Marillion’s last “hit” of the 1980s this was a track from the first Fishless LP Season’s End.

“Hit” is in inverted commas since it only reached no 53.

It has an interesting referential lyric.

Marillion: The Uninvited Guest

In 1989 a by now Fishless Marillion got themselves a new lead singer, Steve Hogarth, and a much less Prog-Rocky sound. This was the first single and the first sight of Hogarth on Top of the Pops. No sign of Prog at all.

Marillion: Hooks in You

A stop-gap single to promote Marillion’s live album The Thieving Magpie released after Fish had left the group, though he was on vocals for this.

Marillion: Freaks

The second single from the Clutching at Straws album, which overall dealt with the effect, and strains, of continuous touring and presaged the split of Fish from the band.

This one contains one of Steve Rothery’s signature (and excellent) guitar solos.

Marillion: Sugar Mice

This was the first single from Clutching at Straws, Marillion’s last album before the departure of Fish. The band’s sound had by this time become more polished, less raw than on Script for a Jester’s Tear and Fugazi and a concept album like its predecessor Misplaced Childhood. Dealing as it did though with the exigencies of pop stardom and lifestyle indulgence it had the potential to be alienating. The single did reach no 6 in the UK though. (And no 24 in the US.)

I assume this is the video made at the time:-

Marillion: Incommunicado

This piece of rather heavy-handed social commentary was, in 1983, the third choice of single for Mariilion.

As a result this version does not use the word that rhymes with rucking in the two words that follow it, presumably to avoid being banned and to safeguard airplay. Live versions of the track have no such inhibitions.

Marillion: Garden Party

A by now Fishless Marillion recorded this in 1992.

The original was of course first released by Rare Bird in 1970.

Marillion: Sympathy

Another one from before Marillion became big.

I hadn’t heard this version of the song till I looked it up for this post. On the basis of hearing Punch and Judy and the band’s performance on The Oxford Road Show I bought the album it’s from (Fugazi, the first Marillion record I ever bought) and the track on there is over 7 minutes long.

This is a somewhat brutal edit for the single release (and, I assume, radio play.)

Marillion: Assassing (7” edit)

The longer album version is here, should you wish to sample it.

This was the one that started it all off for Marillion in a singles sense but I didn’t come across it for a few years after its first release once I was catching up with their back catalogue after the release of their second album Fugazi.

There are some thematic similarities here with The Knife, the last track on Genesis’s second album Trespass.

Marillion: Market Square Heroes

A piece of late flowering Fish-era Marillion, the third single from Clutching at Straws, the last album to feature Fish as singer and lyricist.

Marillion: Warm Wet Circles