Wednesday 29 August 2007

Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven)

Lyrics

"Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be... BONO!"

Seriously, if someone played you this song and told you it was the new U2 single... well, maybe you'd notice that Bono wasn't quite sounding himself, but otherwise there'd be no reason to suspect they were lying. In fact, played alongside the closest U2 song chronologically (that'd be "The Fly"), "Cover My Eyes" would undoubtedly be the most likely to be mistaken for them.

As far as U2 singles go, if it were one, this would rank somewhere in the middle of the table even back in those wonderful pre-"Vertigo" days, but it does beg the question of "WHY?" in large capital letters. For the lead single from Hogarth's first album as the band's fully integrated frontman, rather than just a guy singing his own words over Fish's music, this was an undeniably bizarre choice.

Video: Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven), Top of the Pops
I'm somewhat surprised Hogarth elected not to go all the way and don the shades for this performance. Also, Marillion on TOTP remains a difficult concept for me to get my head around. Marillion miming on TOTP even more so. The times they are a-changin'.

Monday 27 August 2007

Drilling Holes

Lyrics

And we're back! I'm probably not going to keep to a particularly regular schedule from here, but I do plan to get an absolute minimum of one a week out, and probably more most weeks.

So. "Drilling Holes" is the natural song to turn to to break out of this slump, because if my constant submission to sloth prevents me from writing about a song that is itself about constant submission to sloth, I assume it will also prevent me writing about anything else. Does that logic seem sound to you?

It seems like it should be completely inappropriate that such a lazy song in subject matter is actually one of the most upbeat songs on Marbles, but it works well because it's a change of pace from the generally slow and atmospheric nature of the album, which complements the way the jovial lyrics offset the usual sober introspection. And it's nice to see that Marillion don't actually take everything 100% seriously all the time (though clearly I frequently enjoy the times when they do) - from the brilliantly convoluted rewriting of "Why put off until tomorrow what you can leave for the day after" in the first verse to the unexpected harpsichord-sounding breakdown halfway through, it's all so gloriously whimsical.

Just a great soundtrack to a hot summer day spent lounging around in the grass, perhaps enjoying a cold beer, and watching the world pass by. You know, one of those days.