Misplaced Childhood - Intro

Introduction: Misplaced Childhood was the third Marillion album. With the massive hit of Kayleigh, it broke the band into the top flight of rock. Not all the songs on the album have explanations: Pseudo Silk Kimono, whilst dense in mood, uses simple imagery and does not warrant explanation. 

Blind Curve doesn't have explanations either, for similar reasons. 

Kayleigh

Introduction: Fish (The Funny Farm Interview - July '95, Dick Bros) said: "Kayleigh was a way of saying sorry. I dunno, I was very confused at the time, you know, I had a lot of long term relationships, a lot of 'deep and meaningful' relationships that, basically I'd wrecked because I was obsessed with the career and where I wanted to go. I was very, very selfish and I just wanted to be the famous singer but I was starting to become aware of the sacrifices that I was making, and I think that Kay was one of those sacrifices that went along the road. 

Lavender

Introduction: Fish (The Funny Farm Interview - July '95, Dick Bros) said: "Going through parks listening to Joni Mitchell, Lavender is the little boy's dream about you can walk through the park and bump into the lady of your dreams that you're going to fall instantaneously in love with." 

'Lavenders Blue... will be Queen'
Marianne Sievers sent the following to Freaks: "The traditional song which inspired the lyrics of Lavender has been around for at least 300 years - the earliest documented version I've run across was written down in the late 1600s. It consisted of about 30 verses, with a chorus containing the lines: "Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, Rosemary's green". You can hear a relatively modern version of the folk song in the Disney movie So Dear to My Heart, being sung by Burl Ives. The traditional song is also gaining favour as a lullaby - it has appeared on a number of lullaby collections. Folk artist Susan Branch based one of her pieces on the line 'Lavender blue, dilly dilly'. I believe it appears in her first Heart of the Home collection."

 Where to get this song:

• Misplaced Childhood 2 CD version

Bitter Suite

a) Brief Encounter
‘Brief Encounter’
A British masterpiece of an ill-fated love affair, David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) is one of the greatest romantic tearjerkers of all time. Narrated through flashbacks, it is the story of two married middle-class people, who meet at a train station. He helps her to remove a piece of grit from her eye. Over time the continue to meet, at first accidentally, then deliberately. Their British restraint and formality forbids them from committing adultery and he leaves for Africa.

Heart of Lothian

'Heart of Lothian'
From Jeroen Schipper's FAQ: "Lothian is the county/district in which Edinburgh is. Lothian is divided in three parts: East, West and Mid. Dalkeith and Edinburgh are in MidLothian. Saying you have a heart of Lothian is just saying where you come from. However, there is also a 'real' Heart of Lothian: 

Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)

'Waterhole' 
A slang term for a pub.

 
'Expresso Bongo'
Espresso Bongo was a play that turned into a film in 1960 starring Cliff Richard as naive rock star Bert Rudge who signs up with hustler Johnny Jackson. Jackson changes Rudge's name to Bongo Herbert and sets him on the path to fame, but Herbert soon realises he's been stitched up by his bent manager and his 50:50 split of his earnings.

However, Piet Spaans says that he had asked Fish whether this referred to the Cliff Richard film and was told it didn't.

Lords of the Backstage

'I'm so far out and I'm too far in'
Chris McGarel pointed out that this line is taken from the forth line of A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers by Van Der Graaf Generator, from their album Pawn Hearts: "I'm so far out, I'm too far in".

Blind Curve

Introduction: Blind Curve is split into five sub-sections. Only Mylo and Perimeter Walk have explanations.

III. Mylo

'Mylo'
Steve Ross said: Mylo was John Mylett, the drummer with Liverpool band Rage, managed by then Marillion manager, John Arnison. Mylo died in a car crash in Greece in 1984. Fish heard about it whilst on tour in Canada with Rush.

Childhood's End

'Childhoods End?'
Childhoods End was an Arthur C. Clarke novel concerning a race of beings that had grown from its infancy and ascended to a higher lever of evolution. It was a theme that he was to develop further in his classic 2001,a Space Odyssey. Childhood's End itself served as the inspiration for the Genesis track Watcher of the Skies from 1972's seminal Foxtrot. 

White Feather

'White Feather'
The superstition goes that a white feather plucked from a game cock and placed in the clothing of a person marked a poor or cowardly fighter. This is because a pure-bred gamecock wouldn't have white tail feathers. This term was first used in the eighteenth century. 

Lady Nina

Introduction: Fish (The Funny Farm Interview - July '95, Dick Bros) said: "I was going through a very bohemian element, you know. I remember hanging about this place called 'Rasputins', which was one of the famous German brothels, and I used to go along and just write there at night with the girls, and talk to the girls, sitting in the red light of the bar. Lady Nina [...] was written there."

Freaks

Introduction: Max Rael provided this excerpt from a conversation between Fish and the The Company USA in January 1998.

Tom: What's the song Freaks about?