Fact #178133
When:
Short story:
Rollie Free achieves the US national motorcycle speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA, riding the first British-made Vincent Black Lightning. In 1991, inspired by the bike's mystique, Richard Thompson will compose the song 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.
Full article:
Richard Thompson : When I was a kid, that was always the exotic bike, that was always the one, the one that you went "Ooh, wow". I'd always been looking for English ideas that didn't sound corny, that had some romance to them, and around which you could pin a song. And this song started with a motorcycle, it started with the Vincent. It was a good lodestone around which the song could revolve.
(Source : interview in the BBC Four documentary Solitary Life, 2003)
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(Source : interview in the BBC Four documentary Solitary Life, 2003)