Remastered Audio.
The Bridge Of Sighs is one of the most popular tourist locations in Venice. It was built in 1600, and linked a courthouse to an adjoining prison. Its name refers to the expressions of sadness of the convicted prisoners who could be heard as they looked out over the beautiful city for the last time before being taken to their cells or the execution chamber. As a subject for one of the deepest and most despairing songs in rock, it could hardly be bettered.
But Robin Trower has never been there. Nor was he even thinking about this, or any other historic monument, when the inspiration to write the song struck. “I was reading a paper one morning, and there was a horse running called Bridge Of Sighs. And I thought: ‘That’s a great title.’ So I worked it into the song,” the guitarist says cheerfully, and firmly debunking any myths.
It certainly turned out to be a good horse to back. Built around a dense, doomy, echo-drenched riff, taken at a speed as slow and implacable as a planet moving across the night sky, Bridge Of Sighs is a song that goes beyond blues into an otherworldly realm of existential sorrow. With a lyric that evokes cosmic disturbances and divine interventions, conveyed by the rich, mournful voice of James Dewar, it is a truly monumental and mysterious rock track. And in 1974, thanks in large part to Bridge Of Sighs and the album named after it, Trower transitioned from the role of English rock journeyman to international guitar hero.
In contrast to the wondrous flights of fancy on which he embarks in his music, Trower is an emphatically down-to- earth character who began his career serving a colossal apprenticeship to stardom. Having set out with The Paramounts during the beat boom of the early 1960s, he joined Procol Harum soon after they recorded their first and biggest hit, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, in 1967. After recording five albums with Procol, he left in 1971 to form a new group called Jude before finally setting up his own trio with singer and bassist Dewar (formerly with Stone The Crows) and drummer Reg Isidore.
Trower’s first album under his own name, Twice Removed From Yesterday, was released in 1973. It made little impression in the UK, but stirred interest in America.
“There was a song on the first album called I Can’t Wait Much Longer, which had a similar guitar part,” Trower recalls. “And I think, to start off with, Bridge Of Sighs was a different version of the same vibe. I was working on it for months and months before I could get the lyric. I had the first half, and then it took me ages to come up with the turnaround. Eventually we started to play it live, although I only had one verse of lyrics, so Jimmy used to sing the first verse twice. Eventually I came up with the second verse and we played it in the studio, where I added all the ideas and sound effects for the instrumental outro.”
