Marillion.Com Introduction

Introduction: Marillion.Com is the seventh Marillion album with Steve Hogarth, and their eleventh overall. 

There isn’t a cohesive theme to the album. Some songs carry on the themes of domestic upheaval seen on the preceding Radiation; indeed Interior Lulu and Tumble Down The Years were originally intended for the Radiation album but were held over as the band felt they required more work. Tumble is perhaps a little more optimistic than the Radiation material, whilst you can tell that House would have fitted in well with the feelings of despair that pervaded the previous album. 

A Legacy

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: "Occasional Marillion lyricist John Helmer writes a 'turmoil and divorce' story as the music chops and changes; punchy here and delicate there, from film-noir through funk, grunge and The Beatles, with an accidental Beach Boys moment."

Steve Hogarth said: "We wondered if it was throwing too many curves, but it's gone down quite well."
Lyrics: John Helmer

Deserve

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: Steve Hogarth philosophises: "It makes the point that we all get what we want if we really want it, if we're really honest. We bring about most of what happens in our lives, not only as individuals but collectively. We get the flowers and trees and the spores on the breeze that we deserve. To some extent, you create your own joy and your own misery. Unhappiness isn't really related to anything other than state of mind."

Go!

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: "It's whimsical, it's dreamlike," says Steve Hogarth. "It's a holiday in the mind. But at the other end of the spectrum, it's a total revolution; a take-everything-down-and-start-again song. I'm very fond of Go!"

Rich

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: Steve Hogarth's words combine a series of personal thoughts and quotations compiled by Mark's girlfriend Angie.

"I thought they were all positive philosophies, a code by which you could live. 'It's by spending one's self that one becomes rich,' I thought was such a fantastic idea. It's a celebration of life, really. Absolutely full-on, positive, no cynicism, no sarcasm. We finally pulled off that rare thing of writing something that's happy and, at the same time, is real and manages to avoid the vacuous, playroom trap."

Enlightened

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: Steve Hogarth said: "It's about the magic of feeling great and very chilled out and spacey and smiley. I wrote it in a café called 'Viva Vida' in Sao Paolo. When you're incredibly tired, which, of course, you usually are on tour, you get into a euphoric state of mind that comes out of exhaustion. I was sitting there in the afternoon with my body-clock all upside down, just watching the people on the avenue, killing time, and I was trying to write about being in love with life while at the same time thinking about love-making, and losing yourself in a person, and the electricity."

Built-In Bastard Radar

Introduction: From the notes on www.marillion.com: Steve Hogarth commented on John Helmer's lyrics, "It's a song about girls being attracted to bastards, as they often seem to be. I get the feeling he'd maybe lost 1-0 to a bastard way down the line, and it was his way of getting back. I don't know. Maybe he was taking the piss out of me, deriving some quiet, mischievous joy out of asking me to sing these words."

I was able to ask John about this when I interviewed him for the Web UK: "No, but he's definitely my love rival, if that's what he's getting at!

"It might have been the other way round. I remember when I was a young man and I was behaving with such probity as I now behave with in my relationships, I certainly found the worse you behaved, there were benefits for cheating when you were 20-something and in a band.  But it definitely wasn't trying to get at Steve."

'Best of three...  with his angel'
Based on the Biblical story of Jacob and the Angel from Genesis 28:11-18:

11 And he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

13 And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said: 'I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.'

16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: 'Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.'

17 And he was afraid, and said: 'How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'

18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.

'Boul' St. Mich'
The Boulevard Saint Michel in Paris. The road is one of the major thoroughfare's of the Latin Quarter, and contains many expensive designer boutiques.

'Corniche'
The Corniche was Rolls-Royce's coupé and convertible version of the Silver Shadow produced between 1971 and 1996, so the song must be set a while ago for it to be a new one!

'Death where is thy sting?'
From the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians 15:54-57:

54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lyrics: John Helmer

Lyrics: Steve Hogarth & John Helmer