Marillion – Real To Reel/Misplaced Childhood
“A love song with no validity. Pretend you never meant that much to me”
The Fugazi tour saw the band perform around 60 shows mostly in the Europe and Great Britain but it also included a few in the Eastern US and Canada…notably multiple shows in Montreal and Quebec City…a market that would prove to be particularly supportive and important to the band as they years progressed. In order to try to stave off the burgeoning live bootleg market which the band found themselves supporting yet not profiting from, EMI decided to release their first live album titled Real To Reel in November 1984. I absolutely love this live record. It contains 3 of my 4 favourite tracks from Fugazi (Assassing, Incubus, Emerald Lies) as well as Cinderella Search from the Assassing single. The other three songs are Forgotten Sons and the previously mentioned awesome double shot of Garden Party/Market Square Heroes. It isn’t necessarily the best recorded live album…it is a bit flat in places…but it really captures the greatness of the band in a live setting and all seven songs are…not necessarily elevated beyond their studio versions, but they certainly sound confident in execution. It is not easy music to play and hearing it performed live is impressive, stripped of any studio wizardry. It is all super upbeat material that increases from exciting to manic as the album progresses. The other noticeable thing is the use of backing vocals by Pete Trawavas which would become a great addition to the band both live and on record. The beginnings of that are really noticeable on this live album. One other little thing I want to mention. With live albums there are always little changes in how a band performs or sings a song and also what is spoken between. If you listen to an album a lot, it becomes a part of the lexicon of that version of a song and I always find myself saying or mimicking these things when I listen. On this album I will always say “This is dedicated to the people who fell on a pavement outside Harrods before Christmas. This is a song for peace and this is called Forgotten Sons”. I had no idea what that meant for many years until finding out that the song was inspired by an IRA bomb that exploded on December 17 1983 in London killing six people. In the days before the internet, it was simply a difficult to understand sentence that I figured had something to do with something. Now I know. Thank god for the Internet ;). The original vinyl release only had 6 songs, with Emerald Lies only finding a place on the CD version.
Following the release of the live album the band then embarked on another two month tour to support the release of a live album of a tour to support a studio album…Genesis did this once with Three Sides Live … oddly enough only several years prior…when they did a tour for the release of that live album which was a recording of the tour for the Abacab album….It’s confusing…the point is it isn’t a common thing but it seems I’ve just discovered a similarity between my two favourite bands that I didn’t realize existed. ANYWAY…shortly after the tour the band set off for Hansa studios in Germany where many great albums have been recorded including David Bowie’s Low and Heroes, Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again and Black Celebration, Iggy Pop, David Sylvian, The Pixies and U2 to name a few. At the helm this time was Chris Kimsey who had recently worked with the Rolling Stones on multiple albums and would go on to produce a ton of others.
The album that would come to define the band’s career as far as chart success, would come to be known as Misplaced Childhood and was recorded from March through May of 1985, and released in June. Misplaced Childhood is an album that by all accounts shouldn’t have existed in 1985 and even more so, should not have been a huge hit record. But music is a strange beast that sometimes defies logic….like Gangnam Style or Kid Rock or Ted Nugent or people still liking Morrissey (Sorry I did it again). Sometimes things happen that don’t really make sense. A progressive rock band releasing a concept album inspired by a bad acid trip about a shitty relationship with two side long suites of continuous music that topped the UK album charts and contained two hit singles is not something anyone could have predicted. It is barely something I was able to articulate. But lo and behold it was a huge success, spending over 40 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number 1, and proving very successfully globally. It even reached number 47 in the US. Why, you might ask, was the album such a success? Well I’ll tell you….it was all because of a girl named Kay. At the heart of it the story of Misplaced Childhood is as follows. Boy likes girl. Girl dumps boy. Boy does drugs. Boy goes on trip. Boy almost dies. Boy wakes up. Boy realizes he was acting like a silly kid. Boy tries to take life more seriously. Boy=Fish. Girl=Kay Lee…aka Kayleigh. It’s a little more subtle than that, however.
Let’s start at the beginning though. I must warn you I’m not sure I have the capacity to adequately articulate this album, but I’ll try. The record starts with a stark two verse song called Pseudo Silk Kimono which is almost entirely keyboards and guitar effects based. It immediate evokes a sense of sadness and sets the tone for the record which is much softer and inviting than the music on Fugazi. It is a great little intro that immediately moves into the song Kayleigh which is essentially the story of a guy who is looking back at a failed relationship, remembering the good times and lamenting what happened, wondering if it is something that could be salvaged. There is a very adolescent universal sensibility to this song. Something everyone who has ever dated someone and obsessed over its demise, can relate to. It is an incredibly catchy song that once removed from its prog parent’s record, was actually more a pop song than anything else. As it turned out, a lot of fucking people around the world thought so also, and the success of this song alone would change the trajectory of the band. The song reached #2 in the UK charts and was a huge hit around the world. It wasn’t like Dancing in The Dark massive, but it was big enough to put the band on the covers of magazines, on TV shows and in front of hundreds of thousands of people over the next year and a half tour which consisted of almost 130 live shows around the world. It was popular enough that there is a generation of girls who are currently around 35 years old named Kayleigh who probably have parents who either are or were Marillion fans or loved the song. Despite being a big success the song in retrospect feels a bit like an albatross around the band’s neck. It is a song they have never really been able to escape…one that defines many interviews and articles about the band, who are often described as a Scottish Heavy Metal group. It has been a bit of a mixed bag I think – without it, though, they may not have ever had the success that led to a path that has allowed them to survive for 40 years. Over the years they have managed to shake the need to rely on it, or any song for that matter, so it is a nice treat when they do pull it out at live shows. No matter how many times anyone has seen it I can’t imagine many who are actually upset when it is played. It is such a great song, and it is amazing to hear live due to the volume it is sung at by fans.
Lavender follows Kayleigh and it is a sweet-sounding love song with gorgeous lyrics. It was the second single from the album, and was also a very big hit in the UK reaching number 5. It wasn’t as big as Kayleigh but on the back of Kayleigh’s success it was a huge one-two punch musically and set the album up for some seriously broad reaching success all over the world. Short and sweet with a guitar solo as well. Almost as soon as it starts…it is over and the record, which to this point has been fairly poppy and sweet sounding takes a left turn into completely different territory. Each side of this record has a medley of songs that become the foundation of the album. Bitter Suite is an eight minute piece that is comprised of five sections. I) Brief Encounter is a spoken word set to a very moody keyboard ridden section that begins with sustained synths, rolling drums and psychedelic guitar sounds before settling into an almost train rhythm like beat. At this point it becomes apparent that the addition of Ian Mosley on drums is going to have a significant impact on the development of the band. It is a mesmerizingly hypnotic piece that lasts only a short period before part II called Lost Weekend – it progresses the story but with singing vs spoken word. The music picks up speed and then drops back to the Blue Angel section which in essence is Lavender reprise. After the brief revisit the song drops to just piano before picking up with another moody guitar/flute section titled Misplaced Rendezvous before ending with part five, which is Windswept Thumb. It is hard to describe this kind of stuff. It all flows together and there are no breaks in the music so the differentiation of the sections are in some ways a bit superfluous. In the end the entire Bitter Suite section serves to evoke a mood that ultimately pays off in spades with the final track on side which is Heart Of Lothian. This was the third and final single from the album and it is an absolute powerhouse of a song. The first part, Wide Boy, It is all soaring guitars and keyboard pads, bass and drums pounding and low-end pedals with a vocal that feels monumental in power and delivery. It truly gets the heart pounding with bravado – like a song you might play before heading into battle and it is also a precursor to Threshold on side 2. The beauty of Fish’s lyrics are evident in this entire Bitter Suite/Heart Of Lothian section. You don’t need to know what he is singing about to get a huge amount out of it. They roll off the tongue and are just so incredibly written that it is immensely joyous to sing them at the top of your lungs. I don’t know how else to describe it other than…the make you feel like you have electricity flowing through your veins when you sing them. It sounds ridiculous if you don’t know them, but I promise every fan who knows this material knows exactly what I mean. It is deeply emotional and can bring you to tears. It is very powerful stuff. I also am pretty confident that any hardcore Marillion fan knows every word to every song on this album. Anyway, the song gently shifts down in gear to end the first side on an introspective note with part “b” of the song titled Curtain Call with the lyrics “And the man from the magazine wants another shot of you all curled up, cause you look like an actor in a movie shot. But you’re feeling like a wino in a parking lot. How did I get in here anyway? Do we really need a playback of the show? Cause the wide boy wants to head for the watering hole watering hole water hole….let’s go….and the man in the mirror has sad eyes.” This stuff ain’t exactly Spice Up Your Life.
Side 2 begins with the fast paced yet eerie 2 minute Waterhole (Expresso Bongo) that picks up on the lyrics from the end of side 1. It is a song that is often-overlooked, but it is a great beginning to the second half of the album setting the mood perfectly. From there we have the short beautiful guitar riff driven song Lords Of The Backstage. I love that a short song like this can have such great moments with keyboard bell sounds and double tracked vocals all adding to the totality of the song across the entire musical range but with everything having its space and place to breathe. Nothing feels conflicted or in conflict musically speaking and I’m sure that is down to the incredible production by Kimsey. “A love song with no validity. Pretend you never meant that much to me. Numb a valium child. Bored by meaningless collisions”. Every word adds value on this album and creates a vivid picture. Lords Of The Backstage lurches into the second longer suite of songs titled Blind Curve which is just under 10 minutes in length. This piece of music is broken up into 5 parts. It is an INTENSE and incredible piece of songwriting starting with Vocal Under A Bloodlight, moving into a searing guitar solo from Rothery in Passing Strangers that leads to hopeful sadness in Mylo (which mentions Toronto…my hometown). It’s a gorgeous section of music that might be the high point of the entire album with respect to the meeting of all four musicians….but without obvious bravado. The interplay of Rothery’s guitar and Kelly’s keyboard riff mimicking each other is sublime. From there the song sinks into the drug induced trip part of the story which finds our fishy friend at the edge in Perimeter Walk. It is the musical equivalent of the way one feels when you are just waaaaay too fucked up and aren’t sure you will be able to find your way back…The synergy of music and lyrics work perfectly together. It resolves with the angry powerful Threshold. The lyrics are staggeringly evocative…” I saw a war widow in a launderette Washing the memories from her husband’s clothes. She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat. A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes”. The whole section drips with desperate anger at the horrors of the world. I keep mentioning it but very few lyricists write words like this and the album is masterful in this way from beginning to end. And I don’t even pay attention to lyrics normally which is saying something. Childhood’s End? which emerges from the gloom of Threshold is as gloriously uplifting and bright as the previous song was oppressively dark. It is the climax of everything that has built up to it. It is the musical equivalent of…. realizing you are going to survive something that felt unsurvivable. It is the sound of personal victory. The final song is White Feather which is almost like a victory lap with a solid dose of chest beating bravado. They also mention Toronto for a second time…which is nice.
I’m not sure if I’ve done justice trying to describe what this album sounds like. It is Extremely difficult to describe some music but this album has possibly been the most difficult…there aren’t enough words sometimes to do it justice. I’ll summarize it all by saying this. It is a wonderful album that deserves a listen and requires some attention to fully absorb, but it is one that gives back in huge ways if you take the time. It is lush sounding and covers a vast amount of musical territory, yet nothing lasts too long. Steve Rothery in particular really started to solidify his trademark sound with lots of reverb and echo. No part of the album, even the longer pieces, lasts more than a few minutes. So it all shifts and moves at a fast pace, changing dramatically in very short periods of time and it takes you on a full emotional journey that never disappoint. If you actually break down Bitter Suite and Blind Curve to their component parts…the longest song on the album is actually Childhood’s End at 4:32 followed by Heart Of Lothian (which actually is a two parter) and Kayleigh at 4:04. I wish I could hear them play it all again as a whole.
I have a funny story I want to tell which some people reading this may have been witness to. I’ve been singing Pseudo Silk Kimono/Kayleigh /Lavender/Blue Angel in my band Tempus Fugit for many many years. In 2011 we played at Brutiopia on the Friday prior to the first night of the second Montreal Marillion Weekend. We had just finished recording our second CD Shallow Water Blackout and instead of just performing originals we decided to mix it up. Over the course of 90 minutes we interspersed our originals with a whole bunch of Marillion tracks, seeing as the audience was going to be all Marillion fans in town for the Weekend. So we started with three originals and then figured we’d grab the crowd’s attention with Pseudo Silk Kimono/Kayleigh/Lavender/Blue Angel. When we got to Kayleigh I could feel my brain doing a total mental refusal of lyrics. As the second verse approached I knew that I was on the verge of screwing up the most popular Marillion song, with lyrics that every single person in the room knew…and I did in fact screw them up…a guy who I came to befriend named Dave Hussey from Los Angeles was sitting in the front and being a singer he knew I was fumbling so I watched what he was singing to guide me through the verse…then I fucked up the second third verse which again he lip sync’d me through. I couldn’t remember the lyrics to the one song everyone in the room knew. It is one of those moments as a singer that either swallows you or you have to just lean into it. I laughed it off and the crowd was great but until senility takes my memory, I will remember that moment forever with an immense amount of fondness and gratitude. That show will have been 10 years ago on April 8 2021 and is the last live show we have played to date.
Recommended Listening – Misplaced Childhood – you really need to listen to it as a whole…anything less doesn’t do it justice.
