It is unusual to think about a band managing to record two albums that can be considered as being ‘classics’. To get one close to perfection is an enormous achievement but a second is phenomenal…
1985 saw the release of Marillion’s ‘Misplaced Childhood’. The album was an enormous success both commercially and with a more discerning audience. It contained two hugely popular singles, ‘Kayleigh’ and ‘Lavender’.
At the time, the frontman of Marillion was the larger than life Derek W. Dick, more commonly known as Fish. Having Fish as lead singer and lyricist had its advantages. His words literally made the songs what they were and they had a distinctly haunting quality about them. You know an album is going to be good when it opens with;
‘Huddled in the safety of a Pseudo-silk kimono
Wearing bracelets of smoke;
Naked of understanding.’
The album is a story of personal loss, grief and rediscovery. By the time that it gets to the second half the melancholy feel has been replaced with a righteous anger;
‘Well, I hit the street back in ’81,
I found a heart in the gutter and a poet’s crown.
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears;
Where have I been for all of these years?’
‘Misplaced Childhood’ is not an easy journey to take, but it is an extremely rewarding one.
Two years later, Marillion released ‘Clutching at Straws’. Again, this was a conceptual album about self-discovery but this time it hinged around a character (Torch) with a drink problem.
Now, this is where Fish got very clever with his lyrics. Every track on the album has numerous references to alcohol. The pivotal song, in terms of lyrics, has to be ‘Warm Wet Circles’. Fish doesn’t just play with words, he juggles with them.
‘Like a mother’s kiss on your first broken heart,
A warm wet circle.
Like a bullet hole in Central Park,
A warm wet circle.
And I’ll always surrender
To the warm wet circles.’
‘Clutching at Straws’ was very nearly as commercially successful as ‘Childhood’ but, perhaps because it was not so easily understood, it did not prove to be quite as popular.
Marillion fans will probably argue until the end of time about which of these records was the bands finest hour, but it is agreed on by most that it is one of the two…
Next week; Massive money in buying stocks for central heating oil suppliers? Is America trying to occupy the world by taking over the Middle East? Watch this space!