After taking several years off from making music, Mick Farren resurfaced in 1978 with a brilliant solo album, Vampires Stole My Lunch Money. The album opens with what might be the best cover of a Frank Zappa song by anybody: “Trouble Coming Every Day”, a seething litany of what’s wrong with the world that could surely have come straight from Farren’s pen.
Vampires Stole My Lunch Money is a more personal record than his other albums. There are no less than three songs about drinking – “I Want a Drink”, “Half-Priced Drinks”, and “Drunk in the Morning” – plus a monologue about personal demons called “(I Know from) Self-Destruction”. Whether this is just a persona or the actual state of Mick Farren’s life at that point – I doubt anyone could tell the difference, the music is that heartfelt. Musicians on hand include Larry Wallis of the Pink Fairies and Wilko Johnson of Dr. Feelgood; supporting vocals are provided by Sonja Kristina of Curved Air and Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of Pretenders (a year and half before their first album, Pretenders came out).
