“Cold Sweat” by Thin Lizzy

"Cold Sweat" was a late arrival on Thunder and Lightning, the final studio album from Irish rockers Thin Lizzy, released in 1983. By the time guitarist John Sykes joined, the rest of the record was already written and only needed cutting, so Sykes, with nothing of his own on it yet, threw out a riff in the studio and Phil Lynott ran with it, building the song and working out the arrangement. Sykes reckoned it was all but done in 20 minutes.

Lynott sings and plays bass, Scott Gorham is the other guitarist, Brian Downey drums and Darren Wharton adds keyboards, with the band producing alongside Chris Tsangarides. Sykes's solo is the showpiece, built on a tapping technique that was catching on at the time, and the song became the album's biggest single, peaking at 27 in the UK and 23 in Ireland.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.