’s personal acetate, incorporating material that was later removed or reworked for The Philip Lynott Album.
The first preview from the collection, ‘Can’t Get Away’, also documents Lynott’s connection with Lewis. One of Lynott’s final recordings, it was made at the Record Plant in Sausalito in December 1985, just weeks before his death in January 1986, as work continued on what would have been a third solo album. Another track from those Sausalito sessions, ‘Still Alive’, appears on the box set for the first time.
Taken together, these previews sketch something beyond a standard archival exercise. The ‘Parisienne Walkways’ demo catches Lynott at the point where a song is still being assembled, still open to possibilities, including a harmonica line that the finished record quietly discarded. That kind of unguarded moment is what distinguishes this collection from a straightforward reissue. The Story of My Life lands on 30 October via Universal Music.
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