MARILLION - Clutching At Straws (1987)

Unlike Misplaced Childhood, the frame story dominates a little less in my listening, but it's worth at least acknowledging that there is a clear perspective - Fish's alter ego here is a character called Torch, a writer with a drinking problem and a self-doubt problem.  I can't imagine that it took much poetic license to put himself in that headspace.  But yeah, it's pretty well documented that this is the time that in real life he was basically subsisting on an all-booze-and-coke diet, questioning whether being part of a big rock band was actually something he wanted to do, and rapidly drifting apart from his brothers in the band who'd come up with him.  Hence, we get some depressing navel-gazing shit that doesn't have so much of a narrative arc... just some (warm wet) circling of a drain.  The songs, though... are they good to listen to?  Track by track as usual... 

 

Track One - "Hotel Hobbies"

The intro track.  Apparently intro tracks aren't my thing, because I struggle to find much to say about HH.  I really like the tinkly xylophone-sounding keyboard riff we hear near the beginning and end.  Beyond that, a rather overlong musically inert thing.  Fish's lyrics are a bit histrionic and a bit purple as we're introduced to the phrase "short straw" and the general notion that the protagonist is a writer and a frequent partaker in solitary debauchery.  I guess I like the increasing urgency on the scheme about "hide at happy hour."  

 

The record opening "Warm Wet Circles Trilogy" doesn't particularly need this intro to work, and Marillion frequently do present it live by playing just parts 2 and 3.

 

Track Two - "Warm Wet Circles"

Good showcase for Steve Rothery doing his thing - the song begins with a conversational sort of riff, providing the backbeat to the sort of things a drunk writer might see and imagine while observing people in a small town.  I'm of mixed thoughts about the whole "warm wet circle" phrase just because there's no way to not make it sound dirty, even though the lyric is actually cleverly spinning through various different types of circular things.  And then the band kicks in, the way they do, with Steve continuing to do the thing he does so well, having saved his notes and long runs for when the song actually calls for them.  The song goes on to tell a story about a girl leaving adolescence behind in a manner that she'll regret later, and one of the "warm wet circles" described is definitely her vagina.  *shrug*  Musically, WWC is a very solid piece, and one certainly wants to emote along to the swelling "she'll realize she played her part, in a warm wet circle."  Lyrically, seems a bit distracted - why are we spending so much time fixating on this girl we're never going to see again?  Is this a real story that somehow relates to Torch, or just a story he's writing in his head, and if the latter, why do we care?

 

Track Three - "That Time Of The Night (The Short Straw)"

The opening stanza about the wedding ring really feels like it should be part of "Warm Wet Circles," and some lyrics sheets do put it there.  Then the longer piece transitions into a placid slow guitar solo with Pete pulsating, not in a hurry to get anywhere.  Finally at 1:40 in the song actually starts.  The intro does admittedly have a nice guitar part, but my impatience to get there is usually real.  Now, once TTOTN finally does start in earnest, things take a definite turn.  Mark drops in a hauntingly gorgeous piano line that Steve and Pete gamely amplify with complementary parts.  Fish's singing is outstanding here, showing that he's learned a lot about melody and phrasing; I'd describe it as legitimately beautiful when the narrator is pensive and questioning, and effectively anguished when his thoughts build to a climax.  At this point the thing to do would be to quote favorite lyrics, but here the reason they're favorites is more the conviction with which they're sung rather than the content.

 

Ah, hell, why not?  Just for pure poetry, I really like this stanza:

At that time of the night

When questions rally in an open mind

Summon all your answers with an ice cube chime

Oh, at that time of the night

At that time of the night

Pretend you're off the hook with the telephone
Your confidence wounded in a free fire zone

Oh, at that time of the night

And let's not forget that the comedown after each chorus - the resigned "clutching the short straw" - is quite the hook.  Except that the second chorus doesn't end there: Mark plays what's essentially a fanfare in time with the last two notes and we're instantly in a new section of the song built around that (and Ian going nuts in a tasteful way).  These gentlemen know how to write a song, is my point.  I usually can look past the melodrama of the voices chanting "warm wet circles" just because the trilogy - but honestly, really just this third song here - has earned the right to go big. 

Unlike the last record, not every song flows directly into the next one; here, for example, there's a gap.

 

Track Four:  "Going Under"

A last minute addition not on all versions of the record (in those days the thing to do was apparently to fill up a vinyl and then throw in something extra for those who bought other editions in those days).  I like the vibe and the song doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

Track Five:  "Just For The Record"

Huh, this feels different!  It's a strange jerky pop riff while Torch goes into the happy part of the alcoholic haze and makes promises about cleaning up his life that he clearly will be both unable and unwilling to keep.  I don't know if "Just For The Record" totally works for me - I like the main guitar riffs in every section well enough but there's not a vocal hook and the echoey "down down" is a bit annoying.  I don't know if the song actually fails for me either - I can't deny that Steve and Mark both sound great, or that the '80s-rock energy keeps things entertaining when the song speeds up and slows down so nicely.  An interesting album track.

Thus far Clutching At Straws has only featured one true classic track for me, but individual moments have landed.  Well, the closer of side A and side B are about to kick things into high gear.

 

Track Six:  "White Russian" 

This six and a half minute epic immediately sets the tone coming off the previous track with a somber intro asking "where do we go from here?"  Make no mistake, though, "White Russian" soon reveals itself as an angry raucous rocker with a point.  The point narrowly is about neo-Naziism in Europe (the lyric about the DJ is inspired by a guy Fish met in Austria), and lyrics about swirling antisemitism in the air unfortunately will never not be relevant.  But more broadly the song brilliantly channels about that feeling of coiled energy, wanting to engage in the world and channel our energy into a greater purpose, like the protagonist of Misplaced Childhood did: 

I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, I can't pretend everything's alright

My ideals, my sanity, they seem to be deserting me

But to stand up and fight, I know we have six million reasons 

(The vocal delivery of that last line gives me chills, by the way, especially the way the next verse opens with "they're burning down the synagogues.")

 

Here, the tragedy for Torch is retreating into his alcoholic haze and ultimately "racing the clouds home," but it speaks to anyone who's ever let any form of self-preservation lead them to keep their head down and not engage with the toxicity around them:

We buy fresh bagels from the corner store

Where swastikas are spat from aerosols 

(Again, just absolute chills).  Despite the slightly overlong ending, this is brilliant stuff.

Track Seven:  "Incommunicado" 

After a long intro we get basically "Market Square Heroes" sped up for a surefire pop hit (this was Marillion's second biggest single).  And it works - catchy song.  Here we lose even the veneer of this being about a character who's not a rock star with a conflicted relationship with fame.  I think mostly because of the keyboard and vocal performances, I'll pretty much never turn this off, even if it's not "objectively" quite as masterful as the songs that surround it.

 

Somehow two consecutive records have managed to work in the phrase "rootin' tootin' cowboy."  I can't imagine that many other '80s British prog bands can say that,.

 

Track Eight:  "Torch Song" 

A clever title leads to a cleverly elegant lyric in which we see Torch deliberately trying to build a mythology around his relationship with alcohol, trying to convince himself that it's somehow glamorous or romantic.  Fish makes it abundantly clear that the character isn't the next Kerouac, he's just the next guy who's read a little Kerouac and has a grandiose sense of himself as one of the roman candles (apparently a reference to a commonly referenced line from On The Road).*  The melody line is one of those that's memorable in its simplicity.  The high notes at the end of the intermediate measures ("I read some Kerou-AC, put me on the TRACK," etc.) inbue a wonderful off kilter feel.  I can't imagine a more perfect culmination of this little tune than the one we get in the song:

Getting late in the game to show any pride or shame

Burn a little brighter now 

We burn a little brighter now

 

So, yeah, I like "Torch Song" a lot - bit of an underrated gem coming between "Incommunicado" and "Slàinte Mhath."  I like the use of a restrained instrumental bit in place of a solo.

 

Track Nine:  "Slàinte Mhath"**

 Listening to enough Fish and Marillion live gigs***, it's hard to believe that this wasn't a single.  SM seems like the most classic of classic Marillion.  Perfect music and lyrical synergy - love the riff, and the way everything about the song sounds like a moment in which one toasts the down-on-luck strangers by whom one is surrounded.  I feel like the song is so self-evidently a classic that I don't have anything intelligent to say about it, but, yes, near perfection here.

 

Track Ten:  "Sugar Mice" 

And the hits keep coming.  After a bit of a slow start, Clutching is just delivering banger after banger.  Maybe not the best term to describe a ballad about hitting rock bottom, eh.  Anyway, "Sugar Mice" is passionate and powerful.  We end up haunting the hotel bar on a rainy day on a day when "there's no point trying to pretend."  After another of Steve's most iconic guitar solos, I challenge anyone not to shiver at the vocal delivery when Fish finally cuts loose on "I know what I feel, know what I want, know what I am."  With a reference to straws for the first full delivery of the record's title, this could easily have been the end, but instead we conclude with...

 

Track Eleven:  "The Last Straw/Happy Ending"

Gotta say, this one is a little long.  I like the riff, I like the basic idea of starting with the same line as the first track and recasting Torch as someone whose stories cast judgment on the rest of the world as well as himself (we're all the same), I like the wordplay involving straws here (men of straw, drowning for want of a straw), and I especially really like Ian's drum fills.  And yet... the majority of the song just does not quite fully click for me.  Just needs more of a vocal hook, I think.  Finally around 4:55 we move into an absolutely gorgeous outro that arguably makes the whole song worthwhile, with a lot of raw power in the back and forth between Fish and guest singer Tessa Niles on the "we're clutching at straws"/"we're still drowning" parts.  The idea of pairing Fish with a deep-voiced bluesy female co-vocalist is so obvious in retrospect that it's kind of surprising both that it took so long to try it, and that he didn't lean into it even more over the years.******

 

The "happy ending" is just maniacal laughter - the point apparently being that there isn't one.

 

Non-album:  "Tux On"

"She Chameleon" aside, Marillion had a knack for deciding which songs were best suited for B sides rather than records.  "Tux On" is a reasonable showpiece for Steve, but the chorus is a little weak musically - just a few words over and over.  Lyrically songs about "you" are usually a hard sell for me, as are songs about being a celebrity (also, who other than Alex Lifeson wears a tux as a rock performer).  I just don't think that beyond the idea of a funeral as a final performance that this song really has much going for it.

 

 

Final thoughts 

During my writeup of Misplaced Childhood I talked about how that record as a complete package tells such a story, with those songs in that particular order having the sort of impact only a concept album can give.  That’s one (often amazing) way to make a classic record.  Or… you can just deliver brilliant song after brilliant song, with everything being an unimpeachable all-timer.  Clutching takes that tack.  I don’t know how the universe can handle “That Time Of The Night,” “White Russian,” “Torch Song,” “Slàinte,” and “Sugar Mice” all being on the same record.  And I hear a few of the songs in the next tier, like “Incommunicado,” are pretty good too!  I don’t know how anyone who likes music, has an affinity for alcohol, or has a pulse, could not connect with this on both a musical and an emotional level.

 

Although a few do carry a torch (ha ha) for the earlier records, for most, with “Fish-era” Marillion it basically comes down to whether you’re a Misplaced person or a Clutching person.  No wrong answers with those records.  For what it’s worth, Fish thinks Clutching is the best record this incarnation of Marillion ever made.  I’m with him on that one.

I don’t want to dwell excessively on the Fish/Marillion breakup, but the fact that this was the end of the road does hang over things.  The unhappiness spills over into the music, making for great music but also giving a clear signal for why this relationship wasn’t going to be tenable.  Intellectually, I get that they were never going to hit these heights again as a group.  Intellectually, I recognize that there were both personal and musical differences that become abundantly clear when you listen to Fish’s post-Marillion work and Marillion’s post-Fish work.  Intellectually, I’m well aware that both camps are personally happier people as a direct result of going their separate ways, and that we would not have gotten much more music at all – let alone another three decades plus of output both from Marillion and from Fish – had things not played out this way.  Knowing all these things, coming in to first discover both artists decades later, I still mourn the end of Fish-era Marillion, and wonder all the time what other next-level music they could have given us.

 

 

Favorite track [album only]:  " Slàinte Mhath"

Runner up:  "White Russian"

Least favorite track:  "Hotel Hobbies"

Overall rating:  5/5 [about as good as it gets]

 

Definitive running list of records by Fish/Marillion that I have profiled so far, in order of what I have decided is unambiguously their quality 

1)  Clutching At Straws

2)  Misplaced Childhood

3)  Fugazi

4)  Market Square Heroes (single)

5)  Script For A Jester’s Tear

 

I’m anxious to move on to Fish’s solo career, but first I do feel the need to address the Marillion-shaped elephant in the room.  So, who wants an even longer than usual blog post about my push and pull with Marillion in its current form, as well as brief comments about every single one of the estimated ninety-three studio records they’ve released since 1988?!  I’m not sure that even I want that.  I do think that I’ll have to write it all the same.  That’ll be whenever I get around to it.  And sometime after that, yes, we do eventually continue with Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors, whenever I get around to it!

 

 

 

*From genius.com, unsourced:

"This song also gave its name to the album’s protagonist, and it’s easy to see why. Pouring alcohol on a torch makes it burn a little brighter for a while, better at banishing the darkness the seeks to envelop the torch bearer. But it also makes it burn a lot shorter. Evidently, Fish found this metaphor very relevant to his life in 1987, so he decided to name his alter-ego after it."

**The phrase is, of course (okay, I admit I hadn't heard it before the song), a popular Gaelic-derived toast.  People give other approximations, but the way I hear it, it's pronounced roughly "slanj m'vah."

***In the case of the latter, unfortunately so - that's a lot of time I'll never have back.****

****Chill, I'm just kidding.*****

*****Yes, really.  Marillion are a good band who have made a lot of good live records that I do not in fact regret listening to.

******Tessa herself is also on Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors