Market Square Heroes

Lyrics

The debut single and, aside from the obvious, probably the most radio friendly song of all of the Fish era (at least after the hideously inappropriate word 'antichrist' was replaced with 'battle priest'. I do love radio edits sometimes).

It's a pretty exemplary piece of rabble rousing; it's pretty well calculated, musically, to angry up the blood and get you really fired up to march on down to those pen-pushers at City Hall and... well, what happens next isn't really clear. It's dripping with anger and rebellion, but it's really not directed anywhere in particular; all we're told to do is "suffer my pretty warriors, and follow me".

It is, I think, a pretty clever indictment of the kind of people who'll blindly follow a popular cause just for the sake of rebellion, all trussed up as a regular protest song. Which makes it a lot more timeless than most of Fish's politically charged lyrics; when the whole point is that the actual issues are irrelevant, there's no outdated references to be found, just the kind of clever wordplay that Fish is quite rightly celebrated for among his fanbase. As far as kickoff points go, your career could certainly do a lot worse.

Video: Market Square Heroes
The "battle priest" version, which is different to the version I'm most familiar with (from B'Sides Themselves; I'm pretty sure it's the one from the original EP release) in more than just the lyrics; apart from the guitar solo and "HEY!" section, it doesn't have quite the same energy, somehow.
Neither of these versions contain the "I give piece signs..." verse listed on the website, which I believe was a later addition to live versions of the song. "Antisocial insecurity" is probably a better piece of concept-flipping than anything else in the song, but I don't know how well the verse fits sonically.