As we take another trip down Memory Lane with my musical musings, some of you will remember 1970s browsing in John Menzies ( Now W.H.Smith) in Union Street, Aberdeen, way back then when they , and many other non music stores, sold records and cassette tapes.
It was on a Saturday afternoon looking through the racks of albums when I came across the section labelled ‘Progressive Rock’. At the time , I wasn’t aware of what that was, but albums by Pink Floyd, Rush and Genesis were on display, so that was a pointer to which bands were ‘progressive’. I knew about Pink Floyd, and really liked them, and Rush also , but I was never sure if they were metal or prog , maybe a bit of both, then along came Marillion in the early 80s , my ears became more open minded to the sounds of prog (formerly known as ‘progressive) rock. There was a resurgence in prog rock in the early 80’s , Marillion, along with Aberdeen’s Pallas, Solstice, Pendragon, IQ and others were at the forefront of it, and like the NWOBHM a few years before, the music papers promoted it , especially Kerrang magazine, and soon the major record labels began to take interest, Marillion being signed up first, closely followed by Pallas.
In my humble opinion, Marillion were the best of the lot, Fish’s slightly verbose lyrics were what drew me to them initially , the song ‘Forgotten Sons’ from the band’s debut ‘ Script for a Jester’s Tears’ drew comparision in my opinion to ‘The Unknown Soldier’ by the Doors, a band which I favoured at the time, and on their second album, ‘Fugazi’ , the song ‘Assassing’ – ‘I am the assassin , with tongue forged in eloquence’ , the lyrics were really poetic, absolutely forged in eloquence, the twists and turns of phrase from this guy really hooked me in. I was fixated with listening to lyrics in the 1980s, as my early attempts at writing poetry were around that time, and if I’m honest these were just a pale imitiation of lyrics from the music I was listening to and phrases cribbed from books I was reading. These were , of course the days when you got the lyrics printed on the album cover, and sometimes an actual lyric sheet with the album, and folk would sit and pore over the lyrics as the music washed over them, preferably at home , alone.
Marillion’s third album, ‘Misplaced Childhood’ was the one that brought them to Top of the Pops with hit song ‘Kayleigh’ in 1985. Listening to this album now, the memories of the period come flooding back , of simpler times; sitting in Burger King in the centre of Aberdeen with a work colleague , discussing Fish’s lyrics on the album over a coffee and a burger, and concluding that the ‘obscure Scottish poet’ in the lyric of ‘Brief Encounter’ is Fish referencing himself ; my friend James and me , lurching drunkenly down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in the summer of 1986, singing ‘Heart of Lothian’ very loudly at 2am, later on, seeing the band at the Capitol in Aberdeen in 1988 during the ‘Clutching at Straws ‘ tour. I would reckon that you could describe the album as ‘immersive’ , an album you can really get lost in, if you play it in its entirety. For me, it harks back to the pre-punk days of ‘concept albums’ , which in a sense was a good thing, as I was too young to have been into prog rock in its early days, so could now latch onto the music I believed to be heavy metal’s more intellectual musical brother , the music a bit more grandiose and wordy , with lashings of keyboards , but music that still rocked. Steve Rothery’s guitar solos always brought me in mind of Dave Gilmour’s style, slow and almost bluesy, then again, maybe a tad like Steve Hackett also. If ‘Misplaced Childhood’ is Fish looking back and reminiscing on his youth from the point of newly found rockstar fame, ‘Clutching at Straws’ is him looking at the dark side of rockstar excess, with breakups, alcoholism and its effects; as with its predecessor, I am transported back in Time, its amazing that music of a certain period can rekindle the memories of a given period ; when listening to ‘Warm Wet Circles’, I am reminded of going to Ma Cameron’s in Aberdeen in the days when pubs were pubs, and full of convivial conversation and friendly faces. ‘Torch Song’ with its lyric ‘Read some Kerouac, and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now’, really struck a chord with me at the time, as I was a big fan of Kerouac’s writing, particularly ‘On The Road, and had a burgeoning interest in the ‘Beat Generation’ writers from the USA, and in Beat -influenced singers like Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones. The cover art , by Mark Wilkinson, who designed all the Fish-era Marillion album covers, depicts the band pictured drinking in a bar , in the company of famous writers and singers who were no strangers to alcoholic excess ; Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, ghosts revisiting old haunts, as perhaps I am looking back fondly on favoured music from the past, which is a good thing to do in these uncertain times.
The Eclectic Audio Lab 