Without a hit single since their rocked-up version of Whiskey In The Jar three years earlier, they were in the last chance saloon. If they couldn’t find a hit, and fast, their label would drop them.

 

This song saved them from that fate, going on to become their signature tune. And it was an accident.

 

In the middle of that US tour, with Jailbreak failing to attract radio play and the group playing to half-empty halls, a couple of Kentucky DJs fell in love with it. Particularly this tune – an album track which was not even in the band’s live set.

 

It’s got a galloping rhythm, driven by drummer Brian Downey and Phil Lynott’s characteristic bassline. It’s got the melodic guitar interplay between Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson that became their trademark.

 

And it’s got those Springsteenesque lyrics, delivered in Lynott’s intimate Dublin brogue, telling a smalltown story filled with the names of people and places.

 

You can almost smell the spilt beer and scent of impending danger at Dino’s Bar & Grill.

 

It quickly began attracting calls from listeners eager to know where they could buy it. They couldn’t, because it wasn’t even a single. Before long other radio stations began to play it, to an equally enthusiastic response.

 

In response, Thin Lizzy’s label changed their plan to release another track (Running Back) and put it out as a single, giving the band their first US hit.

 

Scott Gorham recalled: “One night, (co-manager) Chris O’Donnell came into our dressing room while we were touring in the States and said: ‘Well, guys, it looks like we have a massive hit single on our hands.’ We just said to him: ‘Hmm, maybe it’s time to put this song into our set.’ Can you believe we weren’t actually playing it live at the time? Leave it to musicians to get things wrong!”

 

An added irony was that the band had not even planned to include the song – initially an anti-war number called GI Joe – on Jailbreak. “We had demoed 15 songs and that one wasn’t even in the ten we chose for the album,” recalled Gorham later.

 

Fortunately, O’Donnell could spot a hit record. He wanted to include the song but didn’t like its title or lyrics, so Lynott went away and came back with the new title during the album sessions, and constructed a new lyric. And the rest, as they say, is history.