Random Track of the Day
Friday, September 2 2011
One of my all-time favourite bands today, with a track from their excellent and successful 2004 album, “Marbles”. It could be said to be the title track, but really only a quarter of that, as there are four songs, or pieces, called “Marbles” on the album, numbered I to IV. This is “Marbles I”.
Marbles I --- Marillion --- from “Marbles” on Intact
“Marbles” is a concept song, as it were, tracing the path from childhood to adulthood via the remembrance of simple things, like playing with marbles. As “Marbles I” opens, on a piano and keyboard line, very relaxed and a little jazzy in tone, it's a desperate search for lost childhood, reflected in the opening line
“Did anyone see my last marble?” It forms the start of the piece, which then goes back to trace the singer's childhood and how marbles, as a game and a pastime, played a large part in that.
The song is under two minutes long, though the four parts taken together run for over six and a half.