Here’s a nice one, Fish A Gentleman’s Excuse Me, which due to my defective collector’s genes I ended up buying on 12″ picture disc and shaped picture disc, despite there being no extra tracks. In fact I did think I had it on 7″ too, but I haven’t* and I know for a fact that I also had it on cassingle. I’m better now though (twitches uncontrollably).
The song ‘A Gentleman’s Excuse Me’ was the big soft ballad on Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors, funnily enough before listening to it again I didn’t remember too much about it, despite playing the album to death for several years back in the day. I was really pleasantly surprised by it too. I know I have this reputation as possibly the most virile, macho man on the internet – think Ted Nugent without the liberal sensitivity, or Manowar with more baby oil and even smaller loincloths and less girly feelings, but I do have a bit of a soft spot for a good ballad well sung. This is a bit more than that even.
‘A Gentleman’s Excuse Me’ is never going to woo a non-Fish fan into the fold, but it is a delicate, thoughtful and rather heartfelt song. From half-remembered interviews from 23 years ago one of Fish’s gripes about Marillion was that he felt there wasn’t enough emotion in their music, although their last LP Clutching At Straws (my fave) has emotion to burn, so this was his chance to show us fans what he really wanted us to do. Now as all you groovy sophisticates know, an ‘Excuse me’ is a dance in which one dancer may take another’s partner** and it is this that Fish lyrics play upon. Your views on it may depend entirely on how romantic you are.
Romantic Type:
In this song he is gently trying to woo a recalcitrant lady, whose fixation on her romantic ideals and fantasies is blinding her to a very real, but not maybe her ideal, suitor. Her hesitation and possible flirtation has over time frustrated him to the point where he longer wishes to ‘dance’ with her and, sadly, she’ll be left alone holding her empty dance card. Fish – ‘Can you get it inside your head I’m tired of dancing? We’re finished dancing’. At the end we’re left with two, sad unfulfilled people, although possibly she’s too self-deluding to realise it.
Non-Romantic Type:
So he’s dancing in the club, this bitch be giving it the grind but when it comes to sealing the deal, giving it up – no way! She be holding out for some millionaire and giving him major blue balls and so at the end he be all like, ‘Bitch, we done dancing, there’s plenty more hoes be giving me crazy plenty ass. We done.’
The music is a gentle swell of keyboards and strings all very ably handled and orchestrated by Mickey Simmonds – incidentally the man who provides that elusive connection between Fish and Buck’s Fizz that rock scholars have been searching for since lunchtime^. The main instrument is Fish’ voice though and he does sing this track beautifully, you can feel the words.
The B-sides are a jokey lounge-jazz number called ‘Whiplash’, sadly not a Metallica cover, about someone called Fred’s bad driving and, on the 12″, the demo version of ‘A Gentleman’s Excuse me’. Now I’m not a big fan of demo versions of songs and this doesn’t add too much more, other than hearing the song played with less instrumentation, I prefer the lusher version in all honesty.
I really like Mark Wilkinson’s artwork for A Gentleman’s Excuse Me too, just as well given the formats I own it on. A romantic, borderline Pre-Raphaelite figure, all dressed in floaty floating things and draped in drapey things, romanticism personified.
407 Down.
*I finally alphabetized all my 7″ singles last night to see if I had – I own both Glen Frey The Heat Is On and Tumor Circus Meathook Up My Rectum, two copies of Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (don’t ask), but not A Gentleman’s Excuse Me.
**presumably without catching a smack in the kisser and/or boot to the comestibles; which is what would have happened if you’d made your move on my date buster!
^the second appearance of this joke this month, I just wanted to get my money’s worth out of it. Incidentally and more interestingly for me he also links in to Camel.
I really like this one too, agree it works better away from “Vigil…” where it gets a bit shoved out in the company of, err, “The Company” and “The Voyeur.” I always took the lyrics to be the romantic version in extremis, i.e. she is literally living in the past due to some clinical condition / delusion, hence the use of an old-fashioned dance and the “diary romantic fiction” line, and Mr. Fish, being a dancer not a psychiatrist, can’t bring her out of it. I also loved the artwork, another piece of Mark Wilkinson lushness, and again overthinking it I took all the colours of the drapes to signify that she was the Jester reborn, or a female alter-ego, signifying Fish’s new direction. Whereas the band and the Bill Price Studio on the cover of Season’s End drowned the Jester, incinerated the chameleon, and abandoned the magpie in a desert! The bastards!
Hi Tim, wow you have gone to town on a symbolic, some might say Jungian, interpretation of this track. I love the idea that Fish (as experimental psychologist) is trying to extract a somewhat batty lady from delusions of tea dances past.
Totally with you on the Seasons End cover. I did ask Mark Wilkinson about the La Gazza Ladra cover, but he said he couldn’t really remember doing it very well. That’s my Marillion scoop!
Why, thank you! I don’t think it ever crossed my 20 year old brain that Fish could write a lyric that didn’t have to have Mesozoic era-deep layers of meaning, or that Mark Wilkinson could do a nice painting of a pretty girl that wasn’t a visual puzzle box!
Hmmm, La Gazza Ladra, wasn’t that a painting of the band on stage? Bet there were tons of little details in the background. I love his ‘Vigil…’ artwork. Still jealous that you’re in touch with him!
If I didn’t look it up elsewhere, I’d swear you were inventing the whole thing. Meathooks and rectums? Either Fish is an East-of-the-Atlantic phenomenon or it came and went during one of my anti-music tantrums. Still, it’s refreshing to have them spell if without the “Ph”.
Would I lie to you? Well, of course, like a shot – particularly if it would get me out of a socially awkward situation. However I am willing to be probed by UN Weapons Inspectors if that would help; am free most early Saturday evenings.
Tumor Circus ‘Meathook …’ Is one of Jello Biafra’s finest and noisiest moments, I’d forgotten it ever existed until a few days ago.
Fish (refreshingly non ‘Ph’) was Marillion’s large Scottish singer, pretty much an our side of the pond phenomenon from what I can gather, if you exclude some strange Canadian types.
Exclude Canadians? Goodness no! If it weren’t for the Canadians, we’d have no one to steal hockey teams from! Further more, we’d have no sense of humor and our arcades would be decidedly not on fire.
“Marillion” in Canada, it is pronounced “Saga”
And we export hockey teams to the U.S. once they start slowing down & losing, we keep the best for ourselves!
Aak-aak-aak-aak-aak!
Less loincloth?! That’s essentially a loin… G-string. *shudders at mental image*
Anyhoo, this is one of my favourites off that album. I thought at this point he was better at the balladeering than at the rockers.
*feast your mind’s eye dude*
I did love the noisy Janick Gers track on Vigil too.
*carry on feasting your mind’s eye*
NOOOOOOO… CANNOT…. UNSEE… WHAT I… HAVE SEEN…
“All dressed in floaty floating things and draped in drapey things”
Love it. You are so wasted on music. A career in fashion journalism beckons!
Aww thank you. And may I compliment you on your attire tonight, such élan, such cheek, such verve! Truly there aren’t many men alive who could carry off that gold lamé dungarees, DMs and Air Qantas promotional trucker hat combo. I salute you!
Well, you know, our local Pizza Parlour has a certain standard. One likes to make an effort.
Aaaah, THAT “Buck’s Fizz” connection! And now I’ve lost count completely of how many keyboardists were in Camel?
100? A lego Jim Belushi? Nugent has meathook sensitivities? Lounge jazz can take other forms than a joke? Aaak! I’m so confused!
Beautiful disc tho’
Wow, you’ve kind of applied the Burroughsian cut-up technique to my post in less than 50 words. Okay Bucks Fizz go, but the meat hook stays!
Of course, what else would you hang diaphanous floaty floating drapey things on?
I feel like I came across some alien language here. I don’t know of this “excuse me” you speak of. This does sound interesting though. I can dig the non-romantic side of things, though only because I’ve been watching ‘The Wire’.
Yeah me too – it’s not good for my attempts at not swearing too much, especially not in front of the kids. Pure genius TV though.
Can’t believe they don’t have ‘excuse me’ dances in the Midwest – savages! I bet you’ve never even eaten Cotillion either.
Cotillion? No I have not. Is it a root of some sort?
So I have checked my remastered Vigil in a Wilderness CD, and it does contain both B-sides. But I would do the same as you — I would buy both of these if I happened upon them at the right price. Particularly the shaped disc.
I’ve always been completely powerless against the allure of a shaped PD – it’s like catnip to me.
Same. First one I ever saw…I think it might have been ZZ Top. Maybe Sleeping Bag. I wish I had the money to buy it. I was about…12.
If you squint, the girl in the artwork looks like Lion-O, from Thundercats.
Ha, ha! Marry me!
How bold, you haven’t even met my parents.
I’m kinda impulsive like that. I’m tired of dancing with you Mike!
You and your Belgian lace fetish…I told you I ain’t got any damned lace.
Nah, it’s Nina Hagen!
“Ted Nugent without the liberal sensitivity”
CHUCKLE!