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Fugazi (1984)

Although their debut had hardly set the music world alight (and with only six tracks in total I don't think it was ever intended to) Marillion did seem to take into account this time out that their songs were perhaps just a little too long to lend themselves even to radio airplay, everything on the debut being over seven minutes long, with the exception of “He Knows You Know”, which in fact became one of the two singles taken from the album. But it was clear that shorter, snappier, more accessible songs were required if Marillion were to make any sort of inroads on the charts, and while many musicians will tell you they write purely for the pleasure and for the integrity of the albums they make, who honestly does not want chart success? If nothing else, it can lead to new revenue streams, new fans and higher sales for your albums.

Which is not to say that Fugazi was written with singles in mind, because it was not; as dark as the debut had been, this was just as bleak, containing such lyrical themes as desertion, jealousy, revenge and social alienation, to say nothing of a strong strain of seeming misogynism that seemed to run through at least their early albums, as women were cast in the roles of temptresses (“She Chameleon”, “Emerald Lies”), objects of revenge (“Incubus”) or destroyers of marriage (“Jigsaw”, and again to an extent “Emerald Lies”). I never quite noticed before how badly women are treated in Fish's lyrics, right up to his final album with Marillion. So in terms of singles, this album looked on the face of it to be as unlikely a candidate for chart success as had its predecessor.

But it did have them, although proper chart success would elude Marillion until the release of their third album. This album is also a very angry one, punctuated by Fish's scathing, acerbic lyrics against which a backdrop of often sharp guitar and thumping drumming is laid down. Unlike its predecessor, Fugazi opens with a low rising synth and guitar in a kind of almost eastern chant phrasing with attendant moans from Fish, the music building very slowly, gradually bringing in the percussion, perhaps intentionally given the subject, and finally Fish yells a sort of unintelligible roar like “Sha!” or something before Steve Rothery takes off on a kind of funky guitar intro as “Assassing” begins.

I'm not quite sure of the circumstances surrounding the departure of original drummer and founder Mick Pointer, but it's clear it was not an amicable parting, as this song is “dedicated” to him, and it's very clear from the lyric that Fish (and presumably the rest of Marillion) are not impressed. When Fish sings (or rather, spits) ”On the sacrificial altar to success my friend/ Unleash a strange from a kiss my friend/ No incantations of remorse my friend/ Unsheath the blade within the voice, my friend?” you can get an idea of the depth of anger there is against the former drummer. There's a screeching solo from Rothery before it all settles down into a sort of low hum and builds slowly behind Fish as he goes all-out on the alliteration: “Venomous verbs”, "Adjectives of annihilation", “Apocalyptic alphabet”, “Syllables of slaughter”, they're all here and if Fish goes a little overboard making his point perhaps we can forgive him. It's a powerful opener though, and when compared to the more laidback, sombre tone of the opener of the previous album, something of a shock. Kind of like reaching out to pet a bunny rabbit who snaps off your finger.

Of course, at this point we've known that Marillion are capable of punching it up and injecting venom into their music: “Market Square Heroes”, although no ton the debut, was a searing indictment of unemployment and the policies of the Thatcher government, something Fish would revisit partially on his second solo album, Internal Exile, and “Garden Party” dripped sarcastic satire and revulsion at the upper classes, while “He knows you know” was a stark warning against the misuse of drugs, perhaps a little two-faced given that Fish wrote the next album while “on a trip”, but the passion and simmering resentment in those songs can't be overlooked. This however was a totally different kind of anger, born of betrayal and disillusion. The last person you want to stab you in the back is one you believed your friend, and the constant, ironic use of this phrase throughout “Assassing” shows how deeply wounded Fish was by this treachery.

Another theme, as I say, that runs, perhaps worryingly, through this and subsequent albums is that of misogyny. There aren't that often females in the lyrics written by Fish, at least with Marillion, but when they're there they're almost invariably a negative influence, often blamed for the hero's woes, as the woman in the next track, which was actually selected as a single, oddly enough, has all the responsibility for a failed marriage and broken dreams thrust upon her. Kicking off on a sprightly arpeggio on the keys by Mark Kelly, “Punch and Judy” is a deceptively upbeat song which actually catalogues - as do other songs on this album - the breakdown of a relationship, in this case a marriage. I don't believe Fish was married at this point (not sure he even had a serious relationship going) so I doubt he's writing here from experience, but the venom in this track, and the one-sideness of the story, is cause for concern.

With his life now hopelessly in a rut, his chances of ever making anything of himself, the hero immediately blames his wife, Judy, as he sings ”Washing machine, pinstripe dream/ Strip the gloss from a beauty queen.” It's clear there that he's blaming Judy for losing her looks, as he plaintively asks ”What ever happened to pillow fights?/ What ever happened to jeans so tight, Friday nights?/ What ever happened to Lover's Lane?” Well, how can I put this? Life happened, mate. Everyone gets older and more boring and loses their looks and their sex drive. It happens. But “Punch” does not want to face that he might have some blame to shoulder here, and complains as he goes along about his wife's behaviour in the bedroom: ”Curling tongs, Mogadon/ Got a headache baby/ Don't take too long.” It's also obvious, reading between the lines just a little, that this is a story of domestic abuse, as Punch and Judy soon becomes Punches Judy, the anger and rage behind those words (”Punch! Punch! Punches Judy!”) giving them their own dark rhythm and power.

Even more disturbing is not just the idea that the hero is contemplating murdering his wife - ”Just slip her these pills/ And I'll be free!” - but that we, as the listeners, are being tricked into believing he is right; she deserves it. She has ruined his life, now if he kills her he can go on and make a new one for himself. I'm hesitant to call Fish a woman-hater, but if there's a clearer example of pure misogyny in his lyrics I don't know what it is. Of course, he may not believe any of these things and this may and probably is just a depiction of suburban life and how marriages fail, and yet, considering not only the subject matter of the next few tracks, but also the perspective from which they're viewed, it's hard to think that he's just making a point or playing Devil's Advocate.

“Punch and Judy” is one of the only, perhaps the only Marillion song I know of that has no discernible solo in it, other than the arpeggios that open and close it. There is no bridge, no real pause between verses and chorus - indeed, no real chorus other than the title sung three or four times. It's a bit of an enigma: on the surface it's an almost poppy, breezy song that you could see playing on the radio, but what lies beneath is dark, twisted and very very distressing. Even the names of the two protagonists are carefully chosen, so as to reflect the undercurrent of marital violence running through the song. Definitely my least favourite on the album; I hated it when I first heard it, and while now, I can appreciate it more, mostly for its clever lyric, I still find it very repulsive in tone and content. The music, while good, is almost as offputting, like someone singing “Everything is beautiful” while kicking a child to death.

The marriage breakdown theme continues unabated as we hit the first ballad, and while “Jigsaw” is mostly driven on Kelly's rippling piano and keyboards, the tone of it is far more defeated, tired, fatalistic than the previous. Whereas “Punch and Judy” was characterised by anger, recrimination and a thirst for revenge, (as indeed is the next song after this) “Jigsaw” takes a more pragmatic approach. It's almost as if the guy in the song, unlike our friend Punch, has given yup, realising this is never going to work, but again unlike Punch he does not blame his version of Judy. He speaks of the futility of it all as he sings ”We are pilots of passion/ Sweating the flight on course/ To another summit conference/ Another breakfast-time divorce.” The vocal from Fish, in direct contrast to the manic, almost maniacal fervour of the previous song, is low, quiet, almost disinterested. It's the tale of two people reaching the end of the road, knowing it, and preparing to separate.

There is of course some anger. When we reach the chorus Fish yells ”Stand straight!/ Look me in the eye/ And say goodbye/ Stand straight!/ We've drifted past the point/ Of reasons why.” The music swells with him as his patience boils over, then it all fades back down for the next verse. A searing solo from Rothery takes the midsection before it all drops back and Fish asks ”You must have known that I/ Was conceiving an escape?” Some of the lyric in this makes no sense to me, as I must admit is a failing in much of Fish's work. He uses very high concepts and esoteric themes, so that most of the time you don't know what the hell he's saying, but it sure sounds good. I mean, ”We are Renaissance children/ Becalmed beneath the Bridge of Sighs/ Forever throwing firebrands at the stonework”? What does that mean? And how about ”Are we trigger happy?/ Russian Roulette in a waiting room?/ Empty chambers embracing the end?” Lyrical nonsense aside though, it's a great song and it fades out as it began, with Fish's voice whispering almost as if he's disappearing into the darkness ”I'll be seeing you again/On the ricochet...”

After that, things explode with at first just a few little taps on the drum from new man (and still Marillion drummer to this day) Ian Mosley, then a full blown run on the skins as Rothery joins in on the guitar, before it all softens down on the harpsichord-like keys of Kelly and Fish comes in with a quiet, but bitter vocal, dropping to a sibilant whisper at one point. Even given the vitriol spewed out in “Punch and Judy”, this is the first time Marillion use the word “whore”, and it will be used again, sadly reinforcing the view I have of this album's slant against women in general. Fish does however put in a showstopping performance here as he grins and salivates and prances about, declaring ”Plundering your diaries/ I'll steal your thoughts/ Ravaging your letters/ Unearth your plots!”

It's actually one of my favourite, if not my absolute favourite tracks on the album, not because it's also the second-shortest, but really because it captures Marillion at their very best. We get the feeling that the wrong end of the stick has been taken here, that something written in private has been aired in public and a serious rift, an irreparable rift, has opened in this relationship. When Fish growls ”I trust you/ Trust in me/ To mistrust you!” he is almost echoing Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs's House of Cards when the Prime Minister tells us “She trusts me. And I trust her, to be absolutely human.” In the end of course, the marriage is over - ”And the coffee stains gather/ Till the pale kimono/ Sets the wedding rings dancing/ On the cold linoleum” - though we can perhaps feel it is the man who leaves - ”You pack your world within a suitcase/ Hot tears melt this icy palace” - but either way, the relationship has been destroyed, perhaps by outside interfering forces with their own dark agenda.

There is however nothing mysterious about the intentions of the “She Chameleon”, as Kelly's winding, snaking, writhing keyboard lines undulate through the entire song, almost completely carrying it with a smoky, sensual and yet ultimately empty sense of promise, as Fish derides the groupies whom he also refers to as “vinyl whores”. Again, it's the women who are blamed for tempting him into sin, as he bemoans his lack of control: ”They know what you want/ They sing your name/ And glide between the sheets/ I never say no/ In chemical glow we let our bodies meet” but then wonders, and at the same time ensures this song would never get any airplay by mentioning the word six times as he wonders ”Was it just a fuck?” There is to be fair some semblance of responsibility taken here for his actions, and it's a dark and depressing song with a squalid, nasty ending as he cavorts in his bed of sin, recalling Matt Johnson who wrote "Our bed is empty/ The fire is out/ And all the love we had to give/ Has all squirted out.”

He has his revenge though in the next track, when “Incubus” apparently warns of the dangers of doing things in your youth that you may regret, and can be blackmailed for in later life, and of refusing to give others credit for putting you where you are. I would never have figured this out, other than that Fish told everyone onstage when I went to see Marillion for this tour exactly what the meaning of the song was. It opens with a sort of grunt and growl from Fish, with a loud, ringing guitar and powerful keys, and he grins ”You've played this scene before” to his aghast victim. A great solo from Kelly and then about midway he takes the tune in a kind of waltz direction, linking up with Rothery who performs a fine, evocative guitar line and solo. Fish references his own, at the time, predilection for wearing makeup on stage when he moans ”You who wiped me from your memory/ Like a greasepaint mask.”

His anger and bitterness, and his dark desire for revenge comes very strongly to the fore as the song reaches its climax, and then we move into the final act with the closing, and title track. Ushered in on a gentle, rolling piano from Mark Kelly, which would crop up again on future Marillion albums, “Fugazi” begins with a rather tired vocal from Fish, before it all stops for a few seconds and then comes back in on Rothery's chiming guitar. With sudden percussion underlining the change, the melody becomes a marching, romping uptempo number somewhat in the vein of “Market Square Heroes”, with such clever lines as ”Sheathed within the Walkman/ Wear the halo of distortion/ Aural contraceptive aborting/ Pregnant conversation.” In fact, there are two vocal lines, as the backing vocals (also sung by Fish) sing a separate part of the verse within the pauses as he reaches the end of a line, then fading back out as he comes back in.

With a general message, I think, of the world is completely fucked up, or fugazi as they used to say in Vietnam apparently, the closer pounds along listing the woes of the world: ”A Vietnamese flower, a docklands union/ A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs/ Magdalene contracts more than favours/ The feeding hands of western promise/ Hold her by the throat” and with racism and fascism raising its head, as it will again and again in Marillion's early music: ”A son of the swastika of '45/ Parading a peroxide standard/ Grafitti disciples conjure/ Testaments of hatred/ Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights/ Trim the barbed-wire hedges/ This is Brixton chess!”

It all slows down then on a sort of bubbling synth and a stark guitar and bass, the tempo dropping as Fish declares ”Son watches father scan obituary columns/ In search of absent schoolfriends/ While his generation digests/ High fibre ignorance” and has a stark warning for humanity of its impending doom: ”The penultimate migration!/ Radioactive perfumes/ For the fashionably/ For the terminally insane.” There is some hope though, as he asks ”Where are the prophets// Where are the visionaries?/ Where are the poets/ To preach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary?” The song then rides out on an almost triumphant, Celtic-tinged stomp, with whistles and flutes, something that would be revisited to a degree in the closing of the next album.

TRACK LISTING


1. Assassing
2. Punch and Judy
3. Jigsaw
4. Emerald Lies
5. She Chameleon
6. Incubus
7. Fugazi

There are certainly parallels to be drawn between this album and Script for a Jester's Tear: both are dark, moody, morose and with little real hope that the problems within their songs will be sorted. Both albums begin with an accusatory song, though in the case of the debut it is a jilted lover while here it is a former bandmate seen to be treacherous. Both close on songs bemoaning the state of the world, though again “Forgotten Sons” concentrates on the situation that existed at the time in Northern Ireland. Rearrange the lyric though, change a few words and it could refer to any conflict really. Both albums had two singles taken from them, none of which did terribly well. But whereas Script tends to focus, in the main, on one character, Fugazi widens that into couples, relationships, even to the point of taking in the world's ills in the closer.

The songs on this album are shorter, though not that much: we're still looking at three songs at seven minutes long and two over eight, give or take a few seconds, out of seven tracks in total. While Marillion were learning to hone and perfect their craft, they were still a long way from any real chart success, and it is perhaps ironic that their next album, a concept with most of its tracks in the double digits in terms of length, was to give them their two biggest ever hit singles.

This album however, shows a band growing, maturing and expanding their talent somewhat, while still retaining that which had made them, at this point, the darlings of the neo-prog movement. Their next effort, though, would establish them as true living legends, and go down in the annals of prog rock as a true classic, and paradoxically begin to lead to their breakup with lead singer Fish.

Rating: 9.8/10

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