FISH - Songs From The Mirror (1993)

 Covers albums I find a bit hard to characterize.  I love covers... but mostly only in a live setting, with a few exceptions.  Live, a cover is a great way to energize a crowd and to hear an old favorite in a new way.  In the studio with a professional release, we want a clear reason to record a song that's already been recorded.  

I do of course speak from the perspective of someone who grew up in an era in which artists take more ownership of their songs; the perspective is a little different if you're in a world where there's a canon of songs that everyone takes a crack at.  If you're, say, a folk or a blues musician, or listening to show tunes, or "Great American Songbook" stuff, whatever.  Rock and roll, though, where so much of a song's identity is about the particular performance, instrumentation, and production from the guys who came up with it, the expectation is more that a cover needs to put a new spin on a song and answer the question "why not just listen to the original?"

There's one other way in which a covers album might click - if it's a bunch of good songs that play to the strengths of (a) good performer(s) so it's just nice to listen to.  Therein lies the reason that I have doubts about the whole premise of a Fish covers record.  Do I listen to a Fish record because of his technical skills as a singer?  I do not.  Do I imagine that Fish's most compelling trait as an artist - his powerful delivery of his own expertly crafted and passion-drenched lyrics - will exist the same way with other peoples' songs?  I do not.  I guess I should also freely admit that I come in for better or for worse basically knowing none of these songs, except for the one that I really only know because Rush also covered it.  Do I want to listen to a random assortment of songs from before my time, from artists to whom I don't listen regularly?  Is that the reason I listen to Fish?  It is not.

No wonder then that I neglected Songs From The Mirror for so long.  Now, though, I'm doing a project.  I'll at least try to say something about each track.  There's like seven different releases of this thing with each having a different tracklist both in terms of the order and in terms of what was included and excluded.  We will go with the "final" consolidated record on Apple Music and leave it at that.

Track One:  "Question" [The Moody Blues]

Pretty natural fit here.  Early prog with nicely strummed guitars and a few different sections, full of pop-rock philosophy.  Absolutely sounds like the sort of thing Fish himself would write.  Even if only the rocked out section that starts and ends the song really grabs me, it's a good start to the record.

Track Two:  "Boston Tea Party" [The Sensational Alex Harvey Band]

Fish had been performing TSAHB's "The Faith Healer" since the start of his solo career - more on that in a few records, obviously - and he obviously had an affinity for these guys.  Maybe it's a Scottish thing.  I don't like the spoken word stuff and the "ah ah ah ah" breathing.  Otherwise it's a goofy off-kilter song that sounds fine.  I don't actually have any idea what observation it is attempting to make about the American experience from an outsider's perspective, but, uh, presumably it's something.

Track Three:  "Fearless" [Pink Floyd]

Well, I know Floyd, but only the three records that everyone knows.  Have heard Meddle a few times and absorbed basically none of it, so this is all new to me.  More spoken word shit; I don't know if it's from the original.  Once we get into the song, very nice groove that features that kind of minor key piano chord at the end of each bar that I just eat up.   That's paired with a clever vocal line that stays restrained, and goes mellow on the word "fearless" while letting the guitars do the talking.  Without knowing anything about the song "should" sound, I do think that Fish sounds very good here.  And hey, there's even a reference to "the hill!"  First major use of the female backing vocals, which are nicely placed.  Overall, so far on the first three tracks, Fish and company have shown a few different faces and mostly been on point.

  

Track Four:  "Apeman" [The Kinks]

Okay, what the fuck is this bullshit?  I thought as a proper rockist I'm supposed to like the Kinks?  Well, based on my incredibly cursory knowledge of what the Kinks sound like, I will allow for the possibility that maybe they were able to pull off that particular sense of irreverence needed to make a song like this work.  (I have no intention of finding out.)  What I can tell you is how unpleasant I find the Songs From The Mirror version to listen to.  I do not want to hear Fish doing a faux generic "island" voice and yammering about eating bananas all day.  Just, no.  For me, one of those "what sane person would record this?" moments.

   

Track Five:  "Hold Your Head Up" [Argent]

"Hold Your Head Up" was the confusingly marketed (I'm not even going to get into it) single from SFTM.  Easy to see why - it's less than four minutes, not from a hugely overexposed artist, and has a nice memorable and affirming pop chorus.  I enjoy this fine, especially the dueling vocals on the chorus.  (The tune is pretty much all chorus.)

Track Six: "I Know What I Like" [Genesis]

Slightly different situation than "Apeman" in that I sort of get why someone might like this.  I do not, at all.  Here it's just that I want this particular style of cheesy bright sing-songy chorus out of my prog.  I debated whether to call it "60s style" or "80s style," especially later realizing that the song itself is from the early '70s whereas Fish is deliberately trying to do the thing of singing a Peter Gabrel song in a totally different way than Gabriel would.  Anyway, chorus is irritating to me.  The "dum dum dum" part in the first verse is painful.  The fake scatting is nails on  chalkboard level.  I detest the backup vocaIs repeating the lines as "I like what he knows!"  I actually pretty much hate this.

Track Seven:  "Solo" [Sandy Denny]

Maybe a little more on point, here's a meditation on the joys of facing the world alone.  I think I can guess why this lyric appealed growing up to a guy who'd go on to publically break up with his band and get divorced however many times he did!  Too bad the song itself is so dreary.

Track Eight:  "Jeepster" [T. Rex]

I kind of wanted to just say "what the fuck is a Jeepster?" and have that be my sole comment.  But it turns out the internet is already full of pages sorta-explaining T. Rex's odd metaphor, so I can't do that.  

I'm not a big fan of Fish's big dumb rock side, which we haven't really seen much of yet at this point in his career.  [Shrug.]  "Jeepster" is pretty catchy.  It's high energy after the last few.  It doesn't overstay its welcome.  It's... fine.

Track Nine:  "Time And A Word" [Yes]

Something about the overwrought and banal sounding TAAW just screams to me that the original version is probably better.  This performance has that sound of a good song whose singer can't quite pull off the thing he's attempting.

Track Ten:  "The Seeker" [The Who]

On first listen I thought that Fish did a serviceable version.  I guess I still think so.  But as much as he loves the Who - and he's mentioned frequently how big an influence they were on his idea of what rock and roll should sound like - even a louder cover with smoother production just won't capture the deceptive perfect control of barely hinged energy that lurks in most of the Who's best work.  I enjoy listening to Fish singing "The Seeker."  I can't make a very strong case for the Songs From The Mirror version's existence.

Track Eleven:  "Five Years" [David Bowie]

Whatever it means to "sound like a Fish song," "Five Years" is the first song on (any version of) the record since probably the Moody Blues song that sounds like a Fish song to me.  That was a prog epic and this is a slow rock ballad that builds to an explosion of emotion.  Both of those modes are very good fits for him.

Track Twelve:  "Caledonia" [Dougie MacLean]

Especially since Marillion used to cover "Margaret," I spent much of SFTM wondering why if he wanted to change things up Fish didn't throw in some obscure Scottish folk songs.  Well, the "current" version of SFTM ends with a folk song that he recorded for a tribute record or something.  And the song is far from obscure, having been a pretty big hit in its original form and inspiring numerous covers, sometimes being called "Scotland's unofficial national anthem."  (This is according to my internet searching.  I of course hadn't heard it before.)  Still, I like this melancholy letter to a homeland dressed up in the trappings of a love song.  I was inspired to give the original a few spins too, which made me further appreciate Fish's take on it with its bigger vocal melody line.  A great cover is both a singular take on a song and stands on its own as great on its own, introducing the listener to maybe something s/he doesn't know and revitalizing it together.  "Caledonia" is a great cover.  So, yep, the song that most completely realizes the promise of Songs From The Mirror is the one that wasn't originally even part of the record.

Final thoughts:

I don't need to rehash how things wouldn't be the same withot Mickey on keys, but should acknowledge the first record in which Foss Patterson was fully integrated as part of the band.  He, or at least the keyboard parts he plays, will go on to be one of the best things about quite a few Fish releases over the following decade and a half.

I mentioned above that through maybe the first three songs, listening to SFTM in order, I can kind of see something taking shape as a nice variety show look at the music of the early '70s, all tied together by the fact that they're all sung by Fish.  Maybe it's the weaker tracks afterwords, but by about track seven or eight, any of that affection and appeal is gone, and the record is sounding like a random batch of songs with no rhyme or reason, coming from all over the place.

There are enough good performances that I can't hate on Songs From The Mirror writ large.  However, it does nothing to dispel the skepticism I came in with about the idea of a Fish covers album.  Now that it's thirty years later and the business decisions are all in the past, as a listener I can't treat "he needed to release something" as a reason for the thing existing.  The record isn't actually bad, but other than "Caledonia," it is a poster child for the term "inessential."

Favorite track:  "Caledonia"

Runner up:  "Question"

Least favorite:  "Apeman"

Rating:  2.5/5

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)  Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

4)  Internal Exile

5)  Fugazi

6)  Market Square Heroes (single)

7)  Script For A Jester’s Tear

8)  Songs From The Mirror

We continue with Suits whenever I get around to it!