Across A Crowded Room

"Across a Crowded Room" is the third solo album by Richard Thompson released in 1985. In 1984 Thompson's management negotiated a contract with Polydor which gave him some financial security for the first time in over a decade. Across A Crowded Room was the first album recorded under this new contract. Thompson retained Joe Boyd as producer, but this was to be the last album that Thompson would record with Boyd behind the controls and the last studio album he would record in England. Across a Crowded Room was the first Richard Thompson album to be simultaneously released on vinyl and CD. The album is notable for some sophisticated arrangements and the variety of allusions and topics in the song lyrics - Margaret Thatcher's England ("Walking Through a Wasted Land"), The Moors Murders ("Love In A Faithless Country"), the Koran, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific from which the album's title is derived.