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

I think singer and lyric writer Fish, a lifelong Hibby (or Hibee, delete according to taste,) came to regret using the phrase heart of Lothian in this song as it was prone to misinterpretation.

The single included at its start Windswept Thumb, the conclusion to the Bitter Suite sequence which immediately preceded Heart of Lothian on the LP Misplaced Childhood.

I believe this is the official video. Check out those 80s hairstyles!

Marillion: Heart of Lothian

The place The Troggs had for me in the 60s and Sweet in the early 70s was taken by Marillion in the early 80s.

Marillion have been forever tagged with the Prog Rock label and while their first songs – especially the 17 minute long Grendel and most of the debut album Script For a Jester’s Tear – fit that bill (which was why I got into them in the first place) by the time of Fugazi they had mainly moved on to a more guitar based rock sound.

Their initial success, though, shows that Prog wasn’t as moribund a genre as its detractors would have had it.

Mind you their third and fourth LPs, Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws were those most Prog of things, concept albums (though arguably one concept album spread over two releases.)

I think I first saw them on television on The Oxford Road Show (who remembers that!) when this was one of the songs they played. Despite it being from Fugazi there is still a hint of Prog and echoes of Genesis.

This clip, though, is from Top of the Pops. Check out Fish – with hair!

Marillion: Punch and Judy