Care

In an interview for Smashing Interviews Magazine entitled Marillion's Masterpiece of Waning Moments, h said, "Section one, Maintenance Drugs, was inspired directly by my friend, Conrado, in Mexico City, who discovered he had inoperable tumours along his spine. He underwent many sessions of chemotherapy, and whenever he was having the treatment, he would send me a WhatsApp message with a smiling and defiant selfie. So I accompanied him on his journey. I am happy to say he is now in remission and feeling very well.

"Care is really a reflection on our mortality. No one knows how much time they’ve got left. None of us do. The middle section of the song (ii An Hour Before it’s Dark, and iii. Every Cell) represents someone reconciling themselves to dying, treasuring his sacred memories and acknowledging and being grateful to those who have loved him and those he loves. The third section represents the journey out of life but is also a thank you to the healthcare professionals who dedicate their lives and sometimes give their lives in the cause of caring for others. The angels in this world are not rendered in bronze or stone. They are working while we’re all sleeping. They’re caring."

Thanks to Paul Rose for sourcing that.

'Maintenance drugs'
Medication prescribed for treating chronic, long-term conditions, taken on a regular, recurring basis.

'N'est-ca pas?'
A French expression meaning, literally, "Is it not?" It would generally be used more in the sense of "Isn't that so?" - it's reinforcing the truth of the previous line, "No-one knows how much time they've got left".

'An hour before its dark'
Obviously the line from which the album title is taken, in a press release about the album, the band described the title as having multiple meanings; "Whether it's the last hour you were allowed to play outside as a child before you had to go home, a reference to the fight against time in relation to the climate crisis or the last minutes in a person's life".

'An domhan'
An domham is Old Irish (aka Old Gaelic) for 'the World'.

'Found freedom in a diamond I won't trade'
A call back to Sierra Leone.

'The hall of fame'
The term originally achieved popularity in the English-speaking world with the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, a sculpture gallery that opened in 1901, although the term was around in other languages from the early 19th century. There are numerous halls of fame particularly for music and sports, but the term 'fame' originally meant those who were renowned for achievements rather than for celebrity as it tends to mean today.

'I saw a man paint a woman on a wall [...] worried and exhausted'

In March 2020, nurse and photographer Johannah Churchill photographed her colleague Melanie Senior as they geared up for the opening of a COVID-19 clinic in SW London.

Entitled Melanie, March 2020, the image was selected as one of the top 100 entries to the Hold Still photography project, which received more than 31,000 submissions for portraits of the UK during lockdown. As part of the project, the image was been transformed into a mural in Manchester City centre by painter Peter Barber. 

 The mural was on the junction of Thomas St and High Street, but has subsequently been painted over.

'She wrapped her arms around me, He wrapped his arms around me'
A call back to the line from Murder Machines.

Songs with a link have explanations.

• Introduction
• Be Hard On Yourself
• Reprogram The Gene
• Murder Machines
• The Crow and the Nightingale
• Sierra Leone
• Care

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