Marillion Misplaced Childhood hit #1 in UK

Misplaced Childhood Marillion

Released: June 17, 1985 Charted: June 29, 1985 Peak: -- US, 0.3 UK, 1.4 world (includes US and UK) Sales (in millions): 47 US, 11 UK Genre: neo-progressive rock

Tracks: (Click for codes to singles charts.) Pseudo Silk Kimono [2:13] Kayleigh [3:54] (4/7/85, 74 US, 2 UK, 14 AR) Lavender [2:33] (8/27/85, 5 UK) Bitter Suite [7:53] i. Brief Encounter ii. Lost Weekend iii. Blue Angel iv. Misplaced Rendezvous v. Windswept Thumb Heart of Lothian [4:08] (11/18/85, 29 UK) i. Wide Boy ii. Curtain Call Waterhole (Expresso Bongo) [2:07] Lords of the Backstage [1:57] Blind Curve [9:29] i. Vocal Under a Bloodlight ii. Passing Strangers iii. Mylo iv. Perimeter Walk v. Threshold Childhood’s End? [4:32] White Feather [2:23] All songs written by Dick/ Kelly/ Mosley/ Rothery/ Trewavas. Total Running Time: 41:17 The Players: Derek Dick, aka “Fish” (vocals) Steve Rothery (guitars) Mark Kelly (keyboards) Pete Trewavas (bass) Ian Mosley (drums)

Rating: 4.348 out of 5.00 (average of 26 ratings) Quotable: “The cornerstone of the entire ‘neo-prog’ movement” – Ryan Reed, Ultimate Classic Rock Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: My favorite album of all time is Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood. Europeans who grew up in the 1980s may know the album. Fans of neo-prog rock may know the album. However, the general American public is clueless to its existence. On June 29, 1985, it debuted at #1 on the UK charts. It would be two more months before it even scraped the U.S. Billboard album charts, peaking at #47. Marillion had been pegged as a neo-prog band which couldn’t escape comparisons to Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. They were seemingly destined for a similar career path devoid of mainstream success. Their first single, “Market Square Heroes,” scraped the bottom of the British charts at an unforgettable #60 in October 1982. Their debut album, 1983’s Script for a Jester’s Tear, soared into the top ten, as with the follow-up album and a live album after that, but comparable success with singles alluded them. “Kayleigh” That all changed with Kayleigh, the lead-off single for Misplaced Childhood. The song’s theme of remorse over splitting with an ex-lover made for a topic of widespread relatability. The song hit the UK singles chart in May and climbed to #2 the week ending June 15. It didn’t grace American charts until August when it hit the Billboard rock charts and peaked at #14. In October, the song reached the pop charts as well, hitting #74. I was a freshman in college in the fall of 1985. One’s teen and young adult years typically coincide with the period in life of greatest musical discovery. I was no exception. I soaked it up the tastes of my peers exploring musical genres that moved beyond my then-Top 40-leaning tastes. In branching out to more album-oriented rock, I heard the song “Kayleigh” and was sucked in. Fish, the band’s frontman, had penned what appeared to be an ironically bouncy pop ditty about lost love. It certainly had catchy lines: Kayleigh, I never thought I’d miss you And Kayleigh, I’d hoped that we’d always be friends We said our love would last forever So how did it come to this bitter end? However, it was also infused with Fish’s typically poignant twists and sophisticated way with words: Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall? Do you remember dawn escaped from moon-washed college halls? Do you remember the cherry blossoms in the market square? Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair? By the way, didn’t I break your heart? Click to see the full set of lyrics. Taking a Risk on the Whole Album It grew on me and by Christmas I was geared up to plunge into the whole album. For you young’ns, music discovery in 1985 wasn’t as simple as pulling up a bands website or trolling YouTube for video clips. In pre-Internet days, I couldn’t listen to music before buying it. I was wary. Who was this group? Would I like their other songs? I’d never bought an album solely on the basis of one song. I had to take a leap of faith. Over Christmas break, I kept wandering into a Camelot music store to check out the album. Ah, yes. Once upon a time people actually bought music in stores – and in malls, no less! The cover art by Mark Wilkinson (who did all of the singles and albums during the Fish era) fascinated me. It looked like an album I wanted to hear. “Pseudo Silk Kimono” Once I’d liberated my wallet of a few dollars and brought the Misplaced critter home, I was immediately entranced. A room-filling keyboard sound opened the album, segueing into the intriguing words “huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono…” half-sung and half-spoken by Fish. This purchase was one risk I would not regret. “From the opening notes of Pseudo Silk Kimono, it is clear that this is not going to be a selection of jingles.” JC-63 “Lavender” “Pseudo Silk Kimono” “glides smoothly into the opening notes of [“Kayleigh,”] a love song, a story of a girl, of many girls, of break-ups and breakdown.” JC-64 It is followed by Lavender, which was released as the album’s second single and hit the top 5 in the UK. Marillion’s new-found success gave them their best shot at stardom on American shores (alas, it didn’t happen) when they landed an opening stint for Rush. “’Lavender’ introduces the child to the tale, the boy in the man. As Fish wrote, ‘The guy’s looking back on childhood all the time. He looks on his childhood as being the ideal world, the simplicity of then. He can’t figure out at what point he stopped being a kid and became and adult.” JC-63 Of course, by the end of the album, he finds out he doesn’t need to abandon that youthful spirit; he finds out he's only misplaced his childhood. “Bitter Suite” At this point, the album’s protagonist has given up on rediscovering childhood. “The band lead us through several sections, memory snapshots of loves lost, climaxing with the return to the haunting themes of ‘Lavender’ in Blue Angel. This emotive sub-section of ‘Bitter Suite’ seeds Fish seeking solace in the arms of a lady of the night, although he has since admitted ‘[she] wasn’t a prostitute. That was a compounding of events made under poetic license.” JC-63 “Misplaced Rendezvous and Windswept Thumb sees the band drag us back into the present, Fish in the middle of writing his acid-fuelled memoirs, and then drops us under the spotlight in centre stage, for the first part of Heart of Lothian.” JC-63 “Heart of Lothian” Those last two parts of “Bitter Suite” and the first section of “Heart of Lothian” were released as the third single and hit the top 30 on the UK singles chart. That “gloriously-overblown first section” JC-63 (“Wide Boy”) “has the rock star in full flow, singing his heart out to his fans, whilst recalling his Scottish roots. The introspection of Curtain Call reveals the star desperate to go and live up to his hedonistic image, but hamstrung by the business of being a musician, the photo-calls, and listening back to the show.” JC-63 “Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)” Here our lead character does, in fact, find an escape from the travails of fame – although not a healthy one. “The band evokes the rush…of hedonism. And Fish? He’s out of it; the girls, the booze, the powders, whist at the back of his head, there’s an incessant ticking that something isn’t quite right.” JC-63 “Lords of the Backstage” In Lords of the Backstage, Fish explores the burden of maintaining a relationship under the stress of becoming a rock star, stating “a lifestyle with no simplicities, but I’m not asking for your sympathies/Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us/A lord of the backstage, a creature of language/I’m so far out and I’m too far in.” Fish looks back again at his relationship with Kayleigh, “realizing his desire for success outweighted his need for her.” JC-63 “Blind Curve” This segues into the multi-part “Blind Curve,” which finds the protagonist at his lowest point. Fish sings, “it’s getting late for scribbling and scratching on the paper/Something’s gonna give under the pressure/And the cracks are already beginning to show/It’s too late.” “Steve Rothery string-bends to perfection as Vocal Under a Bloodlight revisits the fragmentation of a relationship.” JC-63 The song then reminisces about John Mylett , a friend of the band who died in a car crash in 1984, in the section entitled Mylo. The lyrics find “Fish cracking up under the strain.” JC-64 of fame. “In mourning and sick of his rootlessness, he endures another press interview; his only way of coping is retreating from life even further.” JC-64 “Immersed in the drug cocoon of Pete Trewavas’s ominous bass rumbles and Ian Mosley’s heartbeat drums, he has a sudden recollection of a time when life was less complicated, a time of innocence. Threshold seeds him dancing on the razor’s edge of insanity, as the cruelty of mdern life – loneliness, war, homelessness, emotionally damaged children – assault him.” JC-64 “Childhood’s End?” “As the drug fades into comedown and the sun comes up, the singer suddenly finds himself able to cope, he sees a future before him. The band create a bubbling, optimistic ode, tingled with Mark Kelly’s poignant keyboards of regret. Steve Rothery’s guitar squeals out with a heart-rush of excitement. Fish can see past his worries and we segue into the hopeful resolution of his dark trip.” JC-64 “White Feather” “Recalling the ‘where are the prophets, where are the visionaries?’ coda to Fugazi, Fish puts his faith in humanity. Together, he says, we can make it through, and to back him up, the music fizzles with thrilling elation. As the last notes fade out, the nightmare ends.” JC-64 Why It Became a Favorite I’m pretty close to illiterate when it comes to grasping music theory, so I have no intelligent insight into why this album grabbed me instrumentally or vocally. I’ve just had to rely on gut instinct. Does the album’s overall sound work for me? It did here – in spades. What made Childhood a regular fixture in my tape deck was its overall concept and witty lyricism. Fish crafted a story which explored well-worn themes of a relationship gone sour, a country ravaged by war, a man dipping into the abyss, and the disappearance of self at the hands of the rock-n-roll lifestyle. Part of the uniqueness stemmed from the conceit of tackling all these ideas at once. The other surprise of the album, however, was its unexpectedly hopeful finale – drug-induced, no less – of recovery via a return to childhood innocence. The Dreaded Concept Album Childhood dares to traverse the dangerous ground of “concept album,” going so far as to not even insert breaks between songs. Like classic conceptual works such as The Who’s Tommy, Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, the album can draw critical fire for sacrificing songs in favor of ideas. However, when it comes to art, critics be damned. Fall in love with whatever you like and don’t feel obligated to justify it to anyone. Misplaced Childhood is a cohesive, focused, and seemingly autobiographical effort that takes the listener on a rollercoaster ride through the initial depression of a breakup, struggles with fame, the subsequent acid-induced fall into the abyss, and the final realization that, as he sings in Childhood’s End?, “I can do anything and still the child/’cos the only thing misplaced was direction and I found direction/There is no childhood’s end.” In his book Separated Out, Jon Collins says Misplaced Childhood “established [itself] as part of the triology that saw a lovelorn jester [on 1983’s Script for a Jester’s Tear] go from grief, to anger [on 1984’s Fugazi], and now to reflection, acceptance and hope.” JC-63 The hopeful nature of this album is reflected in the artwork. “The cover sees the Jester, the symbol of heartache and disillusionment, disappearing through a window.” JC-64 “A rainbow gives us hope, and the magpie transmutates into a dove, the bird of peace…The image is the perfect metaphor for the music,” JC-64 which isn’t just more hopeful, but “more accessible than its predecessors.” JC-63 With Misplaced Childhood, Marillion not only pulls off their master stroke, but creates a classic that even the most celebrated bands would struggle to top. Notes: A 1998 remaster added a second disc of demos and alternate mixes. In 2017, a box set was released which included two CDs of a live show at Utretcht in 1985 and a third disc of demos and B-sides. Marillion’s final album of the Fish era was 1988’s double-live collection called The Thieving Magpie which featured a full performance of Misplaced Childhood. In 2006, Fish released the live album Return to Childhood, in which he also performed the album in full.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Marillion DMDB encyclopedia entry for Fish Jon Collins (2003). Separated Out. Helter Skelter Publishing: London, England. UCR Ultimate Classic Rock (6/17/2015). “How Marillion Helped Resurrect Prog on ‘Misplaced Childhood’” by Ryan Reed WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: Last updated 3/1/2022.

Bryan Adams “Summer of ‘69” released

Summer of ‘69 Bryan Adams

Writer(s): Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance (see lyrics here) Released: June 17, 1985 First Charted: December 8, 1984 Peak: 5 US, 4 RR, 40 AR, 42 UK, 11 CN, 14 AU, 7 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.61 US, 1.8 UK, 4.42 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 258.44 video, 848.95 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Rock singer/songwriter and guitarist Bryan Adams was born in 1959 in Canada. He became the lead singer of Sweeney Todd at age 16, but left within a year to start a solo career. His self-titled debut came in 1980, but his big break came with 1983’s Cuts Like a Knife which gave him a top-10 hit in the United States with “Straight from the Heart” and two more top-40 hits. His next album, 1984’s Reckless, was a blockbuster, hitting #1 in the U.S. and selling more than 5 million copies. The album featured six top-20 hits, including the #1 “Heaven.” The lead single, “Run to You,” was a top-10 hit and topped the album rock charts. It set him up for three more hits on that chart before year’s end; one of those songs was “Summer of ’69.” Surprisingly, it only reached #40 on that chart, but it fared much better when released as a single six months later. It became his fourth top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was about the “dilemma between settling down or trying to become a rock star.” WK Adams said, “It’s a very simple song about looking back on the summertime and making love.” SF It went through multiple changes because neither Adams nor co-songwriter Jim Vallance thought it was strong enough for the album. Early versions were called “Best Days of My Life.” The song refers to people who Adams knew, including a former drummer (Jimmy) and his sound manager (Jody). WK Adams, who would have only been nine years old in the summer of 1969, claimed “69” referred to the sex position. Vallance said, “When we recorded the demo in my basement, towards the end of the song Bryan sang a little naughty bit: ‘me and my baby in a 69.’ We had a laugh about it at the time and Bryan decided to keep it when he did the final recoriding a month or two later.” WK Vallance has also said, “I think ‘Summer of ‘69’ was Bryan and I at our best.” SF Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 11/6/2022.

Tears for Fears released “Head Over Heels”

Head Over Heels Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Curt Smith (see lyrics here) Released: June 10, 1985 First Charted: June 22, 1985 Peak: 3 US, 3 CB, 3 RR, 5 AC, 7 AR, 1 CO, 12 UK, 11 CN, 21 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 76.6 video, 105.93 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Tears for Fears exploded in the U.S. market with their second album, Songs from the Big Chair. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Shout” were both chart-toppers on the Billboard Hot 100. They were followed by “Head Over Heels,” which reached #3. The song evolved as a segue with the song “Broken,” which had previously been a B-side to the 1983 single “Pale Shelter” from the band’s first album, The Hurting. In live performances, “Head Over Heels” was sandwiched in between two parts of “Broken.” The band did the same thing on the Songs from the Big Chair album version with a live version of “Broken” preceding “Head Over Heels” and a reprise following it. A single edit version of the song cut the song before the “Broken” reprise. The song is a fairly straight forward love song, although lines such as “It’s hard to be a man when there’s a gun in your hand” might cause a girl to file a restraining order. SF On a personal note, I misunderstood the lyric for years as “It’s hard to be a man when there’s a girl in your head.” I thought the line worked better since it suggested one had a hard time being himself when hung up on someone. The song also proved a pretty spot-on soundtrack for my own unrequited love the summer after my senior year in high school. The video for the song was directed by Nigel Dick, who would also assume the director’s chair for Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” more than a dozen years later. Singer Roland Orzabal suggested the concept of meeting a girl in the library as well as random images like a rabbi and a chimp. There’s an homage to the movie Ghostbusters when cards come flying out of the catalog drawer. SF In 2008, a literal video was made of the song mocking many of the visuals. SF Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Tears for Fears SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 2/1/2020; last updated 8/5/2022.

Sting released The Dream of the Blue Turtles

The Dream of the Blue Turtles Sting

Released: June 1, 1985 Peak: 2 US, 3 UK, 4 CN, 13 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.6 UK, 10.1 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rock with jazz elements

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free [4:14] (6/8/85, 3 US, 2 CB, 3 RR, 1 AR, 39 AC, 17 RB, 26 UK, 18 AU) Love Is the Seventh Wave [3:30] (8/1/85, 17 US, 20 CB, 16 RR, 19 AR, 20 AC, 41 UK, 57 AU) Russians (Prokofiev/Sting) [3:57] (12/7/85, 16 US, 16 CB, 13 RR, 34 AR, 12 UK, 11 AU) Children’s Crusade [5:00] Shadows in the Rain [4:56] We Work the Black Seam [5:40] Consider Me Gone [4:21] The Dream of the Blue Turtles [1:15] Moon Over Bourbon Street [3:59] (2/15/86, 44 UK) Fortress Around Your Heart [4:48] (7/6/85, 8 US, 10 CB, 6 RR, 1 AR, 32 AC, 49 UK, 72 AU) Songs written by Sting unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 41:40 The Players: Sting (vocals, guitar, keyboard, double bass) Kenny Kirkland (keyboards) Branford Marsalis (saxophone, percussion) Darryl Jones (bass guitar) Omar Hakim (drums) Dolette McDonald, Janice Pendarvis (backing vocals)

Rating: 4.081 out of 5.00 (average of 12 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: While Sting’s first solo album can certainly be viewed as closing a chapter on his stint with the Police, his former group never officially disbanded. After the monstrous success of 1983’s Synchronicity, the group just didn’t reconvene. While the Police were always marked by their spin on “white reggae,” Sting sets out here to put his spin on pop-driven jazz. To that end, he “raided Wynton Marsalis’ band for his new combo – thereby instantly consigning his solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, to the critical shorthand of Sting’s jazz record.” STE This “is partially true (that’s probably the best name for the meandering instrumental title track), but that gives the impression that this is really risky music.” STE In reality, he has assembled a group of “revivalists just developing their own style, and then had them jam on mock-jazz grooves – or, in the case of Branford Marsalis, layer soprano sax lines on top of pop songs.” STE While his songs could be dismissed as little more than jazz-tinged pop, this should also be assessed as a collection that goes deeper than the average lyrical themes for commercial-ready hits. On If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, “one of his greatest solo singles,” STE he avoids the conventional love song, preferring “to consider love in the abstract.” STE “Only twice does he delve into straightforward love songs – the lovely measured Consider Me Gone and the mournful closer, Fortress Around Your Heart.” STE Elsewhere on the album he explores the effect of coal mining in We Work the Black Seam, the tragedy of children dealing with war in Children’s Crusade , and raises the question in Russians about whether the people in a country considered the enemy have the same love for their children. He also revives Shadows in the Rain, a Police tune about heroin, STE and even turns in his take on Anne Rice’s book Interview with the Vampire and the notion of wandering “the streets of New Orleans as the vampire Lestat.” STE The flirtation with jazz and the serious-minded nature of the lyrics leads some to assess Sting as pretentious. All Music Guide’s Stephen Thoms Erlewine says, “Sting cries out for the respect of a composer, not a pop star, and it gets to be a little overwhelming when taken as a whole…He proves that he’s subtler and craftier than his peers, but only when he reins in his desire to show the class how much he’s learned.” STE While Sting may well have earned the “pretentious” label over the course of his career, it’s also eye-rolling to see him attacked for trying to stretch himself as an artist.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Sting STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 8/22/2021.

Aha released Hunting High and Low

First posted 1/18/2009; updated 9/9/2020.

Hunting High and Low A-ha

Released: June 1, 1985 Peak: 15 US, 2 UK, -- CN, 15 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.9 UK, 1.9 world (includes US and UK) Genre: synth pop

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Take on Me (9/16/85, 1 US, 4 AC, 2 UK, 1 AU, airplay: 3 million) Train of Thought (3/24/86, 8 UK, 47 AU) Hunting High and Low (6/2/86, 5 UK, 33 AU) The Blue Sky Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale The Sun Always Shines on T.V. (12/16/85, 20 US, 1 UK, 19 AU) And You Tell Me Love Is Reason I Dream Myself Alive Here I Stand and Face the Rain Total Running Time: 37:19 The Players: Morten Harket (vocals, guitar) Magne Furuholmen (keyboards, guitar, bass) Pål Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars, drums, percussion)

Rating: 3.750 out of 5.00 (average of 4 ratings)

About the Album: “Take on Me exploded in the States and the group never cracked the top of the charts again,” AMG “though the band spawned many further hits across the rest of the world.” AMG That song “is a new wave classic laced with rushing keyboards, made emotionally resonant thanks to Morten Harket’s touching vocal delicacy. It didn't hurt in the era of MTV that the song’s video was a hyperkinetic blend of mind-warping animation and filmed footage with a romantic thriller’s heart. Harket's hunky physique and cheekbones also didn’t hurt the video's chances at heavy rotation.” AMG However, “anyone who dismissed a-ha as a one-hit wonder missed out on the band’s fine debut, Hunting High and Low.” AMG “It’s a shame, because the album contains a handful of songs that nearly match the manic energy and emotional crack of its big hit.” AMG “The Sun Always Shines on T.V. is just as thrilling. Starting as a sad ballad, it explodes into something much more, as chugging guitars and operatic synths keep pace with Harket's evocative vocal stylings. If ever a 1980s song qualified as Wall of Sound, ‘The Sun Always Shines on T.V.’ would be it.” AMG “The remainder of the album sees a-ha switching deftly back and forth between dramatic overtures and classic new wave keyboard motifs. Train of Thought and Love Is Reason are reminiscent of early Depeche Mode or Camouflage, but Harket’s rich voice and flair make them purely a-ha. The band explores decidedly European terrain in the theatrical Hunting High and Low and dances a pop waltz with the sweet Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale, coming across like a marriage between the Blue Nile and Alphaville. Delightful song snippets The Blue Sky and And You Tell Me act as frosting on the cake or as glue between the theater and the dancefloor.” AMG “One can’t escape the feeling that Hunting High and Low is a product of the 1980s,” AMG but this is “a cohesive album with smart pace changeups, and it rarely fails to delight or satisfy a listener’s need for a synth pop fix.” AMG “With highs like ‘Take on Me’ and ‘The Sun Always Shines on T.V.,’ and no lows in sight, a-ha’s debut is a treat worth relishing” (Raggett).

Resources and Related Links: A-ha’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG Tim DiGravina, All Music Guide