FISH - Fellini Days (2001)

Another new lineup and another new homegrown record label for our man Derek.  Here things are more consistent - most songs written by Fish and guitarist John Wesley, with or without keyboardist John Young, and basically the same musicians on every song.  Stevie Vantsis is fully ensconced now as Fish's (almost) permanent bassist.  We're up to two female backup singers, neither of whom we've seen before or will see again. 

With the title of the record, Fish is talking in his own language again - not only will he be on "Chocolate Frog Records" (see Raingods With Zippos for no explanation at all for the phrase) for the rest of his career, but he names a project after a term he'd been throwing around for years.  On the Raingods expanded edition he introduces a live "Plague Of Ghosts" with a little anti-suicide speech that ends with an admonition that "there are always Fellini days."  What does that mean, exactly?  Days in which strange and whimsical things happen?  Why do you say it like it's an expression that anyone else has ever used?

Track One:  "3D"

In about the least auspicious start possible, Fellini Days opens with the sound of an old-school film projector running and a bunch of sound clips, mostly people talking in Italian.  Presumably clips from Feedrico Fellini's movies?  I have never seen one, and am not particularly interested in having my music call me a philistine and/or make itself incomprehensible because I haven't consumed the right bit of pop culture yet.  Also, I think I'm pretty consistent in prefering to hear newly recorded music rather than constant samples.  Anyway, I'm not going to mention it every time the record throws in a sample, but it's absolutely fucking constant, and I consistently fucking hate it.

Moving on to "3D" the song.  We have verse and chorus to start.  The verse doesn't really have a tune and includes the lyric "the kitten curls in wet anticipation" (ewww).  But it's the chorus that I want to focus on, because it's the audio equivalent of nausea.  One of the female singers' voices overtakes Fish's - the latter is straining a bit too - and delivers this off key high-pitched noise that transforms a tune that I don't like anyway into full-on unlistenability.  It may actually be something about the dissonance between then keyboard and the voices that's so difficult for my ears.  Whatever it is, I find it frankly unpleasant.  I'm uncomfortable listening to it.  

 

The generous spin would be that "3D" is supposed to make me uncomfortable.  The story here seems to be a scared girl on the wrong side of a power dynamic, playing out her inevitable, almost scripted "role" in sexual service (at least that's how I'm interpreting the lyrics).  So maybe the sounds are supposed to make me feel sick.  My response to that argument would be, in short, fuck that bullshit.  I don't listen to music for an unpleasant experience.  There's "good discomfort" - the kind that, say, might come from hitting 'play' on Sunsets On Empire and being greeted with a piece of music that sets an appropriately tense backdrop as Fish menacingly paints a picture about "hiding in a cellar with your family and the fear."  This sure as hell is not that.  It's the bad kind of discomfort that comes from listening something that I really have no desire to ever listen to again.

The superior second half of the piece beginning just before four minutes in throws in more rock guitar and, well, rocks a bit more, culminating in an extended if not amazing guitar solo, before going back to that damn chorus.  After more than nine minutes, "3D" is finally over.  I'm not sure what the rock part has to do with the rest of the song, if we're just going to end up at the same place.  I'm not sure about a lot about this song.  As far as I'm concerned, more or less a complete failure.

Track Two:  "So Fellini"

"So Fellini" stayed in the live set for years because it's such a straight up rock song built on a pretty strong riff.  The song basically does one thing, reasonably well, for four minutes.  About two and a half minutes of it would have been about the right amount.  Then it's time to move on. 

Track Three:  "Tiki 4"

Another good riff, but this one saddled with more non-tune and at times frankly off-key sounding singing.  And this is another seven-plus minute mammoth that doesn't even even have the decency to change up its sound or rhythm at all, until the execrable-sample-filled outro.  I don't understand the lyrics despite having heard Fish explain the inspiration for this one at least twice; I'm just physiologically incapable of giving a shit. 

Wow, has Fellini been rough so far, especially coming off of Raingods.  I need a few mai tais.

Track Four:  "Our Smile"

Okay, look, I have to assume that when the song for which you will always be best known is "Kayleigh," you don't open a song with "I'm sorry, I never meant to..." accidentally.  The callback has to be deliberate, right?  You really want audiences to compare this languid ballad to one of your best pop tunes?  Because it's going to be an unfavorable comparison, and unless you're trying to make me immediately dismissive of "Our Song," it didn't have the desired effect at all.  

 

I've actually warmed to "Our Smile" a little over the listens, although I don't love it.  Musically the minor key down-note that closes the chorus sounds fine.  I really don't like the backing vocals.  I normally wouldn't find much to relate to in an ode to an affair, but I do like the way the singer frames it:

It's so funny
I never thought I'd feel like this again
I'm so scared

Excited terror - for better or for worse, this is like being a kid again!  Of course, Fish's love stories do tend to end a certain way...

Track Five:  "Long Cold Day"

Can't deny it, sometimes it's good to have Fish biting off lyrics with the venom that a breakup song demands*.  With the last few records including more intellectual or adult looks at slowly decaying relationships, "Long Cold Day" is mostly just pissed off.  There's definitely a place for that, emerging into one of the better pure rock-n-roll songs on Fellini Days.  I just like the way the lines flow when he's saying phrases like "I'll accept what I'm told, take what I'm sold."

Track Six:  "Dancing In Fog"

A soundscape shaped by bass and percussion, as previously used to such effect on the likes of "Jungle Ride."  A plaintive melody line finally foregrounds some clever but clear lyrics about the experience of living in a confused sort of loss.  I like this one a lot, and have been surprised on this revisit to see it emerging as my favorite of the record, even with the length and those annoying samples.

 

Lyrical highlights include the way one stanza sets up a "picture" is set up so as to give us this wonderfully hazy image:

I drift through the days that fade into grey

The picture dissolves when you enter the frame
I followed your trail

I followed you fog-dancing

Track Seven:  "Obligatory Ballad"

So, you're tired of all these extra instruments and those backing vocals, huh?  You're speculating that maybe we should get back to basics, huh?  Okay, well, you're going to get your wish.  Strip it down to just Fish by himself with the one lone guitar playing the same thing over and over for five minutes.  Are you not entertained?!

(Note:  I am not entertained.)

Track Eight:  "The Pilgrim's Address"

Oh, joy, another repetitious guitar pattern and stripped down tune.  This concern quickly dispels as it becomes clear that we have some more narrative, this time a backward and forward looking song from an in increasingly cynical soldier's perspective.  At around 1:30 the band joins in in one of those perfect drops, and from there the momentum kinda never stops building as Fish's avatar literally screams out for answers and explanations.  The piece ends up being sort of a fugue, adding one element at a time until the effect is a calculated cacophony.  I really like the way the two-note keyboard figure accentuates what the guitar is doing.  The spoken word intonation of the lyrics a few seconds before the same thing gets sung sells the idea that Fish is echoing an actual letter (I don't think he is, so much as - plot twist! - speaking for those unable to speak for themselves on account of having been killed**).  "The Pilgrim's Address" is also the track in which I notice the drums the most - shout out to Dave Stewart for playing exactly the right amount of notes.

Did I mention that Fellini Days and its song about how the protagonist has "fought through desert storms" was released in mid-2001?  A year later the UK would be fully enmeshed in another storming of the desert and these topics would be on everyone's mind.  It's fun to see Fish with his thumb on the eventual zeitgeist.

Can we give a shout out to a little aside, "I froze in firefights."  Writing, amirite?

Track Nine:  "Clock Moves Sideways"

"Clock Moves Sideways" tries to wring a lot of mileage out of a nice riff.  To be fair, it's a really nice riff.  I want to call it a chromatic set of open minor chords (my music theory is limited enough that this may be total nonsense or simply incorrect), but the effect is a mix of moodiness, menace, and movement.  The vocal melody certainly delivers all of those things too.  My ears are very happy right about now.

What are "Fellini days?"  "Clock Moves Sideways" actually, wonder of wonders, makes good use of the backup vocals, with the female voices perfectly counterpointing the chorus with the intonation "these are Fellini days."  Gorgeous.  But what does it mean?  Doesn't sound whimsical in the slightest.  Are we being ironic?  I get slightly frustrated overall by the fact that the lyrics of CMS are just on the cusp of making sense - it seems to be about setting the stage for someone who may be losing his shit slipping into isolation - but I don't quite feel the conclusion that the song is tumbling towards.  There's a needless invocation of "Fugazi," and a presumably pointed invocation of "Auld Lang Syne," for, uh, reasons.  I like the song overall, and I feel like it's on the cusp of being an absolute classic; just wish I could get it there.

Final thoughts:

Like I sort of alluded to, I wanted this after Raingods.  Textured songs that let Fish lean into his baritone.  Narratives.  Back-and-forth with female singers.  Fellini Days delivers a lot of those things, and I've always kinda.... hated it?  The record is decidedly lesser work, at least to me.  What went wrong?  Maybe it's the crew; perhaps on a musical level I just really like the way Mickey and Tony write songs that these other guys can't match; and let me tell you, at least in the specific role of Fish-backers, Susie Webb and Zoe Nicholas have in common that they sure as hell are no Liz Antwii.  Be it the writing or the playing, I just don't think the songs are there at the level to which I'm accustomed. 

But does Fellini Days actually kinda suck?  This listening has made me appreciate it a bit more.  Really, most of my issues are with "3D" (which just gets worse with every listen) and "Tiki 4."  And that's the majority of the first twenty minutes of the record right there, so how could I not be down on it?  "Obligatory" is boring but not offensive.  This listen has made me appreciate how backloaded Fellini is.  I mean, three of the last four tracks are winners ("Dancing In Fog," "Pilgrim's Address," and "Clock Moves Sideways" - all pretty damn good!), so that's like a third of the record right there.  And "Long Cold Day" and "So Fellini" are solid, "Our Smile" is okay, and that's another third.  Underrated album?  Correctly rated as lesser work from a master?  As a metaphor for something or other, I give you a record full of good ideas struggling to get out from the shadow of a few major mistakes!

They lost the masters so we'll never get a ground-up remaster.  Removing those fucking fucking fucking movie samples could provide a lot of addition through subtraction...

 

Favorite track:  "Dancing In Fog"

Runner up:  "The Pilgrim's Address"

Least favorite track:  "3D"

Rating:  3/5

 

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)  Raingods With Zippos

4)  Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors

5)  Internal Exile

6)  Fugazi

7)  Market Square Heroes (single)

8)  Sunsets On Empire

9)  Script For A Jester’s Tear

10)  Fellini Days

11)  Suits

12)  Songs From The Mirror

 

We continue with Field Of Crows whenever I get around to it!

 

*That and boat metaphors, apparently.  The next few records will prove that Angry Fish loves a boat metaphor.

 

**Although since the address is, uh, addressed to "Mr. President," shouldn't the letter reader be American?