1. Dear Miss Lonely Hearts (4:10) (UK # 32)

(A quote from Phil from an excerpt from the #1 issue of  Thin Lizzy News from Sweeden (click to see past issues reprinted on it's own site) , published in 1980. The article is titled  Solo  in Soho - A Masterpiece' , in the article Phil talks about each song from his first solo recording. By Jorgen Holmstedt & Matt Petersson. Translated by Lars Jakobsen. )

(Phil says): "One Monday I sat and read the personal ads, for some reason they are most common on Mondays. That's when I got the idea for this song. It's about a situation that could happen when people write to the contact pages of the paper and get the wrong answer. The lyrics are written in Nassau, where we also wrote another song for the album ."

2.King's Call (3:38) (UK # 35, July, 1980)

(A quote from Phil from an excerpt from the #1 issue of Thin Lizzy News from Sweeden (click to see past issues reprinted on it's own site) , published in 1980. The article is titled  Solo  in Soho - A Masterpiece'  , in the  article Phil talks about each song from his first solo recording. By Jorgen Holmstedt & Matt Petersson. Translated by Lars Jakobsen.)

(Phil says): "Everybody says that it sounds like Dire Straits. I played with them during Christmas in the Rainbow Theatre in London, and said "I'm in the studio, come on down". Mark Knopfler liked the song and it's him playing guitar on it. He's the kind of guy who would never play on someone else's material if he didn't think it was really good himself. The lyrics are about kings, like Elvis Presley or Martin Luther King. That's precisely how I felt the night Elvis, the King, died."

3. A Child's Lullabye (2:42)

(Phil says): "Caroline and I had a daughter and I wrote a song (Sarah) for her just two days after her birth. Then she started crying a bit so I thought I would write her a song that made her sleep instead, kind of a lullaby. It's a cute little song that is also very sentimental. It's got a orchestral sound that I like. The arrangement is by Fiachra Trench and is very good, it was him conducting all the strings and horns on the album."

4. Tattoo (Giving It All Up For Love) (3:19)

(Phil says): "...sometimes it just so happens that I write a commercial song like "Dancing In The Moonlight". This commercial type of song usually sticks for years since bands get a bit afraid of touching them, because people might think it's prostitution. Besides that, it's an ordinary pop song with horns and strings, it's got a lot of the old "Tamla" sound to it. I got the idea from the USA where I met some tattooed girls. The tattoos where in the funniest places on the body..."

5. Solo In Soho (4:13)

(Excerpt from Sounds Magazine, August 8, 1981)

"(Q): Which tracks on 'Solo In Soho' pleased you the most?"

"(Phil says): "Well, the title track because it was very atmospheric. I also liked the production."

(Phil says): "Ok, the title track. Brian Downey plays the drums, which he does on most tracks. Snowy White plays some guitar and a guy by the name of Jerome Rimson plays the Bass. I do percussion, moog, guitar, some bass and of course vocals. It's a reggae song and it's the title of the album since most of it was recorded in Soho. The song was actually written when I was already recording the album..."so low in  Soho" you know. (Soho is a "seedy" part of London where you find lots of strip clubs, street girls and things like that. This is also the place where Tony Visconti-the producer of Thin Lizzy-has his own studio, the Good Earth Studios, where big parts of "Solo in Soho" and "Black Rose" was recorded and mixed)."

6. Girls (3:59)

(Phil says): " The drummer on this song is Bobby C Benberg from Supertramp, and it was me and Jimmy Bain (Wild Horses) who wrote it. It's got no ordinary Bass, instead it's bass moog, string machines and piano. It's very easy and straight and has a nice sound. In the studio there were some girls, one English, one French, one Irish and one Swedish, who I had reading parts of the lyrics. "Girls" is a huge experiment for me, just as it is for Midge. I experimented with keyboards and moogs, so now I know exactly what it really can be used for. Before that it was all unknown to me."

Midge Ure and Philip Lynott

(Excerpt from Sounds Magazine, August 8, 1981)

"(Q): How about Yellow Pearl?" (which is now incidentally the theme tune for 'Top of the Pops', co-written with Midge Ure)"

(Phil says): "That was nice. It was a throwaway thing that me and Midge put together as an experiment with electronics. Now that the sound has almost become passé and has gone on a stage further. The 'TOTP' thing was a compliment, these guys just came down and said they were looking for a new theme tune for the show and they fancied that track for it. This is two years after the song's been out."

(Phil says): " I wrote this with Midge Ure. We wrote it because we were touring Japan together and checked out the Yellow Magic Orchestra. It's got Midge on synthesizer and Brian on percussion, and there's also a drum machine."

(An excerpt from a tape the B.P. Fallon Show 4/11/83. The show was dedicated to Thin Lizzy's Farewell Tour and final retirement. B.P. Fallon played excerpts from past interviews on that show)

(B.P. Fallon): "Midge Ure bashed out the keyboard riff, Lynott joined in, and there you are or there they were."

"Back in London they used Vocoders, which are devices which meld the human voice into electronic sounds. And masses of Synth and Drum machines, tacky little sounds Phil called them."

"Well, 'Top of the Pops' needed a new signature tune and it's producer heard and liked 'Yellow Pearl' . And so Midge Ure reworked the song, did a final production and used drummer Rusty Egan to beat up the track."

(An excerpt from an interview with Phil is then played after B.P. Fallon's narration about the song.)

(Phil says): "It was not just about the impressions of Japan really. The idea 'Yellow Pearl' funny enough came about 'cos the two teams that beat Manchester United in the final bouts wore Yellow, you know."

"The 'Attack' thing, I seen that at a Millwall game, they were going 'Attack! Attack! Attack! Attack!' , I thought that was great.

8. Ode to a Black Man (4:04)

(Excerpt from Sounds Magazine, October 4, 1980)

(Phil says) "Some things are great to get off your chest though. Like on the solo album 'Ode to a Black Man'. Doing what white boys couldn't do at all. Go for Stevie Wonder, go for Bob Marley. No knocking what they do, what they've done, or what they're doing, just the position they're in isn't being utilised."

"The music indusdry is like 'hey we accept anybody, transvestites, blah blah blah', but only under certain conditions. In America they'll only accept Black Musicians if they'll play mindless Funk."

(Excerpt from Sounds Magazine, August 8, 1981)

"(Q): The song in Solo in Soho' -'Ode To a Black Man' - was quite heavy (lyrically)."

"(Phil says): Yes with that I had had a long enough experience and that it was time for me to make a statement on the issue of the Black thing. All the time I was saying that I was Irish, but nothing about me being Black or at least not enough."

(Phil says): " This is a song I always wanted to do, but with time it has gotten more and more difficult for me. Several years ago I thought these old Tamla Motown and Reggae boys said it for the Black people. But then a lot of new bands came along and with them a lot of that disappeared. I thought "who's trying to help the Black people now?" and the answer was "no one!". That made me angry, and because of that I wrote "Ode To A Black Man", especially to the self conscious Black Man. The first lines go like this: "if you see Stevie Wonder, tell him I hear, if you see Stevie Wonder, tell him I see, I don't want no songs for plants, I want songs for me!". I am a little mad at Bob Marley too, it's a little hard to explain. I am not trying to provoke the boys in this way out of pure spite. No, I simply felt they needed some constructive criticism. They are the masters of the Black culture and I think they could do a lot more to help it."

9. Jamaican Rum (2:42)

(A quote from Phil from an excerpt from the #1 issue of Thin Lizzy News from Sweeden (click to see past issues reprinted on it's own site) , published in 1980. The article is titled  Solo  in Soho - A Masterpiece' , in the article Phil talks about each song from his first solo recording. By Jorgen Holmstedt & Matt Petersson. Translated by Lars Jakobsen.)

(Phil says): "A calypso kind of thing just to get that authentic feel."

10. Talk In '79 (2:56)

(Excerpt from Sounds Magazine, August 8, 1981)

"(Q): What about 'Talk in '79' (a poem about the future, which has been pretty accurate)"

"(Phil says): That seems to get cleverer as the years go by, like some sort of prophecy."

(A quote from Phil from an excerpt from the #1 issue of  Thin Lizzy News from Sweeden (click to see past issues reprinted on it's own site) , published in 1980. The article is titled  Solo  in Soho - A Masterpiece' , in the article Phil talks about each song from his first solo recording. By Jorgen Holmstedt & Matt Petersson. Translated by Lars Jakobsen.)

(Phil says): "Talk in 79" is basically just bass, drums and vocals. It's a rap thing, that I wrote just as if I was working for a music magazine and used people's names off of the top of my mind. For example, "Sham 69 were in a shambles, Generation X were next, the Rats were caught in their own trap, the musical press reveal their anger when threatened by the Stranglers."