FISH - Weltschmerz (2020)

So here we are once more, for the last time.  With much fanfare, Fish announced that Weltschmerz would be his last record, and finally released it in 2020 after doing a bunch of oldies tours, releasing renditions of a few of the songs on an EP (A Parley With Angels), getting married, having some major health problems, losing his dad, starting to get the wheels in motion of the next phase of his life, and so on.  Unsurprisingly, the result was big, befitting a dramatic final statement.  A "double album" (released physically as a two-CD set), multiple eight-plus minute songs.  I don't think I'm allowed to complain about it being a lot, because it's supposed to be a lot.

And just when I thought I'd pinned down his band, we now are back to two guitarists, with both John Mitchell and Robin Boult taking playing and writing duties, and various drummers swapping in and out, and Liam Holmes now tagging in to do piano and keys.  Although missing one of Fish's regular vocal collaborators, he did manage to rope in Doris Brendel, a fairly incredible performer in her own right,* into doing backup vocals with his band for a solid five years or so.  Stevie V. is on bass, of course, and Calum is producing, so at least there's some stability.

Part One, Track One:  "Grace Of God"

I'm going with the definite-article-free title since that's what's on the official site.  We get a sense of how cheerful the mood is going to be with a poetic description of slowly dying in a hospital, so, yeah.  This one took some time to grow on me; I'm appreciating the way the typically first-track slow first half manages to feel in place with its character, the pulsating synth part matching the rhythm of medical equipment, without feeling too inert.  Musically as the character brushes in and out of contact with the living the song enters its second half.  Here I don't really like Fish's overemphasis of certain lyrics ("she got BORED"), but that's a minor quibble.  The latter half of GOG is actually quite lively and full of power, starting with a direct acoustic guitar and throwing on layers of synth and instrumentation.  Finally the catchy bits start coming, culminating in the creepily rocking "vampires in the shadows" refrain provided mostly by Doris.  Ah, you prog people, always gotta making us earn our hooks.

By the way, though...

Guilty eyes and steady fingers lay the strands of shredded leaves
In a bed of bleached white paper, a moist tongue seals his fate
He rolls up his habit's rations
Stacking up the coffin nails

Is the song just a big old anti-smoking PSA?

Part One, Track Two:  "Man With A Stick"

Pretty clever conceit here, as we start with an old man and a stick to paint a few vignettes about a person's relationship with sticks at different stages of life.  And the percussion certainly fits the theme.  Of course Fish goes dark with the idea, lots of sanctioned child abuse and fascism, on the way to the old man who's "lost all you loved, withered and vulnerable."  So, the usual cheery stuff.  Song covers a lot of ground, feeling suitably big.  Doesn't scream "single," though, despite having been the lead track of the pre-release material (maybe just because it was finished first)?  For my money the best hook here is actually the keyboard part that first comes in at about 2 min... although beware of live versions where it drowns out everything else.

Part One, Track Three:  "Walking On Eggshells"

There're a couple of tracks on Weltschmerz that for one reason or another didn't really click until this most recent listen, coming back to them to write up these posts.  WOE is one of two prime examples.  I had never been able to resonate with the tune before, and now I wonder why not.  The lively strummed riff (very reminiscent of "Feast Of Consequences," the song and the record) and very tasteful electronics leading to an answering counterpoint come together into an arresting musical idea that can and does sustain a song, while Fish's poetics take us through another story of a dissolved marriage.  Except, wait.  Here it's from both perspectives rather than being explicitly about his own life, so that's different.  And then this call emerges with the repeating motif of "s/he's always there for you," delivered with such conviction by Fish and Doris that it's a triumphant moment.  We seem to be moving towards a rare happy ending.  Is it, though?  The song continues:

So here they are again, confusing dark emotions

Mesmerising eyes, the dancing conversations

Here I go again writing my lines. so here I go again writing my lines

Where a word trips out of place, a careless detonation
Left here once again in the wreckage, digging out the dream

So, false triumph, as they characters continue to tiptoe around the issues they refuse to commit to confronting?  Yet, they're still always there for each other; the commitment means something, right?  I don't know quite how I'm supposed to feel at the end - loving the ambiguity.

Part One, Track Four:  "This Party's Over"

In the midst of prog, never underestimate the power of a four-minute pop song.  Fish goes clear and direct, and I'm here for that too.  For the pop-leaning among us, 'Party" features a chorus that just keeps giving, accented by some vaguely Celtic pipe parts.  For the writing fans, there're a lot of words here, but I'm mostly here for the way Fish can make "I wanna turn my life around" into such an expression of satisfaction.  Here's to the joy of keeping one's own company.

Part One, Track Five:  "Rose Of Damascus"

"Rose Of Damascus" could have and maybe "should" have been a masterpiece epic.  A fifteen-minute track that aspires to the level of "High Wood!"  A multi-part story about a journey, pure third-person story about a teen refugee!  I was excited to hear it.  I like a lot of the song.  Taken as a whole... I consider it., dare I say, a bit of a slog. 

I can pinpoint the exact moment in which ROD loses me.  Not the intro, although that's a bit overlong; at least we're setting the mood and the presumably Syrian setting.  Another quality guitar riff takes the song into the "the spell of a Friday night" section, a great piece of music that conveys who this character is - "freedom" at this point to her means the city, a chance to live as a kid.  The lyrics efficiently portray the protagonist's two identities in the way she'll button or unbutton her blouse depending on which face she's wearing at the moment.

Around six minutes in, I start to realize that I'm a little tired of the riff.  I'm not tuning out the song yet, though, I'm still with it.  We then shift to a slow part - Fish has been saving his spoken-word stuff for this track**, and the strings in the background add an appropriate sense of apocalypse to his description of the outside war abruptly reaching - and wiping out - the character's hometown.  Okay, pretty cool, albeit a little jarring and not neatly fitting musically with what's come before.  I'm still engaged, for the most part.  Then at 8:40 the opening riff returns as the character wanders... and wanders... as does the song.  it's a lot of time just to finally get back to the titular rose that'll give the rest of her life a purpose and a destiny.  Conceptually, I like the idea, but I'm now very tired, and actually a little bored.

We're still not done, although the rest is all spoken word.  Fish pants a scene pretty well:

The windscreen wipers battle futilely against the swirling dust storms, their soothing rhythm and the movement of the bus providing some temporary reassurance, lulling her into an uneasy sleep.

Whilst also seeming like he's rushing to the ending a little: 

The passage was paid for in greedy exchanges with callous strangers full of promises and peddling hope, whose cold lecherous eyes followed her.

Um, that sounds exciting.  Maybe that shoulda been detailed in the song, instead of spending four minutes on the same riff earlier?  But honestly, by this point I'm mostly glad that "Rose" is almost over.  The closing few minutes are a good section, and I like the ambiguous ending.  

All in all, "Rose Of Damascus" is going to have to settle for being one of those prog pieces that has a bunch of good parts and some good ideas without being able to put them together into a truly great song.

Part Two, Track One:  "Garden Of Remembrance"  

Okay, the second half of the Weltschmerz project will soon reveal itself as a concerted effort just to rip the listener's fucking heart out and leave them bleeding.  If you want to make someone miserable, a dementia song is a reasonable way to do it.  GOR was actually the other big slow grower that I mentioned earlier, one that I never particularly liked until this re-listen.  Definitely not a majority opinion.  Those who love the song tend to say that they burst into tears the first time they heard it or some such thing.  The concept of a "single" is nebulous in the era of YouTube and streaming, but my impression is that of the promoted songs from Weltschmerz, "Garden" ended up becoming the "hit" in terms of it doing well on algorithms, getting high listen/view counts, and generally bringing Fish's music to people's attention.

I attribute my initial distance to two things.  One is that it's a slow, soft song that doesn't have a whole lot of dynamics, sticking with a repetitive piano part and a straightforward vocal melody for most of its length and adding maybe a guitar and some backup vocals when it really wants to get cooking.  On some level I also wonder whether I unconsciously didn't want to engage, because, well, I don't like dementia stories; there's enough of that in real life.  It's such an ugly disease.  The only thing scarier than slow death from physical decay is slow death from mental decay until someone is gone while still there.  But anyway, I did make a conscious effort to give "Garden" a chance to wash over me, and I'm glad I did.  I totally view the minimalism in the longing tone as a strength now.  I love the song for being so uncompromising, providing moments of beauty without any illusion that they mean more than that.

Growing together, now forever apart

With a love so embracing, held in their hearts

But nothing between them, no memories shared

No recognition in his soft, pale green eyes

In the end, "they're still here," and one is unsure whether to even try to take any comfort in that.

The art of the weepy piano ballad has I guess been a career-long effort.  Where the likes of "Blind To The Beautiful" are fine but fall a little short for me, "Garden Of Remembrance" is master class.

Part Two, Track Two:  "C Song (The Trondheim Waltz)"

After that, what could be more uplifting than a song about that other progressive disease mostly but not exclusively associated with aging?  Thing is, "C Song" actually is uplifting.  Once again finding success with a killer to the point melody, the verses mix poetry with straightforward statements to perfectly portray a deliberate, willful attempt to savor a rapidly diminishing life. 

I’ll face the inevitable ending
And the fact there’ll be no curtain call
I hope they write up my performance
And the reviews are favorable

Until then I will dance the fandango
With a smile as big as the moon
Worship the arrival of tomorrows
And whistle an uplifting tune

And what could be more life affirming than the instantly memorable "I won't let you bring me down" chorus?  Whenever he performs the song or plays it on a video stream Fish is encouraging people to sing along by the time we get to the final chorus, and how could you not?  I know how rare it is in a musician's life to hit that magic spot of packing such depths into something so simple; this is one of those.***  Absolutely gorgeous song.

Part Two, Track Three:  "Little Man, What Now?"

The cheer continues with one about being tired of life.  Unfortunately, there remains one ten-plus minute chunk of the record that shows no sign of clicking for me.  I have tried.  I am not feeling "Little Man."  The song is lugubrious to the point of dullness.  I can't stand the swell of the saxes that dominate the soundscape.  It's not like I hate every second of the tune or anything, more that I have never successfully been able to pay attention all the way through, with absolutely no sign that this will ever change.  I don't get it.

Part Two, Track Four:  "Waverly Steps (End Of The Line)"

I will try not to write an essay about one track here.  Even more so than "Rose Of Damascus," "Waverly Steps" is not only very long, but within its time packs a ridiculous amount of narrative.  It helps that I don't know if I'd call the song especially proggy, leaning heavily on a verse-chorus structure that's basically the same two melodies over and over (three if you count the intro/outro); there're just lots of verses.  Musically speaking, both pieces are captivating, easily holding up to repetition; that horn part in particular gives what I'm calling the end of the chorus some extra punch every time it hits.  The song may be about a life wasted, but listening to it is a lively, rousing experience.  "It was just about being alive" indeed.

As far as that narrative, "Waverly Steps" tells the story of a life; huge surprise, it doesn't go well.  I'm assured that the black dog definitely represents depression - both Fish himself and everyone commenting on the song seemed to recognize that immediately, call me slow.  So "Waverly Steps" emerges as a futile series of attempts to prevail over crippling mental illness.  There is a riches-to-rags story here (and it starts and ends on the steps in a literal or metaphorical wasteland of levelled hills and factories, so there's no attempt to disguise where it's going), but the money seems to matter less than the fact that the character never shook the dog for long, either now or then.

The turns of phrase are just brilliant, both in the choices of words and in how they roll off its amazing singer's tongue.  Limiting myself to just two highlights:

- The way the second chorus inverts the line "Out of dreams are born everything" from the first chorus.  Now our hero is a success story, yet:

Sometimes dreams are not everything

Sometimes hope’s out of sight
Held in the realm of the helpless

In the jaws of the dog in the night

- This description of a marriage gone bad and its effect on the character, with special mention to the very clever dog-related turns of phrase once the legal battles come into play:

The black dog lay between them every evening
In the silence there were no words that could be said
The bonuses were missing, the cheques had disappeared
There was no fight left within him, it was time to take his leave
The unborn child was counted as a blessing
The curse of lies a testament of hate
The dogs of war were gathered, the lawyers loosed from chains
To strip him of his dignity and tar him**** with the blame

Fish tells a rather funny story that he was originally trying for some pure fiction - seeing a guy begging on the titular steps by the last step on a rail line and speculating on how he got there - and then just happened to come up with a narrative about a guy who achieves success early in life but it doesn't make him happy, and then he tries to take refuge in what turns out to be a disastrous marriage... he says something like "it wasn't until we were working out a live arrangement that I actually realized what I had written."  Well, I'll forgive him for writing what he knows if it successfully takes me through the wringer like this.

Part Two, Track Five:  "Weltschmerz"

I'm told that the title is a German idiom roughly translating to "world pain."  I'm glad to end with something that seems at first blush a little less depressing than the rest of the second part of the record.  Lyrically I admit that I'm not totally sure what to make of the self-referential narrator proclaiming himself as "back in the game" and ready to "play [his] part" for a revolution.  I mean, that sounds well and good good, but this is the last Fish song, so obviously not back in the game for long.  The narrator seems very pleased with himself for what he's "discerned through [his] wisdom" yet then admits that a lot of his life has been spent lost and confused.  Maybe it makes more sense if you allow for a little self-deprecation, the old man finally figuring things out enough to rejoin the ranks of the young and angry?  

Fish has described the song as a grown up, or maybe just older, version of "Fugazi" (the song).  So it's probably telling of... something or other that "Weltschmerz" ends not with the bridge's rallying cry of "stand up for your world," but continues from there to a final chorus and outro that outline just how fucked that world is, such the the probably-last (recorded in a studio) thing we'll ever hear from Fish is "The forests of fire... the walls in the desert... the rapture is near."  

Here I'm happy to revel in the cool buzzy riff and the mostly Doris-sung hook of the title.  Good song.  I don't always totally get Fish, but he usually writes something I want to listen to anyway.

Final thoughts:

If nothing else, credit this record for forcing me to actually learn the spelling of "weltschmerz."  I'm sure that'll come in handy.

Eighty-six minutes is a lot of music, leading to my decision to designate the record as two parts, since I think it's designed so that it can be experienced in chunks of varying sizes.  At times that amount of volume can't help but feel like a slog.  I don't know what I'd cut, though, other than a few minutes from "Rose Of Damascus."  Weltschmerz has two main types of songs: cool things that mostly but imperfectly work, and absolute gems, with the latter probably predominating.  The second half alone contains three of the best songs in the entire Fish ouvere.  (And, yeah, it also has "Little Man, What Now?", which just isn't for me, although I know it is very much for lots of other people).  The whole agenda here was to go out with a big sweeping "this is who I was, at my best" record.  By that criterion, Weltschmertz is an unqualified success.

Thanks for the music over the years, Fish.  Hopefully I've conveyed how much I've enjoyed discovering it from 2021 to present.

Favorite track:  "C Song (The Trondheim Waltz)"

Runner up:  "Waverly Steps (End Of The Line)"

Least favorite track:  "Little Man, What Now?"

Rating:  4.5/5

 

Definitive final list of records by Fish/Marillion, 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)  Weltschmerz

6)  Internal Exile 

7)  A Feast Of Consequences

8)  Fugazi

9)  Field Of Crows

10)  13th Star

11)  Market Square Heroes (single)

12)  Sunsets On Empire

13)  Script For A Jester’s Tear

14)  Fellini Days

15)  Suits

16)  Songs From The Mirror

We wrap up the project whenever I get around to it!  I will not be dissecting every one of the four hundred seventy-two live records, but I'm thinking about writing a single post profiling two (probably) selected concert albums.  That'll then probably be followed by a couple of gig reviews from my travels to see Fish on the "Road To The Isles" farewell tour!

*Seriously, Doris rules.  Her 2022 acoustic release Star Bright is a very fun project, full of timely and relevant songs that happen to be set in space.  I admit that I'm not as keen on its immediate follow-up, Facade.  But even better than all of that... I did rank Pigs Might Fly, her record with her "main" band (the electric/full-band records are generally billed as Doris Brendel & Lee Dunham) as one of my top ten records of 2023.  I think if anything I underrated it.  Every track (except the opening title track, oddly) is a classic.  Just gem after gem. 

**And only this track.

***As an aside, my wife just assumed that Fish had had cancer or something similar, because she couldn't imagine someone not having been there portraying it with such verisimilitude.

****One thing I don't think anyone's ever mentioned is that when he sings "tar him," it sounds like the name "Tara" (his daughter from his failed marriage).  I really really want to know whether or not that was deliberate.