#1 I Fall Apart

Album: Rory Gallagher, 1971

In 1971, Rory Gallagher was at the start of what would become a solo career of legendary proportions, in which he eschewed the accepted norms and expectations of the music industry to things his own way. Aged only 23, he was already a veteran of the music scene and a highly regarded musician. At the end of that year, he was voted Best Guitarist in the World by readers in the Melody Maker poll.

Before that, he was busy putting together his first band after Taste, the blues rock trio he had been part of in its two line ups from the trio's inception in 1966. Then, in the company of new bassist Gerry McAvoy and drummer Wilgar Campbell, both previously of the Belfast band Deep Joy,  there was the task of recording his first solo album. The eponymous Rory Gallagher, also known to some as ‘The Black Album, was released on March 21, 1971, on which ‘I Fall Apart’ can be found.

The third song of the album is described on the official Rory Gallagher website as, ‘… an engaging love song with a big melodic Stratocaster guitar riff and a wonderful chord sequence.’

Starting pleasantly – melancholic guitar and lyrics with a sort of longing, it draws you in. This hits you as someone head over heels in love to the extent it is almost unbearable. The words of it are poignant. Rory is often lauded as the best guitarist who ever trod the stage. He certainly could hold it up with the very best, though it has been said he probably didn’t have much time for who was the best at what. What was important was the music. But one area in which he doesn’t get as much recognition as he should is as a lyricist. He was a superb writer.

 “Like a cat that's playing with a ball of twine

That you call my heart

Oh, but, baby, is it so hard

To tell the two apart?

And so slowly you unwind me

Till I fall apart”

His lyrics are like Joni Mitchell’s, Bob Dylan’s, and John Lennon’s in that you can just look at them laid down in text and they read like poetry, though they are very much in a league of his own. A quiet man, he distilled intense emotions into his words. Only Rory could write Rory Gallagher songs, they are just his, whatever the subject matter. And with ‘I Fall Apart’, he shows himself to be more than proficient at love songs. To have a song such as this composed about you, well, you must be someone very special, to say the least. No surprise that in 2018 the Irish Rock n Roll Museum rated it the best Irish love song.

And it’s not only the lyrics. What starts off understated, guitar, bass, and drums, builds up throughout the song to a crescendo that finishes on a guitar solo to hit you hard in what the trendy kids call ‘the feels’. It may date back a few decades, but ‘I Fall Apart’ is like any great song, be it soul, blues, or rock, it doesn’t age or become dated.

 It appears Rory didn’t play this live beyond the initial stages of his solo career, which is a shame given his power as a live performer, though there is a great video of it being performed at his very first live performance as a solo artist in Paris at La Taverne de L’Olympia in 1971. There is perhaps much to be said over the choice to film the band from the back just as Rory is starting to sing and also breaking into that guitar solo, but it is worth a watch.