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Rating: Art is the ultimate expression of subjectivity and, consequently, everything an artist produces may or may not be liked depending on perspectives, existential circumstances, and historical moments. Yet, when a work reaches and surpasses the very concept of excellence, then the bow of the audience becomes a due and obligatory gesture. Yes, a bow, there can be no other gesture before this Marillion album, because without a doubt, this is their masterpiece, the second to last with that creator of verbal diamonds known as Fish.
The work in question, however, is only minimally his creation, or rather of his conscious state because, as he would confess multiple times, the textual parthenogenesis of "Misplaced Childhood" happened following an “acid” trip by the former mind of Marillion. But that such eloquence was born from an altered state is, after all, hardly surprising. Not only musical works but also countless literary works owe their dawn to “artificial paradises”; thus, we think of Baudelaire's “Fleur du mal,” or Coleridge's romanticism in “The Rime Of the Ancient Mariner.” Here, Derek William Dick also excels while abusing, and he does so by resorting to paradoxes, visionary anecdotes, and verbal grandiloquences sometimes for their own sake, almost D'Annunzian if you will. All this to tell us, through the metaphor of the magpie, the story of a private drama (evidently autobiographical), of someone who at the end of his “journey,” discovers that his torment was precisely losing childhood (the child depicted on the cover becomes the central character of the album and wants to represent the rebirth after the pains and disappointments endured by the jester, who jumps out of the window toward the rainbow); and then it is worth returning, even in the running registry, back to the realm of “whys” (“there is no end to childhood” Fish obsessively repeats at the end of the album... could it be that the Scottish giant was influenced by Pascoli's “fanciullino”?).
Read the lyrics of "Lavender", as a suggestive paradigm of this album; it's hard not to be moved by the romanticism of such “surreal” verbalism: the protagonist who, lazily lounging in the park, from the sprinkler's call sees the glitters of “childish entities” singing from the rainbow, to dedicate the song to “her”: truly an image, perhaps a bit too fanciful, yet capable of moving anyone, undeniable (“I was walking in the park dreaming of a spark, when I heard the sprinklers whisper shimmer in the haze of summer lawns. Then I heard the children singing, they were running through the rainbows, they were singing a song for you. Well it seemed to be a song for you. The one I wanted to write for you, for you...”).
It's no different for that “gem” that in less than a year will reach no. 2 on the prestigious UK chart, named “Kayleigh”: here too, the lyrics, though perhaps a bit less “touching” than "Lavender", leave no one indifferent, just as that splendid “Script for a Jester’s Tears” of only two years prior to this album did.
The artwork is typical of Fish-era Marillion; after all, the author and designer of the covers was the main architect: let’s say he graphically and visually projected the words caged by the poetic nature of his lyrics. For those (like me) who own the vinyl of this album, it is nice to appreciate the hallucinogenically surreal cover; Dalí would have smiled in satisfaction seeing it, I am sure.
But “Misplaced Childhood" is also and above all music; music very “serving” to the lyrics and the concept they support: this is already clear from the intro “Pseudo Silk Kimono” where the 5 musicians suddenly catapult us into a dreamlike, melancholic and fairy-like world, light-years away from the daily microhistory of those who listen to it.
The vocal and stylistic influence of Gabriel's Genesis (and especially Hackett's!!) and the early works with Phil Collins (especially with “Trick of the Tail”), as well as the lines of Peter Hammill, are still evident, however, here Marillion manage to a certain extent to definitively personalize their style and, in turn, become a “source of inspiration.” Of all the subsequent works “inspired” by this work, I dare mention the immense “Operation Mindcrime” by Queensryche from 1988.
The style, in fact, I would define as a progressive rock contaminated by psychedelia, or to use the fashionable phrasing of the time, a “neo-prog” (let’s not forget that the period when the album sees the light, 1985, is entirely pervaded by the electronic wave); sudden style changes and unexpected sudden melodies (most of the tracks are, however, set in the incisive simplicity of 4/4) create a perfect symbiosis with the subtlety of the words.
It’s a pity to know that three years after this album the singer and lyricist of this great band, perhaps blinded by his narcissism, would attempt (and fail spectacularly) an improbable solo career. However, like all things, even (and especially) the beautiful ones, there is a beginning and there is an end. Despite the great works they will still give us in the subsequent two decades (among all, I quote the album “Brave” with the vocally superior, but light-years unequal to Fish in terms of imagination and artistic abilities) replacement mister H. In my opinion, with this album the Marillion mark the world of prog with an unparalleled seal that, along with a few other works, will endure “for centuries of centuries” in the rock Olympus.
P. S. The surreal beauty of the album inspires equally contemplative beauties; the author dedicates this review to the imaginary smile of Ioanna.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Pseudo Silk Kimono (02:14)
Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
Wearing bracelets of smoke, naked of understanding
Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears
Safe in my own words, learning from my own words
Cruel joke, cruel joke
Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono
A morning mare rides, in the starless shutters of my eyes
The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind
To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scarred
A refugee, refugee.
02 Kayleigh (04:03)
Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall
Do you remember dawn escapes from moonwashed college halls
Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair
By the way didn't I break your heart
Please excuse me I never meant to break your heart
So sorry I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine
Kayleigh is it too late to say I'm sorry?
And Kayleigh could we get it together again
I just can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end
Kayleigh oh I never thought I'd miss you
And Kayleigh I thought that we'd always be friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end
Do you remember barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars
Do you remember the loving on the floor in Belsize Park
Do you remember dancing in stilettoes in the snow
Do you remember you never understood I had to go
By the way didn't I break your heart
Please excuse me I never meant to break your heart
So sorry I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine
Kayleigh, I just want to say I'm sorry
But Kayleigh I'm too scared to pick up the phone
To hear you've found another lover to patch up our broken home
Kayleigh I'm still trying to write that love song
Kayleigh it's more important to me, now you're gone
Maybe it will prove that we were right
Or it'll prove that I was wrong
03 Lavender (02:27)
I was walking in the park
Dreaming of a spark,
When I heard the sprinklers whisper, shimmer
In the haze of summer lawns,
Then I heard the children singing,
They were running through the rainbows.
They were singing a song for you.
Well it seemed to be a song for you,
The one I wanted to write for you, for you, you.
Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green,
When I am King, dilly dilly, you will be Queen.
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.O.U. for your love,
I.O.U. for your love.
Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue,
When you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you.
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
A penny for your thoughts my dear,
I.O.U. for your love,
I.O.U. for your love.
06 Waterhole (Expresso Bongo) (02:12)
When the taxis gather in mock Solemnity
Funeral hearses court the death of virginity
Was it paradise lost or paradise found?
Did we gain respect or were we holding ground?
You had found true love, or so you believed
And the wideboys tattooed your hearts upon their sleeves
So when you think it's time to go
When you think it's time to go
Don't be surprised, the heroes never show
And the patter merchants selling false impressions
Tipping eyes at the waitress with American expressions
Tie angels to the bar with sweet Martini's and their charms
They're lying on every word and every arm
They're turning down their noses to the best lines
And the cheap wines
And the wideboys
They wear their lovebites for their crimes
07 Lords of the Backstage (01:52)
A love song with no validity
Pretend you never meant that much to me
Numb, a Valium child, bored by meaningless collisions
A lonely stretch of headlight, diamonds trapped in black ice
A mirror cracked among the white lines
I just wanted you to be the first one
I just wanted you to be the first one
Ashes are burning, burning
Ashes are burning, burning
A lifestyle with no simplicities
But I'm not asking for your sympathy
Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us
A lord of the backstage, a creature of language
I'm so far out and I'm too far in
I just wanted you to be the first one
I just wanted you to be the first one
Bridges are burning, burning
Bridges are burning, burning
08 Blind Curve: I. Vocal Under a Bloodlight / II. Passing Strangers / III. Mylo / IV. Perimeter Walk / V. Threshold (09:29)
09 Childhoods End? (04:32)
And it was morning
And I found myself mourning,
For a childhood that I thought had disappeared
I looked out the window
And I saw a magpie in the rainbow, the rain had gone
I'm not alone, I turned to the mirror
I saw you, the child, that once loved
The child before they broke his heart
Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost
Hey you, surprised? More than surprised
To find the answers to the questions
Were always in your own eyes
Do you realise that you give it on back to her?
But that would only be retraced in all the problems that you ever knew
So untrue
For she's got to carry on with her life
And you've got to carry on with yours
So I see it's me, I can do anything
And I'm still the child
'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction
There is no childhood's end
You are my childhood friend, lead me on
Hey you, you've survived. Now you've arrived
To be reborn in the shadow of the magpie
Now you realise, that you've got to get out of here
You've found the leading light of destiny, burning in the ashes of your memory
You want to change the world
You'd resigned yourself to die a broken rebel
But that was looking backward
Now you've found the light
You, the child that once loved
The child before they broke his heart
Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost
So it's me I see, I can do anything.
I'm still the child
'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction
And I found direction
There is no childhood's end
I am your childhood friend, lead me on
10 White Feather (02:23)
When I hit the streets back in '81
Found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears
Where have I been for all these years?
I saw political intrigue, political lies
Gonna wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes
I will wear your white feather
I will carry your white flag
I will swear I have no nation
But I'm proud to own my heart
I will wear your white feather
I will carry your white flag
I will swear I have no nation
But I'm proud to own my heart
My heart, this is my heart
We don't need no uniforms, we have no disguise
Divided we stand, together we'll rise
We will wear your white feather
We will carry your white flag
We will swear we have no nations
But we're proud to own our hearts
We will wear your white feather
We will carry your white flag
We will swear we have no nations
But we're proud to own our hearts
These are our hearts
These are our hearts
You can't take away our hearts
You can't steal our hearts away
I can't walk away
No more
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Other reviews
By splinter
The album is a real stroke of genius for the particular way it is structured, although it doesn’t actually seem that particular!
This album is fundamental for the rebirth of the progressive genre and an example of how we can create well-crafted melodies without becoming tediously verbose.
