The album
seemed to play to the band's strengths, with a mixture of epics, snappy rock
songs, powerful ballads and emotive mid-paced tracks, though user polls have
rarely agreed on the best songs.
Marbles - Introduction
The Invisible Man
Introduction: From an interview with the Web France,
in September 2004, h said, "Invisible Man takes a bit of explaining, and I don't
really want to explain it... Well, just very generally, it's about witnessing
without being there, about being conscious of other people's lives, sometimes
intimately conscious, without being there and without being able to do anything
about it, and about how difficult that is. So the invisible man is a ghost,
really, he is somebody who is watching and knowing, and must bear the weight
and the pain of that, and the pain of being unable to help. 'When you
stumble/ You will stumble through me' is the most important line of the
song, and this one line really sums the song up. The attempt to catch someone
as they fall and them falling through you because you're actually not there.
And to some extent we've all become invisible men.
Marbles I-IV
Introduction: From an outtake from the Marbles
on the Road DVD on YouTube, h said, "I wrote this poem. I had this
rhythm like an Irish drinking song. It started like that, a goofy little poem
about going nuts, but at the same time as that, it was about innocence and
harking back to a time when everything was real. When I was a kid and I used to
play marbles and how magical they were and the fact that to me they almost represented
little spirits frozen in glass. Like a way of capturing ghosts almost, as a
kid.
Genie
Introduction: From an interview with the Web France,
in September 2004, h said, "Well, that story is partly true. I met a girl, years ago in
Berlin, who told me in all seriousness that she'd lived with me in her previous
life, and that I'd been a fisherman on the Normandy coast of France. Which was
a really odd thing for someone to tell you, but she told me in total
seriousness and she was such that it was very hard to write off what she was
saying. She didn't seem like a crazy person, she seemed very matter-of-fact
about it.
Fantastic Place
Introduction: From an interview with the Web France,
in September 2004, h said, "Well, it's a simple song,
really. I mean, it runs very deep, but it is really just a love song. It's
about escaping from your own life into a better place, even if it's just for a
moment. So, again, I'm reluctant to explain it, because I think I would weaken
it. If I went saying why I wrote it; and what it means, and where that place
is, then in many ways I would ruin it, because everyone has their own fantastic
place and they don't want me to tell them where it is. Because they know where
it is.
The Only Unforgivable Thing
Introduction: From an interview with the Web France, in September 2004, h
said, "Well, that's just a song about carrying guilt, you know,
dragging it around with you from the moment you drift into consciousness in the
morning. You know, domestic trouble..."
Ocean Cloud
Introduction: In an interview my wife and I
conducted with him for the Web UK Magazine, h revealed, “It started being
about Tony Bullimore, yeah, and… at what point did we get hold of Don? It was
the news story about that old guy being pulled out of his boat and I saw a TV
programme with Lenny Henry and he crossed the Atlantic with Tony Bullimore and
he’s a bit of a character! I’d kind of forgotten about him in a way, you know,
they were just hanging around at the back of my head.
The Damage
Introduction: In an interview with Songfacts, h revealed, "The Damage is really about infidelity, and the damage done. The power
of beauty. Not only the damage done, but the potential damage waiting in
the air, waiting to be done. Be careful what you wish for and all of
that. "
Angelina
Introduction: From an
interview with the Web France, in September 2004, h said, "I was driving into London one day a couple of years ago, and there
was a big poster up on the main road, a picture of a girl in a pair of headphones,
a DJ from a London radio station called Capital Radio, and on the poster it
said 'Marguerita takes requests', and then it said the time, you know, '7.30 to
9.30' or something, 'Capital Radio', and the FM number and everything. And it
just made me laugh, because it seemed like an advert more for a prostitute than
for a DJ. So then I was driving along, thinking 'Marguerita takes requests,
everyday at 7 am', or whatever it was, 'if you're down or in a mess... get on
to Marguerita'.
You're Gone
Introduction: In an interview with Songfacts, h revealed, "You're Gone was about love lost. About desperately missing someone. It
was also about my father to some degree - I lost him shortly before I
wrote that song. "
Drilling Holes
Introduction: In an interview my wife and I
conducted with h for the Web UK Magazine, h revealed, "You get to
the point where you really feel the need to write something goofy and daft,
because it makes such a bloody refreshing change. Which is why I wrote Drilling Holes on Marbles. I just wanted something that was quite the opposite of all
that intimate stuff and was just whimsical. And that doesn’t mean to say that
it’s not true, because it’s constructed from real memories, but there’s nothing
tragic about it, nothing deep about it; it was just a bit of fun."
At the Marillion Weekend 2015 in Port Zélande, h told the crowd that the song was inspired by the goings-on during the recording of Seasons End, his first album with the band at Hook End Manor in Checkendon, Oxfordshire.
At the Marillion Weekend 2015 in Port Zélande, h told the crowd that the song was inspired by the goings-on during the recording of Seasons End, his first album with the band at Hook End Manor in Checkendon, Oxfordshire.
Neverland
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