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?"

Fish: "It was, I used to, when I used to live in Aylesbury, I met up with these guys and they were all kind of weird, they were all in wheelchairs, they'd been in motorbike accidents and stuff or like from birth or whatever, and we used to drop acid together a lot, and the guys were heavily into speed and shit. I used to go down to their flat quite a bit and we used to just sit about and go tripping and just getting' it up and stuff, and it was one night when we were all sittin' there and we were trippin' away, all these guys in wheelchairs and stuff and a lot of weird shit going on, and this guy turned around and says, 'All the best freaks are here!'

"I said, 'That's a great line' and that's what it derived from. It's just that feeling of sometimes, when you're in a band I think, when fame does put the wand on you, it's one of those things that sometimes you feel that everybody's staring at you, and that you're not part of what they're doing - you don't identify with civilian life. And it's a bit like being on tour, generally speaking."

'Spook Squad'
My friends and I always thought that the lyrics were 'You've got the spook squad looking after you', but the Gazza Ladra music book has them down as 'You've got the spooks from looking after you'! I prefer 'Spook Squad'.

Additionally, Marillion fans often choose to describe themselves as 'Freaks'. This has continued into the h-era, and was reinforced by the song Separated Out on Marillion's 2001 album, Anoraknophobia, albeit not intentionally. The term describes the often fanatical devotion of the fan base to the band, and the oldest of the Marillion and Fish-related mailing lists also took its name from this song.

Songs with a link have explanations.

Marillion - Explanations of Song Elements

Freaks

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