Music Banter - View Single Post - Trollheart's Album Discography Reviews: Marillion

Trollheart · 04-27-2022, 12:27 PM

Ah, the concept album: staple of seventies progressive rock bands like Yes, Genesis and ELP, but by the time Marillion had come to release their third album, the idea of the concept album had lost much of its traction. In a world where people bought singles more than albums and where chart success was, and mostly still is even today, the barometer of success, concept albums were seen as a poisoned chalice. Most concept albums tended, if not to actually flow track to track like much of Pink Floyd's The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon, to have each track refer back to the previous and on to the next, linking each song or piece of music so often inextricably that it was hard to take one out of context and still understand and appreciate it. Of course, the aforementioned Floyd did it with singles taken from both those albums, but in general the songs work better within the structure of the album proper, becoming part of the narrative and fitting into the storyline.

So record labels tended to frown, as the eighties hit their mid period, on any album proposed as being a concept. Which makes it perhaps the more odd that not only did Marillion make their third offering exactly that, but that it also yielded them their highest chart placing and almost got them a number one single, a feat they would never again even come close to achieving. For many people now, the only Marillion song they know, if any, is “Kayleigh”, though few if any could tell you what album it was off. This would have to then be seen as the pinnacle of early Marillion, and certainly their best and most complete work with Fish. It would also be quite a personal album, concentrating on or at least signposting and referring to events in the singer's life, sometimes obliquely, sometimes blatantly.

Misplaced Childhood (1985)

As a vinyl album, this runs as two single tracks, with neither side one nor side two containing any gaps or stops, and on CD there is a small pause after what would be the end of side one of the album, then taken back up on side two. The story behind the album concerns mostly, as you might expect, childhood, experiences, lives lived and loves lost, regrets, promises, dreams, the future and the past. As you would also expect at this stage, much of the lyrical material is couched in the sort of poetic, flowery language and rhetoric that often made Fish's work so hard to comprehend or translate. But you can certainly get the basic idea.

The album opens on “The Psuedo-silk Kimono”, with a big booming synth from Mark Kelly, a squealing guitar from Steve Rothery and a soft, almost muttered vocal from Fish. It seems to describe the beginning of an acid trip, under the influence of which Fish is said to have composed this opus. It's a short piece and really serves as an introduction to the album, the storyteller setting the scene as he intones ”The spirit of a misplaced childhood/ Is rising to speak his mind/ To this orphan of heartbreak/ Disillusioned and torn/ A refugee...” The swirling synth slides directly into the guitar notes that open “Kayleigh”, a song of love and regret which was to become their biggest ever hit. Perhaps because it is, on the surface, a jaunty, upbeat song and quite a short one, it somehow fired the attention and caught the interest of those outside of the Marillion/prog rock camp, and scaled to the dizzy heights of number two in the UK charts, only falling at the final fence because a charity record held on to the top spot.

“Kayleigh” uses much of that descriptive imagery so beloved of the Marillion wordsmith - ”Chalk hearts melting on a playground wall”, ”Barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars” and so on, and as has been mentioned in its Wiki page, the entire album borrows freely from what we can only assume are some of the big Scot's musical influences - Clifford T. Ward, The Doors, The Who and of course Van der Graaf Generator, and he even has no compunction in stealing a line from his own earlier work when he mentions ”Kayleigh, I'm still trying/ To write that love song”. But at its heart (and I guess again this is why it sold so well and was so popular) it's a love song, as well as an apology and a wish that things had turned out better. It's quite a frank and honest exposure of some very personal stuff here, as Fish did have a girlfriend called Kay Lee, so you have to give him props, whether he's embellishing and over-romanticising their relationship or not. The song features a super little solo by Rothery which is sadly truncated in the single version.

It flows directly then into a lovely piano from Kelly, nodding back to the title track on the previous album (and this will not be the last time he uses such a motif) as at the time Marillion's shortest ever song at only two minutes and twenty-eight seconds slides in. Also the first ballad, “Lavender” is based on the old folk song/nursery rhyme “Lavender Blue”, and is perhaps unique in that it is the only album track that I know of where, to make it a single, the band actually had to make it longer! With an added verse and a longer guitar solo (which must have pleased Rothery after the hatchet job performed on the other single) and a full piano stop, the song was lengthened to three minutes and forty seconds. Almost entirely riding on the solo piano of Kelly until the chorus kicks in, it's a simple little song and I have a small personal anecdote about it, if you'll bear with me.

Having reached the heady heights of number five (their second best ever chart placing), “Lavender” was slated for a play on BBC TV pop show Top of the Pops and the band were due to play “live”. Suffering from laryngitis, and perhaps as something of a cutting comment on the fact that at the time, performers were not allowed play live for contractual and legal reasons and had to mime to their records, Fish appeared onstage with the lyric written out, and as the song progressed he pointed out the words, with the studio audience doing their best to sing them. Yeah I know, it's not that funny nor original but it's something I remember and if it was a silent commentary on the BBC policy of the time, a wordless protest, well he couldn't have chosen a better time or manner to make it. At any rate, the song recalls childhood infatuation, and does contain what I believe to be a clever line: ”A penny for your thoughts, my dear/ IOU for your love.”

As I say, on the album it doesn't stop but dovetails with the opening of the next track on a dark synth that drowns out the tinkling piano and takes us into one of the two multi-part suites that take up the bulk of the album. This first one is called “Bitter Suite”, with again typical fish wordplay which allows one phrase to mean three things, and is the shorter of the two at just under eight minutes in total. It opens on as already mentioned a dark synth which is quickly joined by a crying guitar and ominous, rolling drums from Mosley before Fish's voice comes in, speaking rather than singing the lines and really either betraying or displaying his thick Scottish accent. The opening section is called “Brief Encounter” and driven both by Mosley's thunderous drumming and Pete Trewavas's pulsing bass, lasting a mere two minutes before Fish changes to singing against the dark synth of Kelly as we move into “Lost weekend” and a train driver seems to want to forget he has an ugly daughter - ”She was a wallflower at sixteen/ She'll be a wallflower at thirty-four/ Her mother calls her beautiful/ Her daddy said, a whore” - and suddenly Mosley's drums crash all over the place with Rothery ripping off some fine solos as we move into “Blue Angel”, reprising the main melody from “Lavender”. This is just a guess, but when Fish sings ”It was bible black in Lyon/ When I met the Magdalene” I think he may be talking about the “wallflower” referred to in the previous section. He's likely also tipping his hat to King Crimson's album Starless and Bible Black. This piece contains the extra part added to the single version of “Lavender”: the guitar solo and the closing piano piece, which does in a way bring this three-part section to a close, if only for a moment.

“Misplaced Rendezvous” then opens on a guitar line very similar to “Script for a Jester's Tear”, a short, bleak piece that runs into the final section, “Windswept Thumb”, which opens on the piano riff from “Fugazi”, after which the tempo increases on a chanted “Don't stop the rain” and then piles directly into the final song on side one, “Heart of Lothian”, where the boys get to have fun as Rothery screeches away on the guitar, Fish sings about life growing up in Scotland and sprightly synth from Kelly. This song is in fact broken itself into two parts, the first being titled “Wide Boy” and I guess the “up” side of the song, slowing down into a sort of stately march before it slides down into the comedown, as “Curtain Call” winds things up on a droning synth line from Mark Kelly, mournful guitar and thick bass and Fish's hurt vocal, wanting nothing more than to sleep but having to record, as he reflects (hah) ”And the man in the mirror had sad eyes.”

From here things take an upswing tempo-wise, though the lyrics turn even more bitter as “Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)” gives Ian Mosley his chance to shine, directing the tune with his native rhythms while Fish declaims the downfalls of a rock star, snarling ”The heroes never show” and taking everything down a slight notch with “Lords of the backstage”, further depiction of the life of a rock star in all its depravity. Actually, a line from the previous song really underlines this: ”Funeral hearses court the death of virginity”. Indeed. “Lords of the backstage” gives a definite idea of building towards something, as if the singer is reaching the end of his tether, and in fact the second suite, “Blind Curve”, swinging in on wailing guitar, has Fish sitting deploring the state of his love life, eventually declaring ”I just want to be free/ I'm happy to be lonely/ Can't you stay away?/ Just leave me alone with my thoughts.” That's the first part, “Vocal Under a Bloodlight”, and Rothery's chiming guitar drives “Passing Strangers”, with a tired vocal from Fish and a rather sublime solo from Steve.

I must admit, I have no idea what the third section is about. It's titled “Mylo”, and seems to refer to some tragedy in Canada as Fish cries ”I remember Toronto when Mylo went down/ And we sat and we cried on the phone/ I never felt so alone/ He was the first of our own.” I don't know who Mylo is or if he even existed, and I have never been able to find out. The music is mostly driven on a soft chimy guitar from Rothery with some nice piano added in as Fish recalls one of the many interviews he had to suffer through while perhaps not being in the best of sobre health. ”Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home/ And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone/ 'Talk to me, won't you tell me your story?'”

Everything takes a much darker turn then as presumably Fish spirals down into addiction-fuelled visions, thinking about his childhood while Rothery leads “Perimeter Walk” in on a solo acoustic guitar, then muffled, sombre drums as Fish speaks the vocal again, in a distant voice, as if in a trance, Rothery shadowing him with his trusty guitar, crying for his friend's slowly-disappearing sanity. It's here that the title of the album is finally used, as Fish, getting more angry and direct as the piece goes on, growls ”There's a presence/ A child/ My childhood/ Misplaced childhood/ Give it back to me” and this swells and pours out into “Threshold”, where he deplores the state of the world, much as he did in “Fugazi”, growling about ”Priests, politicians/ Heroes in black plastic bodybags/ Under nation's flags” and ”Convoys kerbcrawling West German autobahns (remember, at the time this was recorded Germany was still two divided nations: the Wall had yet to fall) Trying to pick up a war/ They're gonna even the score” and the constant theme throughout this is “I can't take anymore”.

Finally, his trip (I assume) ends, he spins down, crashes and comes to his senses, with a new understanding dawning, as we ease into “Childhood's End?” on a sort of bubbling guitar from Rothery. This has always been one of my favourite tracks on the album. Separate in a sense from the main suites, it would in fact I believe have made a good single; it certainly has the hook in it and a great melody. Thematically, it's the “morning after the night before” as Fish realises what he has to do, what he has been missing all along, that you can't recapture your memories or change the past, and you have to move forward and do the best you can. Nice little keyboard line from Kelly helping to drive this, as Fish sings ”Do you realise/ That you could have gone back to her/ But that would only be retracing/ All the problems that you ever knew, so untrue/ For she's got to carry on with her life/ And you've got to carry on with yours.”

I would have preferred the album end there, to be honest, as I don't really feel “White Feather” adds much to the story, but I guess it then refers to Fish getting the band together and going out on the road to bring the gospel of prog and his own lyrical poetry to the world. ”I hit the streets back in '81” he sings ”I found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown/ Felt barbed wire kisses/ And icicle tears/ Where had I been for all of these years?” The bridge between the two songs is very Genesis, a real Banksesque keyboard flurry, then it goes all marching and military as the album strides confidently to its conclusion. A final defiant promise from Fish: ”I can't walk away no more!” and we're out.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Pseduo-silk Kimono
2. Kayleigh
3. Lavender
4. Bitter Suite
(i) Brief Encounter
(ii) Lost Weekend
(iii) Blue Angel
(iv) Misplaced Rendezvous
(v) Windswept Thumb
5. Heart of Lothian
(i) Wide Boy
(ii) Curtain Call
6. Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)
7. Lords of the Backstage
8. Blind Curve
(i)Vocal Under a Bloodlight
(ii) Passing Strangers
(iii) Mylo
(iv) Perimeter Walk
(v) Threshold
9. Childhood's End?
10. White Feather

This is an intensely personal album. Of course, Fish put some of himself into Script for a Jester's Tear too, and what songwriter doesn't draw on his or her own experiences for their music, but Misplaced Childhood almost reads like a musical autobiography of Fish. He confirms on the Marillion website that much of it is indeed taken from his own life, though of course as is known it was almost all written under the influence of acid, so some of it may be more than a little embellished.

Written under the frowning shadow of the same dark barrier that had inspired Bowie to write Heroes, and which would fall less than five years later, there's quite a sense of impending doom and oppression about much of this album. A lot of that is the pressures of addictions, work, relationships and decisions pulling at the writer, but some of it is no doubt attributable to the realisation that, while Marillion were writing and singing lines like ”I just want to be free” thousands of people behind the Berlin Wall were crying and thinking the same thing in a very real way.

Of course Marillion didn't contribute in any way to the fall of that iconic, hated wall, but it must nevertheless have been gratifying to know that in less than half a decade, and as they set out to write an album that would return them to the dark prog of Script, the constant presence during these recording sessions would be no more, and Germany would be one nation, free and undivided, perhaps a metaphor for the spiritual healing undergone by Fish on this album.

Commercially, they would never have another successful album. After the initial euphoria of two hit singles and a number one album, Fish would begin to grow concerned about the direction the band was going in, and the rising expense of tours, and would eventually leave after the next album, bringing to a close one chapter in the life of Marillion, and opening another, quite different one.

But this album always would, and always will, have a special and treasured place in the hearts of all Marillion fans. It was the point at which the band reached their creative peak, and there would never be another album like it. Years later, Fish, now a solo artist, would return to record and perform the entire thing live, in his “Return to Childhood” tour. That's the power of this extraordinary album.

Rating: (duh) 10/10

04-27-2022, 12:27 PM	#4 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	Ah, the concept album: staple of seventies progressive rock bands like Yes, Genesis and ELP, but by the time Marillion had come to release their third album, the idea of the concept album had lost much of its traction. In a world where people bought singles more than albums and where chart success was, and mostly still is even today, the barometer of success, concept albums were seen as a poisoned chalice. Most concept albums tended, if not to actually flow track to track like much of Pink Floyd's The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon, to have each track refer back to the previous and on to the next, linking each song or piece of music so often inextricably that it was hard to take one out of context and still understand and appreciate it. Of course, the aforementioned Floyd did it with singles taken from both those albums, but in general the songs work better within the structure of the album proper, becoming part of the narrative and fitting into the storyline. So record labels tended to frown, as the eighties hit their mid period, on any album proposed as being a concept. Which makes it perhaps the more odd that not only did Marillion make their third offering exactly that, but that it also yielded them their highest chart placing and almost got them a number one single, a feat they would never again even come close to achieving. For many people now, the only Marillion song they know, if any, is “Kayleigh”, though few if any could tell you what album it was off. This would have to then be seen as the pinnacle of early Marillion, and certainly their best and most complete work with Fish. It would also be quite a personal album, concentrating on or at least signposting and referring to events in the singer's life, sometimes obliquely, sometimes blatantly. Misplaced Childhood (1985) As a vinyl album, this runs as two single tracks, with neither side one nor side two containing any gaps or stops, and on CD there is a small pause after what would be the end of side one of the album, then taken back up on side two. The story behind the album concerns mostly, as you might expect, childhood, experiences, lives lived and loves lost, regrets, promises, dreams, the future and the past. As you would also expect at this stage, much of the lyrical material is couched in the sort of poetic, flowery language and rhetoric that often made Fish's work so hard to comprehend or translate. But you can certainly get the basic idea. The album opens on “The Psuedo-silk Kimono”, with a big booming synth from Mark Kelly, a squealing guitar from Steve Rothery and a soft, almost muttered vocal from Fish. It seems to describe the beginning of an acid trip, under the influence of which Fish is said to have composed this opus. It's a short piece and really serves as an introduction to the album, the storyteller setting the scene as he intones ”The spirit of a misplaced childhood/ Is rising to speak his mind/ To this orphan of heartbreak/ Disillusioned and torn/ A refugee...” The swirling synth slides directly into the guitar notes that open “Kayleigh”, a song of love and regret which was to become their biggest ever hit. Perhaps because it is, on the surface, a jaunty, upbeat song and quite a short one, it somehow fired the attention and caught the interest of those outside of the Marillion/prog rock camp, and scaled to the dizzy heights of number two in the UK charts, only falling at the final fence because a charity record held on to the top spot. “Kayleigh” uses much of that descriptive imagery so beloved of the Marillion wordsmith - ”Chalk hearts melting on a playground wall”, ”Barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars” and so on, and as has been mentioned in its Wiki page, the entire album borrows freely from what we can only assume are some of the big Scot's musical influences - Clifford T. Ward, The Doors, The Who and of course Van der Graaf Generator, and he even has no compunction in stealing a line from his own earlier work when he mentions ”Kayleigh, I'm still trying/ To write that love song”. But at its heart (and I guess again this is why it sold so well and was so popular) it's a love song, as well as an apology and a wish that things had turned out better. It's quite a frank and honest exposure of some very personal stuff here, as Fish did have a girlfriend called Kay Lee, so you have to give him props, whether he's embellishing and over-romanticising their relationship or not. The song features a super little solo by Rothery which is sadly truncated in the single version. It flows directly then into a lovely piano from Kelly, nodding back to the title track on the previous album (and this will not be the last time he uses such a motif) as at the time Marillion's shortest ever song at only two minutes and twenty-eight seconds slides in. Also the first ballad, “Lavender” is based on the old folk song/nursery rhyme “Lavender Blue”, and is perhaps unique in that it is the only album track that I know of where, to make it a single, the band actually had to make it longer! With an added verse and a longer guitar solo (which must have pleased Rothery after the hatchet job performed on the other single) and a full piano stop, the song was lengthened to three minutes and forty seconds. Almost entirely riding on the solo piano of Kelly until the chorus kicks in, it's a simple little song and I have a small personal anecdote about it, if you'll bear with me. Having reached the heady heights of number five (their second best ever chart placing), “Lavender” was slated for a play on BBC TV pop show Top of the Pops and the band were due to play “live”. Suffering from laryngitis, and perhaps as something of a cutting comment on the fact that at the time, performers were not allowed play live for contractual and legal reasons and had to mime to their records, Fish appeared onstage with the lyric written out, and as the song progressed he pointed out the words, with the studio audience doing their best to sing them. Yeah I know, it's not that funny nor original but it's something I remember and if it was a silent commentary on the BBC policy of the time, a wordless protest, well he couldn't have chosen a better time or manner to make it. At any rate, the song recalls childhood infatuation, and does contain what I believe to be a clever line: ”A penny for your thoughts, my dear/ IOU for your love.” As I say, on the album it doesn't stop but dovetails with the opening of the next track on a dark synth that drowns out the tinkling piano and takes us into one of the two multi-part suites that take up the bulk of the album. This first one is called “Bitter Suite”, with again typical fish wordplay which allows one phrase to mean three things, and is the shorter of the two at just under eight minutes in total. It opens on as already mentioned a dark synth which is quickly joined by a crying guitar and ominous, rolling drums from Mosley before Fish's voice comes in, speaking rather than singing the lines and really either betraying or displaying his thick Scottish accent. The opening section is called “Brief Encounter” and driven both by Mosley's thunderous drumming and Pete Trewavas's pulsing bass, lasting a mere two minutes before Fish changes to singing against the dark synth of Kelly as we move into “Lost weekend” and a train driver seems to want to forget he has an ugly daughter - ”She was a wallflower at sixteen/ She'll be a wallflower at thirty-four/ Her mother calls her beautiful/ Her daddy said, a whore” - and suddenly Mosley's drums crash all over the place with Rothery ripping off some fine solos as we move into “Blue Angel”, reprising the main melody from “Lavender”. This is just a guess, but when Fish sings ”It was bible black in Lyon/ When I met the Magdalene” I think he may be talking about the “wallflower” referred to in the previous section. He's likely also tipping his hat to King Crimson's album Starless and Bible Black. This piece contains the extra part added to the single version of “Lavender”: the guitar solo and the closing piano piece, which does in a way bring this three-part section to a close, if only for a moment. “Misplaced Rendezvous” then opens on a guitar line very similar to “Script for a Jester's Tear”, a short, bleak piece that runs into the final section, “Windswept Thumb”, which opens on the piano riff from “Fugazi”, after which the tempo increases on a chanted “Don't stop the rain” and then piles directly into the final song on side one, “Heart of Lothian”, where the boys get to have fun as Rothery screeches away on the guitar, Fish sings about life growing up in Scotland and sprightly synth from Kelly. This song is in fact broken itself into two parts, the first being titled “Wide Boy” and I guess the “up” side of the song, slowing down into a sort of stately march before it slides down into the comedown, as “Curtain Call” winds things up on a droning synth line from Mark Kelly, mournful guitar and thick bass and Fish's hurt vocal, wanting nothing more than to sleep but having to record, as he reflects (hah) ”And the man in the mirror had sad eyes.” From here things take an upswing tempo-wise, though the lyrics turn even more bitter as “Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)” gives Ian Mosley his chance to shine, directing the tune with his native rhythms while Fish declaims the downfalls of a rock star, snarling ”The heroes never show” and taking everything down a slight notch with “Lords of the backstage”, further depiction of the life of a rock star in all its depravity. Actually, a line from the previous song really underlines this: ”Funeral hearses court the death of virginity”. Indeed. “Lords of the backstage” gives a definite idea of building towards something, as if the singer is reaching the end of his tether, and in fact the second suite, “Blind Curve”, swinging in on wailing guitar, has Fish sitting deploring the state of his love life, eventually declaring ”I just want to be free/ I'm happy to be lonely/ Can't you stay away?/ Just leave me alone with my thoughts.” That's the first part, “Vocal Under a Bloodlight”, and Rothery's chiming guitar drives “Passing Strangers”, with a tired vocal from Fish and a rather sublime solo from Steve. I must admit, I have no idea what the third section is about. It's titled “Mylo”, and seems to refer to some tragedy in Canada as Fish cries ”I remember Toronto when Mylo went down/ And we sat and we cried on the phone/ I never felt so alone/ He was the first of our own.” I don't know who Mylo is or if he even existed, and I have never been able to find out. The music is mostly driven on a soft chimy guitar from Rothery with some nice piano added in as Fish recalls one of the many interviews he had to suffer through while perhaps not being in the best of sobre health. ”Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home/ And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone/ 'Talk to me, won't you tell me your story?'” Everything takes a much darker turn then as presumably Fish spirals down into addiction-fuelled visions, thinking about his childhood while Rothery leads “Perimeter Walk” in on a solo acoustic guitar, then muffled, sombre drums as Fish speaks the vocal again, in a distant voice, as if in a trance, Rothery shadowing him with his trusty guitar, crying for his friend's slowly-disappearing sanity. It's here that the title of the album is finally used, as Fish, getting more angry and direct as the piece goes on, growls ”There's a presence/ A child/ My childhood/ Misplaced childhood/ Give it back to me” and this swells and pours out into “Threshold”, where he deplores the state of the world, much as he did in “Fugazi”, growling about ”Priests, politicians/ Heroes in black plastic bodybags/ Under nation's flags” and ”Convoys kerbcrawling West German autobahns (remember, at the time this was recorded Germany was still two divided nations: the Wall had yet to fall) Trying to pick up a war/ They're gonna even the score” and the constant theme throughout this is “I can't take anymore”. Finally, his trip (I assume) ends, he spins down, crashes and comes to his senses, with a new understanding dawning, as we ease into “Childhood's End?” on a sort of bubbling guitar from Rothery. This has always been one of my favourite tracks on the album. Separate in a sense from the main suites, it would in fact I believe have made a good single; it certainly has the hook in it and a great melody. Thematically, it's the “morning after the night before” as Fish realises what he has to do, what he has been missing all along, that you can't recapture your memories or change the past, and you have to move forward and do the best you can. Nice little keyboard line from Kelly helping to drive this, as Fish sings ”Do you realise/ That you could have gone back to her/ But that would only be retracing/ All the problems that you ever knew, so untrue/ For she's got to carry on with her life/ And you've got to carry on with yours.” I would have preferred the album end there, to be honest, as I don't really feel “White Feather” adds much to the story, but I guess it then refers to Fish getting the band together and going out on the road to bring the gospel of prog and his own lyrical poetry to the world. ”I hit the streets back in '81” he sings ”I found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown/ Felt barbed wire kisses/ And icicle tears/ Where had I been for all of these years?” The bridge between the two songs is very Genesis, a real Banksesque keyboard flurry, then it goes all marching and military as the album strides confidently to its conclusion. A final defiant promise from Fish: ”I can't walk away no more!” and we're out. TRACK LISTING 1. The Pseduo-silk Kimono 2. Kayleigh 3. Lavender 4. Bitter Suite (i) Brief Encounter (ii) Lost Weekend (iii) Blue Angel (iv) Misplaced Rendezvous (v) Windswept Thumb 5. Heart of Lothian (i) Wide Boy (ii) Curtain Call 6. Waterhole (Expresso Bongo) 7. Lords of the Backstage 8. Blind Curve (i)Vocal Under a Bloodlight (ii) Passing Strangers (iii) Mylo (iv) Perimeter Walk (v) Threshold 9. Childhood's End? 10. White Feather This is an intensely personal album. Of course, Fish put some of himself into Script for a Jester's Tear too, and what songwriter doesn't draw on his or her own experiences for their music, but Misplaced Childhood almost reads like a musical autobiography of Fish. He confirms on the Marillion website that much of it is indeed taken from his own life, though of course as is known it was almost all written under the influence of acid, so some of it may be more than a little embellished. Written under the frowning shadow of the same dark barrier that had inspired Bowie to write Heroes, and which would fall less than five years later, there's quite a sense of impending doom and oppression about much of this album. A lot of that is the pressures of addictions, work, relationships and decisions pulling at the writer, but some of it is no doubt attributable to the realisation that, while Marillion were writing and singing lines like ”I just want to be free” thousands of people behind the Berlin Wall were crying and thinking the same thing in a very real way. Of course Marillion didn't contribute in any way to the fall of that iconic, hated wall, but it must nevertheless have been gratifying to know that in less than half a decade, and as they set out to write an album that would return them to the dark prog of Script, the constant presence during these recording sessions would be no more, and Germany would be one nation, free and undivided, perhaps a metaphor for the spiritual healing undergone by Fish on this album. Commercially, they would never have another successful album. After the initial euphoria of two hit singles and a number one album, Fish would begin to grow concerned about the direction the band was going in, and the rising expense of tours, and would eventually leave after the next album, bringing to a close one chapter in the life of Marillion, and opening another, quite different one. But this album always would, and always will, have a special and treasured place in the hearts of all Marillion fans. It was the point at which the band reached their creative peak, and there would never be another album like it. Years later, Fish, now a solo artist, would return to record and perform the entire thing live, in his “Return to Childhood” tour. That's the power of this extraordinary album. Rating: (duh) 10/10 __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018