Sugar Mice

Introduction: From an unnamed article in No1 Magazine written by Debbie Voller on 30 May 1987, sent to me by Kristie English:

Fish: "I was laying in bed in the Holiday Inn and looking up at the ceiling at some hearts 'n' stuff that some lovers had carved, and I was feeling really down. So I rang my old lady but it was a bad phone call; lots of long silences. I felt even more depressed. Torch has run away from everything and everybody and gone in search of a dream that doesn't exist!"

From an interview with Matt Stocks for Team Rock entitled The 10 Best Songs That Have Shaped Fish's Career: Fish: "I love the lyrics on it as well. I wrote them in Milwaukee when we were out on a US tour. I ended up in some shit hotel, imagining what it would be like if somebody left their wife and kids in Scotland or whatever, and went half way across the world and ended up in a horrible hotel with a disgustingly sad bar downstairs. We checked in on a Sunday, and all you saw out the window was the dealers standing out on the corner, and that's kind of what the song was about."

'Sinatra'
Comptons Interactive Encyclopaedia: "SINATRA, Frank (born 1915). The term bobby-soxers was first used in 1943-44 to identify the young audiences who sighed, squealed, sobbed, and swooned over Frankie Boy the original teen idol. Part of Frank Sinatra's appeal then was his vulnerable, slouchy look, and part was his way of caressing a lyric. He bent his voice like a trombone to develop an intimate style of provocative slurs and eccentric phrasing. Known to different generations as The Voice, Ol' Blue Eyes, and Chairman of the Board, he was a superstar for more than five decades."

'Sugar Mice'
As seen on the cover, these are literally small, coloured mice made from sugar, with a string tail.

'Raincheck'
The original term was 'rain cheque'.

Jeroen Schipper's FAQ: "A raincheck is something that is:
- given out at events when it rains, like a baseball game. Usually it means the game is being cancelled at the current time, and the raincheck will allow you into the rescheduled game.
- When you go to buy something at a store and it is on sale. If something is supposed to be on sale, but it's sold out, they can give you a raincheck to pick the item up later at the sale price. 
- When talking about social occasions, as in "Would you like to come over for a drink?" "No thanks, I'll take a raincheck" meaning either a) Can't do it right now, how about later. or b) a polite way of saying bugger off."

'Clutching at Straws'
A forlorn hope; 'A drowning man will catch at a straw'.

Songs with a link have explanations.

• Introduction
• Hotel Hobbies 
• Warm Wet Circles
• That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)
• Just for the Record
• White Russian
• Incommunicado
• Torch Song
• Slàinte Mhath
• Sugar Mice
• The Last Straw
• Happy Ending?
• Going Under
• Tux On
• Beaujolais Day
• Story from a Thin Wall
• Shadows on the Barley
• Sunset Hill
• Tic-Tac-Toe
• Voice in the Crowd
• Exile on Princes Street

  ---

  Click to access album