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Rating: For some, it represents the final chapter and masterpiece, for others just the death before a better rebirth: in any case, "Clutching At Straws", from 1987, marks a point of no return. Compared to the previous three albums, it’s a bit different, there’s less prog, while still staying within the confines of 70s rock. But a slight change from a musical point of view is not always a sign of something negative. "Clutching At Straws" is the Marillion album that more than any other manages to evoke emotions, with its subtle veil of melancholy and sadness in which it is wrapped.
The title already explains the main theme addressed by Fish: "Clutching At Straws" literally means grabbing at straws, like when making a draw, deciding the fate of a certain event; at the same time it’s an English idiom meaning clutching at straws. It is thus a metaphor with two meanings on life: how it can be influenced by our right or wrong choice, but also by luck, and how we desperately try to hold onto something even when all is lost.
We start with a fantastic atmosphere in "Hotel Hobbies", where Steve Rothery plays one of the most beautiful guitar solos in Marillion's history. Without interruption comes the most passionate track of the album, "Warm Wet Circles". What more poetic way can there be to describe a kiss on the cheek? A warm wet circle... (Like a mother’s kiss on your first broken heart / A warm wet circle). Listening to the perfect combination of instruments, one cannot help but feel some emotion stirred by this magnificent piece. Again directly connected we find "That Time Of The Night (The short straw)", with a nice bass by Pete Trewavas at the beginning and then that goosebump-inducing keyboard riff. In this listening too, emotions are vibrant. The theme of bad luck returns, when you draw the short straw and things seem to go wrong. Then the usual almost shouted finale by Fish and the reprise of "Warm Wet Circles", sung by the talented backup singer Tessa Niles. "Going Under" is a short arpeggiated interlude, with a very sad atmosphere. "Just For The Record" changes tone and has a chorus truly worthy of note. "White Russian" is a very energetic track and is pleasing from the first listen, opposing neo-Nazism and the lyrics were inspired by a visit of Fish to the Jewish district of Vienna. "Incommunicado", with its catchy rhythm, has a synthesizer that is simply poetry from beginning to end and it also enjoyed moderate commercial success as a single.
The song "Torch Song" has a nice atmosphere and tells the story of Torch, a mythical figure invented by Fish, a sort of guardian angel, destroyer demon, and savior deity of the world. The beautiful piano introduces an absolutely fantastic track, "Slainthe Mhath", with a nice chord change and the echo-effect guitar that seems to speak. Slainthe Mhath in ancient Scottish means “good fortune” and it is dedicated to all those workers who didn’t have a good time in the UK in the 80s (They promised us miracles / But the whistle still blows). "Sugar Mice" is a very sad song that speaks of the melancholic reality of many fathers who do not see their children after divorce, whose pain and guilt "melt them like sugar mice in the rain": Blame it on me, blame it on me / We’re just sugar mice in the rain. In the concluding "The Last Straw" that atmosphere described above persists, with a nice riff and the finale that quotes the famous English proverb “Drowning men will grasp at straws”: I’m still drowning / we’re clutching at straws.
Paradoxically, the finale is called “Happy Ending”. The 1998 CD version with an extra CD contains truly interesting material. There’s an alternative version for the single "Incommunicado" and its B-side with the song "Tux On", a real gem, which tells how lucky someone is born with a silver spoon, or in this case with a Tux, an elegant suit. The extended version of "Going Under" is beautiful, perhaps even better than the one on the album. And then there are the unreleased: "Beaujolais Day", "Story From A Thin Wall", "Shadows On The Barley", "Sunset Hill", "Tic-Tac-Toe", "Voice In The Crowd", and "Exile In Princes Street" are all wonderful songs. One wonders why they weren’t published at the time because a nice double LP was really needed. Here and there you can hear some pieces that will end up in Fish's first solo album. Finally, there is a demo of "White Russian" and the first version of "Sugar Mice", entitled "Sugar Mice In The Rain".
A few words should also be said about the cover: we are faced with a darker artwork compared to previous ones, half photograph and half drawing. There are Marillion in a bar with figures of famous people (John Lennon and Marlon Brando appear on the back, for example) linked to the complex themes of the LP conceived by Fish. In the foreground is the figure in a coat and painted face of Torch, which ensures the continuity of the concept work started in the previous three sleeves (the jester’s hat indeed peeks out of the pocket). It is a good work by the artist Mark Wilkinson, but perhaps a bit less exciting than the previous ones. During the discussion and realization of the album cover, Fish's attitude is strangely detached and he leaves the band to take care of it. In return, he overwhelms the band with words for the songs, and the first tensions arise because the rest of the band would like more space for the instrumental parts. During the mixing phase of the album, the first real disagreements start within the band. Fish is accused of having a too critical attitude in the recording studios: he even asks Steve Rothery to re-record a guitar solo, deemed not up to par. The argument in the studio is violent, Fish throws a whiskey bottle that narrowly misses the guitarist, who sends everyone to hell, slamming the door behind him. The whole band is shocked, so much so that the bassist Pete Trewavas has a bad accident with his car on the way home. Meanwhile, Fish gets engaged and decides to start a family. He decides to ask for loans for a mortgage and asks manager John Arnison if the band’s income allows him. He assures the singer that everything is in order, but it will not be so. Fish is furious and comes to despise the band manager. He manages to convince the band that it's time to get rid of him, but John Arnison manages to take the Marillion’s side. Fish, annoyed, thinks this is the straw that breaks the camel's back and finally leaves Marillion. From here on Marillion will continue with the very talented singer Steve Hogarth, turning towards a different rock style, while Fish will start a dazzling solo career. We are left only with the regret for the end of a myth and for the magic of an era that is no longer there, with this "Clutching at Straws": defining it just a flash of genius would be reductive.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Hotel Hobbies (03:35)
(Derek Dick, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors
Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar
Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on the mirror
The short straw took its bow
The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette
Marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat
Lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed
And a familiar craving is crawling in his head
And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen
Introducing characters to memories like old friends
Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines
A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour
Do you cry in happy hour
Do you hide in happy hour
The pilgrimage to happy hour
New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye
Jostling for attention
As the sunlight flares
Through a curtains tear
Shuffling its beams as if in nervous anticipation of another day
02 Warm Wet Circles (04:25)
On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jewelers shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She's staring at the brochures at the holidays
Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away the warm wet circles
The warm wet circles
I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths
A classrooms shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes;
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts and token proclamations,
Rolled from stolen lipsticks across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience
With her giggling jealous confidantes,
She faithfully traces his name
With quick bitten fingernails
Through the tears of condensation
That'll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus
Kiss adolescence goodbye
In a warm wet circle
Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart,
A warm wet circle
Like a bullit hole in central park,
A warm wet circle
And I'll always surrender to the warm wet circles
She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the fidra lighthouse
Giving it all away before it's too late
She'll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame
She'll take a mother�s kiss on her first broken heart
A warm wet circle,
She'll realise that she played her part in a warm wet circle
05 Just for the Record (03:09)
(Fish, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
Many's the time I've been thinking about changing my ways
But when it gets right down to it it's the same drunken haze
I'm serving a sentence to write life's sentences
It's only when I'm out of it I make sense of this
Just for the record I'm gonna put it down, down
Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around
Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym
Just a barroom dancer on my final fling
Just another writer paying off my dues
Just finding inspiration well that's my excuse
Just for the record I'm gonna put it down, down
Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around
Just another empty gesture with an empty glass
Just another comic actor behind a tragic mask
But I've got no discipline got no self control
Just a little less painful here when my back's against the wall
It's too late, I found, it's too far, I'm in two minds
Both of them are out of it at the bar
When you say I got a problem that's a certainty
But I can put it all right down to eccentricity
It's just for the record it's just a passing phase
Just for the record I can stop any day
07 Incommunicado (05:16)
(Fish, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
I'd be really pleased to meet you if I could remember your name
But I got problems of the memory ever since I got a winner in the fame game
I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin' incommunicado
And I don't give a damn for the Fleet Street afficionados
But I don't want to be the backpage interview
I don't want launderette anonymity
I want my handprints in the concrete on Sunset Boulevard
A dummy in Tussauds you'll see
Incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado
I'm a Marquee veteran, a multi-media bonafide celebrity
I've got an allergy to Perrier, daylight and responsibility
I'm a rootin-tootin cowboy, the Peter Pan, the street credibility
Always taking the point with the dawn patrol fraternity
Sometimes it seems like I've been here before when I hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it Deja Vu I just put my faith in destiny -- it's the way that I choose
But I don't want to be a tin can tied to the bumper of a wedding limousine
Or currently residing in the where are they now file a toupet on the cabaret scene
I want to do adverts for American Express cards talk shows on prime time TV
A villa in France, my own cocktail bar and that's where you're gonna find me
Incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado
Sometimes it seems like I've been here before when I hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it Deja Vu I just put my faith in destiny -- it's the way that I choose
Incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado
It's the only way
Incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado, incommunicado
08 Torch Song (04:05)
(Fish, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now
Something about roman candles fizzing out, shine a little light on me now
Found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation, alcohol can thrill me now
It's getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
I just burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now, yeah
Doctor says my liver looks like leaving with my lover, need another 'time out' now
Like any sort of hero turning down to zero still standing out in any crowd
Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams, sweating out a happy hour
Where you're hiding 29 you know it ain't a crime to burn a little brighter now
Burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now
Dr. Finlay: "And my advice is if you maintain this lifestyle you won't reach 30"
Torch: "Christ -- it's a romantic way to go really, it's part of the heritage, it's your round i'n'it?
We burn a little brighter now, yeah
Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now
It was something about roman candles fizzing out, shine a little light on me now
Found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation, alcohol thrill me now
Getting late in the game to show any pride or shame burn a little brighter now
We burn a little brighter now, yeah
Burn a little brighter now, we burn a little brighter now
09 Slàinte Mhath (04:44)
(Fish, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
A hand held over a candle in angst fuelled bravado
A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm
Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu
And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far
Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
You scrawl out your poems across a beermat or two
And when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and you to tell them the story so far
This is the story so far
And you listen with a tear in you eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is Slàinte Mhath
Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie
Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns
Holding their own last orders commanding attention
We sit here and listen to all of the story so far
This is the story so far
Take it away
Take it away
Take it away
Take me away
Take me away
Take me away
Take me away
Take me away
From the dream on the barbed wire at Flanders and Bilston Glen
From a Clydeside that rusts from the tears of its broken men
From the realisation that all we've been left behind
Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line
Waiting on the whistle to blow
We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow
They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows
Broken promises but the whistle still blows
Waiting on the wistle to blow
We stand here waiting on the wistle to blow
10 Sugar Mice (05:46)
I was flicking through the channels on the TV,
On a Sunday in Milwaukee in the rain.
Trying to piece together conversations,
trying to find out where to lay the blame.
But when it comes right down to it,
there's no use trying to pretend.
For when it gets right down to it,
there's no one here that's left to blame.
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me,
We're just sugar mice in the rain.
I heard Sinatra calling me down through the floorboards,
where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme,
to the jukebox crying in the corner,
while the waitress is counting out the time.
For when it comes right down to it,
there's no use trying to pretend.
For when it gets right down to it,
there's no one really left to blame.
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me,
We're just sugar mice in the rain.
I know what I feel, I know what I want,
I know what I am, daddy took a rain check.
Cos I know what I want, know what I feel and I know what I need,
daddy took a rain check, your daddy took a rain check.
Ain't no one in here that's left to blame but me,
blame it on me, blame it on me.
Well the toughest thing that I ever did,
was talk to the kids on the 'phone.
When I heard them asking questions,
I knew that you were all alone.
Can't you understand that the government left me out of work.
I just couldn't stand the looks on the faces saying what a jerk.
So if you want my address it's number one at the end of the bar
Where I sit with the broken angels,
clutching at straws and nursing our scars.
Blame it on me, blame it on me.
Sugar mice in the rain,
Your daddy took a rain check
Your daddy took a rain check
11 The Last Straw (05:58)
(Fish, Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley)
Hotel hobbies padding dawn's hollow corridors
A typewriter cackles out a stream of memories
Drying out a conscience, evicting a nightmare
Opening the doors for the dreams to come home
We live our lives in private shells
Ignore our senses and fool ourselves
To thinking that out there that someone else cares
Someone to answer all our prayers, all our prayers...
Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible
Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn't quite that near
We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made-up faces and our PR smiles
And when the angel comes down, down to deliver us
We'll find out that after all, we're only men of straw
But everything is still the same
Passing the time and passing the blame
We carry on in the same old way
We'll find out we left it too late one day
to say what we meant to say
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water
Those problems seem to arise the ones you never really thought of
The feeling you get is similar to something like drowning
Out of your mind, you're out of your depth, you should have taken soundings
Clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws
And if you ever come across us don't give us your sympathy
You can buy us a drink and just shake our hands
And you'll recognise by the reflection in our eyes that deep down inside we're all one and the same
We're clutching at straws
We're still drowning
Clutching at straws
We're still drowning, yeah Clutching at straws
I'm still drowning
We're clutching at straws
I'm still drowning
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