#17 Continental Op

 

Album: Defender (1987)

 

Rory Gallagher was something of a bookworm. His brother Dónal once told a tale of loading baggage at an airport whilst on tour. He picked up one of Rory’s bags and promptly injured his back. Upon opening the bag to see what on earth weighed so much, Dónal found himself looking at a massive stack of books Rory had packed to read whilst on the road. Then there was also talk among some fans recently discussing Rory’s reading habit of Dónal opening guitar cases and Rory’s reading pile falling out everywhere. The e-reader was certainly invented for book fiends like Rory, though preferring more old school ways, it was suggested in this same fan discussion that Rory probably wouldn’t have gone for the Kindle (even though it perhaps has benefits in not injuring your wee brother’s back).

Rory was a fan of hardboiled detective stories and mysteries and had read that in great quantities. Amongst his favourite authors were Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. The influence of what he read was quite marked on his music and can be seen from the start of his solo career. But looking over his output, it appears that the detective genre perhaps influenced him the most, given the number of gangsters, detectives, and criminals who feature as characters in his songs.

Rory may have had a few detective tales in him had he ever turned his hand to writing novels and short stories. One of his favourite books was The Continental Op, a collection of seven short tales about an unnamed private detective who worked for the Continental Detective Agency, by Dashiell Hammett. Rory liked it so much, that he wrote a song called ‘The Continental Op’, which appeared on the Defender album, first released on 1 July 1987. Rory discussed his love of Dashiell Hammett’s work in 1991 with Shiv Cariappa, who asked if the song was a tribute to Hammett:

“It is, yes, indeed. It is his character, the Continental Op, a very vain detective, and I just wrote that one night after reading various stories of his, you know. He’s got a book of short stories called The Big Knockover, and the “Op” is in that. I’ve also got quite a few books on the life of Dashiell Hammett, which is quite an interesting story on what he’s been through and so on. And I wrote songs like Big Guns which is about a guy who has bitten off more than he can chew. It is about a small-time crook. He’s got to the point where he has no friends in the underworld and the police want him as well. And I used a similar type of guy, but more innocent, in the song called Loanshark Blues.”

Dashiell Hammett was born on a farm near Great Mills, St Mary’s County, Maryland on 27 May 1894. He was an operative for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency from 1915 to 1922, with a spell serving in the Motor Ambulance Corps during the First World War, though he was hospitalised after catching The Spanish Flu, and subsequently Tuberculosis. This had a detrimental effect on his health. Hammett became disillusioned and subsequently left the Pinkerton Agency after it was hired for strike breaking and led to him becoming a leftist activist. He joined the Communist Party in 1937 and was strongly anti-fascist during the Second World War. He re-enlisted in the US Army during this despite his poor health, and this service saw him develop Emphysema. After the war, his left leanings lead to all sorts of legal complexities, including imprisonment. In the latter stages of his life, Hammett was described as something of a hermit. He died on 10 January 1961 two months after being diagnosed with lung cancer and is interred at the Arlington National Cemetery.

Hammett’s first stories started appearing in 1922, the year he left the Pinkerton Agency and Hammett used his experiences as an operative in writing his detective fiction. The Continental Op appeared in 36 short tales and some novels. Primarily, the tales appeared in the Black Mask pulp magazine through the 1920s. The character is seen as one of the first of the hard-boiled detectives, the forerunner to Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and many others, whom I have no doubt Rory read the majority of at some point. Many of the Continental Op tales were later collected into various volumes, The Continental Op collection appearing in 1961.

The Op works for The Continental Detective Agency, which unsurprisingly has strong similarities to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was established during the 1850s by Alan Pinkerton. One of the agency’s early operations was foiling an early assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln shortly after his election. Pinkerton operative Kate Warne was deployed to protect Lincoln during a long train tour from his hometown of Springfield, Illinois to Washington DC. Warne did this using several disguises – and by staying awake the entire time, which inspired the Pinkerton catchline “We Never Sleep”. The agency still exists today. In just one song, Rory has opened us up to a fascinating history.

All of this feeds beautifully into the song ‘Continental Op’. The lyrics themselves are as complicated as one of Hammett’s Op tales:

"Jane Doe in the bay
Now that's exhibit 'A'
Bloodstains on the dress of the millionairess
But I saw you leavin' town
I'm gonna have to track you down

Just like a hound
You slipped through the web
And you might have dodged the Feds
But who they gonna get when you've outfoxed the cops

Here's my number
I'm the Continental Op
Call the agency, we never close
First consultation is free
Check my reputation, check my pose

But first check my fee."

As to the raw sound of the song, Rory said, “Main guitar was my Eccleshall Telecaster with Gibson PAF’s, lead phrases were a white Tele, but the slide was the Gretsch Corvette through an AC30. The sound was basically like an old-fashioned radio blowing up. I don’t like fuzz guitar actually, just amps that are getting ready to blow!”

If anything, what ‘Continental Op’ shows is that at times there is no such thing as a song just being a song.