I've never quite understood what happened but shortly after the recording of the debut album Mick Pointer was fired by the band. Given that he had been a founder member of Marillion this must have stung, though he went on to found one of my other favourite prog rock bands, Arena. He was replaced by Ian Mosley, and when Marillion released their second, long-awaited album (yes I know it was only a year later but to us Marillon fans it may as well have been ten! There are only so many times you can play "Script" you know!) his departure, and the effect it had taken on the band, took centre stage on the opening track.
Fugazi (1984) produced by Nick Tauber on the EMI label
One thing Marillion seem to have learned from their debut is that songs can be
too long, and they address this in their second outing. Sort of. There are two eight-minute songs and two that run to, or over, seven, but there is also one that is five minutes and one three, at that point the shortest Marillion album track to date. The darker themes are still there, and again this is not an album to cheer you up. You can see that from the cover again, where we come across our friend the Jester from the debut album, but instead of writing love songs in a bedsit this time he's stretched out on a bed, looking unwell and sad, while various items are scattered around him. A spilling glass of wine in his hand would seem to indicate he is drunk or drugged --- maybe both --- while behind him on the mirror someone has scrawled, either in blood or more likely lipstick, the title of the album.
Ah yes, the title. There is of course a band called Fugazi, but at the time we were told that it was an expression from Vietnam, equivalent to "all
fucked up", which certainly seems appropriate, both given the state of the Jester on the sleeve and the state of the world as portrayed through Fish's sharp lyrics. All is most certainly not well here.
This album would yield two more singles, neither doing as well as "Garden party" but both easily eclipsing "He knows you know".
Assassing (7:02) --- Although this album starts with almost the same gradual beginning that its predecessor did, it quickly builds up to a crescendo as Fish screams something like "Sha!" and then launches into the lyric as the song is driven on bouncy tough guitar from Rothery and militaristic drumming from new boy Ian Mosley. The song is said to refer to the acrimony that attended Mick Pointer's departure from the band, and there's a lot of sarcasm and criticism in the lyric --- "On the sacrificial altar to success (my friend) unleash a stranger from a kiss (my friend); no incantations of remorse (my friend) --- unsheath the blade within the voice." The leadup to the chorus features the two words "my friend" repeated angrily, and it's obvious that the sentiment is not genuine. This is a song about betrayal and disappointment in someone's behaviour.
There's a great guitar solo from Rothery and it's really a rocking way to start the album, the energy and anger in the song actually leading to its choice as the lead single from "Fugazi", with most DJs mispronouncing the title as "Assassin", or some, confusing it with the Gary Numan song, "I, assassin." DIdn't matter: Marillion fans knew the truth and while it was great to hear and see our guys on TV, the cut-down single version kind of castrated the song. This is a track that needs its whole seven minutes and two seconds to run; anything else is just not acceptable.
Punch and Judy (3:21) --- This, on the other hand, which would be the second single from the album, is very much keyboard driven, starting off with a lively arpeggio from Kelly with Rothery joining in with hard, thumping guitar. It's a tale of domestic bliss gone wrong, as the singer wonders how he ended up in this trapped doomed relationship --- "Brought up the children Church of E, now I'm entertained by a colour TV. Worst ever thing that ever happened to me!" --- and plots her murder.
You can see how it was chosen as a single. It's short --- as I say, the shortest Marillion album song to that point --- boppy, uptempo and even though it deals with both a dysfunctional marriage and the idea of murder it manages to just skim these in the lyric as Fish sings almost nonchalantly about them, the threat tripping almost unnoticed off his tongue --- "Just slip her these pills and I'll be free!" It's not my favourite track on the album, in fact it's my least favourite and it comes close enough to being one of my least favourite Marillion tracks.
Jigsaw (6:49) --- Marillion's first real effort at a ballad, although it doesn't stay that way for long. Opening on a tinkling piano and soft guitar with a gentle vocal from Fish it's not long before both the music and the vocal punch up into the mix, and in ways lyrically it's a kind of carryover from the previous track, as again a couple try to work out where things have gone wrong. "Are we trigger-happy?" Fish asks. "Russian Roulette in a waiting room? Empty chambers embracing the moon?" Again you can see Fish's use of double meanings, where "empty chambers" can refer to rooms that are lonely because nobody is in them, or indeed the empty chamber of a gun, linking back to the line about Russian Roulette. Another searing, heartfelt solo from Steve Rothery and the song fades out as it began, Fish's voice fading to a despairing whisper.
Emerald lies (5:08) --- I guess in some ways that I've never quite realised before, these three songs form a trilogy of sorts, a kind of kitchen-sink-drama that looks at the disintegration of a relationship. If so, then this is the final act, the powerful conclusion, and my favourite track on the album. Lyrics are often open to interpretation, especially obscure or metaphorical ones, and so I don't know for sure but this track seems to concern a diary being found, as Fish sings "Plundering your diaries, I'll steal your thoughts. Ravaging your letter, unearth your plots." The evidence is then brought to the guilty party in the marriage --- "A forty-watt sun on a costume drama" --- while the trial begins --- "To don the robes of Torquemada, resurrect the Inquisition and in a couched and subtle manner phrasing questions within questions."
The music is sort of staccato, urgent and insistent with a big keening guitar finish, as the relationship ends and Fish sings "The coffee stains gather till the pale kimono sets the wedding rings dancing on the cold linoleum" and there is no way back now. "You pack your world within a suitcase, hot tears melt this icy palace." There is the suggestion though that either this is a setup or that the diary has been misinterpreted, as the term "innocence" is used throughout the song. Nevertheless it's a powerful conclusion, if such it is, to the trilogy and indeed ends the first side of the vinyl album in fine style.
She chameleon (6:52) --- After the frenzy and passion of "Emerald lies", side two opens with a sinuous, snaky synth line from Mark Kelly, very low-key, almost arabic as Fish spits his venom at groupies who use people. This was never released as a single, but if it had it would have been hard to have censored or changed the lines "Was it just a
fuck, was it just a f
uck, just another fu
ck I said?" And the line is repeated, altered slightly, plus there's another line that goes "Degraded and alone, raped and still forlorn", so this was never getting any radio airplay! Mind you, it wouldn't have been expected to. It's a very dark song, very mature themes and nothing really that would lend itself to radio airplay.
It's pretty much Kelly and Fish's baby for much of the song as it winds its way along like a reptile itself, Fish's scorn and contempt carrying the track along the undulating curve of Kelly's almost hypnotic keyboard line, rising up and down like some dark wave, and it only really breaks into hard percussion and allows in some guitar work for a short while in the middle, then ends as it began, fading out. Quite a nasty and unsettling little song; if it's written, as we suppose it must be, from experience then there must have been some very unpleasant women following Marillion about at this time.
Incubus (8:30) --- One of the epics, as it were, on the album, it starts off bouncy enough with the main character facing her (yes, her again) retribution as a photograph taken which puts her in a compromising position is dredged up presumably by a jilted lover and used against her. A classic case of youthful indiscretion coming back to ruin someone's life. Fish has fun in this, referring to himself as he wails "You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask", obviously referring to the outlandish makeup he used to wear which gave him his persona and which, like his progentior Gene Simmons, he later ditched lest it overshadow his singing and he be seen as just "a guy in makeup".
The first part of the song is hard, harsh, unremitting, with tough guitar, clashing drums and an angry vocal from Fish, then in the second part it slows down on the back of soft piano from Kelly into an almost waltz, with Rothery's guitar joining in and taking it along until the denouement brings the song almost full circle as Fish revels in his triumph, the woman in his power as he gloats "The producer of your nightmare, and the performance has just begun!" Leaving the poor unfortunate young starlet no option but to follow his instructions as "You'll wait in silent solitude waiting for the prompt ... you've played this scene before!"
Fugazi (8:12) --- Well, "Script" had a seriously powerful end track so "Fugazi" was looking to fill some very big shoes already. I'm not sure that the title track here is really on a par with "Forgotten sons", but it's a decent closer and goes through some changes over its eight minutes and change length. Kelly takes centre stage for the first minute or so as he backs Fish's forlorn vocal on just piano, then the music stops for about a second, Rothery chimes his way in then gets angry on the frets in conjunction with Fish's more rabid vocal as he rails against the injustices in the world. Again we have great lines --- "Sheathed within the Walkman, wear the halo of distortion: aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation" --- a line I consider to be one of Fish's best, while he also keeps up a second vocal slightly time-delayed behind the main one, with a separate narrative.
When the song really gets going you can see where the crowd would start pumping their fists and roaring and shaking their heads, urged on by Kelly's sparkling keyboard lines and Mosley's thumping drumbeats. It's almost a march, then for the third part of the song again it's Kelly who takes control but this time with a zinging, swirling little synth run while Rothery makes weird sounds on his guitar and the tempo slows down, Fish's vocal returning somewhat to the manner of the opening section, and the end section features flutey keyboard and again marching drum as the chorus, almost triumphant in a hopeless way, fades out with Fish asking the question "Where are the prophets? Where are the visionaries?" and recalling the term I used for this thread, and which was first heard in "Assassing", tying the whole thing up nicely and bringing the album full circle.
Surprisingly, I never noticed it until now, but I see now that "Fugazi" the album is actually very misogynistic, whether intentionally or not. Look at the songs. Apart from the opener which is clearly aimed at their ex-sticksman, "Punch and Judy" basically blames the wife for the failure of the marriage, "Jigsaw" is a little more forgiving but still apportions some blame, while "Emerald lies" savages the woman's reputation, something that is continued with almost glee in "She chameleon" and even "Incubus", wherein the woman is the victim, alludes to it being her own fault she was caught, and is angry at her for dumping the protagonist after all he did for her.
So not the best of albums to play down the local chapter of the WI then! Also, continuing in "Script"'s footsteps, it's still a very dark album. In fact, in some ways it's darker. At least the debut had "Garden party" to somewhat lighten the mood: nothing on "Fugazi" could be considered light or comic relief in any way. They're all very serious, in ways macabre, unsettling songs, and the whole album seems --- perhaps not surprisingly given the Pointer affair --- concerned with the idea of revenge and/or retribution. Only the title track and "Jigsaw" stay away from this concept.
So again a dark album, at times a hard album to listen to, and yet it did better in the charts when released than "Script" did, and its singles performed better too. I suppose to some degree Marillion fans or fans-in-the-making weren't all that bothered about the subtexts in the second --- or the first --- album. I know I wasn't. I was just glad Marillion had come out with a new album so soon. But looking at it through the eyes of experience and age now, this was not a happy album, and their third would not be much better. Nor their fourth. In fact, looking through the Marillion catalogue, I don't really see any album I would class as "happy" or at least "not sad, or dark" until 1995's "Afraid of sunlight", and that was eight years after the departure of Fish, and four years following their darkest ever album, "Brave".
Not gothic in any sense, I still wonder if instead of neo-prog Marillion's music might have been better categorised and described as Dark Prog?