Marillion released Clutching at Straws

Clutching at Straws Marillion

Released: June 19, 1987 Peak: 103 US, 2 UK, 81 CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.1 UK, 0.35 world (includes US and UK) Genre: neo-progressive rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Hotel Hobbies [3:35] Warm Wet Circles [4:25] That Time of the Night (The Short Straw) [6:00] Going Under [2:47] Just for the Record ]3:09] White Russian [6:27] Incommunicado [5:16] Torch Song [4:05] Slainte Mhath [4:44] Sugar Mice [5:46] The Last Straw [5:58] i. Happy Ending Total Running Time: 52:12 Other Songs from This Era: Tux On (B-side of “Sugar Mice”) The Players: Derek Dick, aka “Fish” (vocals) Steve Rothery (guitars) Mark Kelly (keyboards) Pete Trewavas (bass) Ian Mosley (drums)

Rating: 4.004 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album I doubt I’ve anticipated an album more than Marillion’s Clutching at Straws. It followed the British progressive-rock group’s third release, Misplaced Childhood, a #1 album in the UK. That album’s lead single, “Kayleigh,” was my introduction to the band. After falling in love with the parent album, I spent the next year consuming everything the band had released. By the time Clutching was released in June 1987, I was primed for new product. While Misplace Childhood focused on the rediscovery of childhood, Clutching at Straws was a return to the abyss. Lead singer Fish’s lyrics explored themes about “the excesses of classic addiction, whether of alcohol, sex or power.” JC-73 It was “written in bars about the people who drink in them.” JC-73 To that end, the album cover depicted “’The Great Bar in the Sky,’ populated with various artists, writers, and poets” JC-74 with reputations for nipping at the bottle. The album is built around a central character, Torch, who struggles to find answers while drowning his sorrows in alcohol. One senses that the success of Misplaced Childhood was a blessing and a curse. The album displays lead singer Fish’s “growing sense of frustration with the constant album-tour-album way of life, and the viewpoint frequently appears autobiographical rather than character-led.” JC-73 It also seems the added stress of extra touring pushed Fish to alcohol abuse and a sense that maybe there aren’t answers to everything after all. Notes: The 1999 reissue features a second disc of bonus material, including an alternate version of “Incommunicado,” B-side “Tux On,” and previously unreleased versions of “White Russian” and “Sugar Mice.” Of significant fan interest are seven demos, most of which surfaced to some degree on future Marillion and/or Fish solo efforts. “Story from a Thin Wall” served as the lyrical base for Fish’s “Family Business” and musical jumping-off point for Marillion’s “Berlin.” “Shadows on the Barley” evolved into “The Bell in the Sea” while “Sunset Hill” became Fish’s “View from the Hill.” “Tic-Tac-Toe” lent its lyrics to Fish’s “State of Mind” and music to Marillion’s “The Release.” “Voice in the Crowd” evolved lyrically into Fish’s “Vigil” and musically became Marillion’s “After Me.” “Exile on Princes Street” grew into Fish’s “Internal Exile.” Only “Beaujolais Day” appears to have gone no farther than the demo. In 2022, Fish released a double live album called The Last Straw which featured a full performance of Clutching at Straws. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Hotel Hobbies Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 8 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: “Bubbling eddies of keyboards introduce us to Hotel Hobbies and brings the curtain up on Torch, trapped by indecidsion, addiction, and self-loathing, in his hotel room. As he sits at his desk, desperately writing and knowing it’s worthless, the dawn, effortlessly conjured by the band, peeks through the cracks in the curtains, heralding another day.” JC-73

Warm Wet Circles Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (see lyrics here) Released: 10/26/1987 as a single, Clutching at Straws (1987), Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other (1992), Best of Both Worlds (1997), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) B-side: “White Russian (live)” First Charted: November 7, 1987 Peak: 22 UK, 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.74 video, -- streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: On my personal charts, “Warm Wet Circles” overtook “Incommunicado” as my favorite song after the latter held the pinnacle for five weeks. In that time, the entire album had supplanted itself into the top 10 and held it for an astonishing seven weeks, the greatest dominance my personal chart ever witnessed. “Warm Wet Circles” is the strongest and most interesting song on the Clutching at Straws album. “The beautiful, emotive” JC song opens with the lines “On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins / Where ceremonies pause at the jeweler’s shop display Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes / Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home.” Not exactly your average toe-tapper. As if the lyrics weren’t powerful enough, the song is stuffed with “warm wet circle” imagery, including a wedding ring, the sweat left behind by a glass, and a bullet wound. The song finds the album’s narrator (Torch) at the local bar. Lead singer Fish explained that it’s about “the dangers of getting trapped in the 9-to-5 syndrome and then going down to the pub and talking about things you’ll never really do. The local hero’s the best darts player and you marry the girl you met in the pub at 16.” JC “As Torch recalls losing his virginity, [guitarist] Steve Rothery breaks into an aching solo, full of pathos and longing, and the band execute one of the finest wrought moments of their career. Ian Mosley’s snare cracks and we feel the first bullet smashing into John Lennon on the steps of the Dakota building.” JC

That Time of the Night (The Short Straw) Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), Best of Both Worlds (1997), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 3 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: On the next song, Torch sits alone at the bar, drkinking, “terrified by the thought he’s perilously close to being one of the hometown guys.” JC-73 “The band creates the perfect sense of tension to underline how close to breaking point Torch really is.” JC-73 Ian Mosley said, “The album reflects genuine camaraderie, yet exposed the decaying tethers that held us together.” JC-73

Going Under Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (see lyrics here) Released: 5/11/1987 as the B-side of “Incommunicado,” Clutching at Straws (1987), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.23 video, -- streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: At the time of the release of Marillion’s fourth album, Clutching at Straws, it wasn’t uncommon to add a bonus track to the compact disc release to entice more CD buyers. In this case, the song “Going Under” was added to the album after the third cut, “That Time of the Night.” The song was also released as the B-side of “Incommunicado,” the album’s first single. I was still a cassette guy at the time. Of course I bought the tape as soon as possible, but it didn’t make much sense to get the CD when I didn’t own a CD player. However, the prospect of yet another Marillion song was too inviting. I was at college in the time and living in the dorm. My friend Steve, who lived across the hall, did have a CD player. I broke down and bought the CD more than six months after the album had been released and, whenever Steve would put up with it, invited myself into his room to put on the song. In the context of the album’s themes of a narrator struggling to deal with alcoholism and unemployment and being away from his family, the song finds Torch, the narrator, “languishing in the depths of his depression, close to giving up and taking the final way out.” JC The lyric was “written on the spur of the moment over a [Steve] Rothery guitar motif.” JC Keyboardist Mark Kelly said, it was “very much a snapshot of what was going on at the time.” JC

Just for the Record Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 3 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: “Just as it all gets too dark, Just for the Record’s jaunty keyboard intro brings a note of hope to the album, albeit tinged with a note of self-deception.” JC-73 “The keyboard-led track has Torch cheer himself up with the thought that he could give it all up any time he wanted, the traditional excuse of the addict.” JC-74

White Russian Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), live: 10/26/1987 as B-side of “Warm Wet Circles,” The Thieving Magpie (live, 1988), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 6 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: “The off-kilter rhythms” JC-74 of “the skull-crushingly dark White Russian” JC-74 “bring to mind wartime dance halls, but as ever on this album, there’s a Kelly-painted black cloud about to come down as Torch observes the rise of Neo-Nazism in Austria. Knowing he should make a stand and say something, Torch fails and runs away geographically and mentally [and] searches for a dealer with something for the pain.” JC-74

Incommunicado Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (see lyrics here) Released: 5/11/1987 as a single, Clutching at Straws (1987), The Thieving Magpie (live, 1988), Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other (1992), Best of Both Worlds (1997), Best of Marillion (2003), Return to Childhood (Fish live, 2005), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) B-side: “Going Under” First Charted: May 23, 1987 Peak: 6 UK, 24 AR, 15 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.81 video, -- streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The lead single from Clutching at Straws “is a necessary mood-lifter” JC-74 although the band thought it sounded too much like the Who and considered leaving it off the album. However, producer Chris Kimsey insisted on keeping the “bouncy, up-tempo number.” JC-74 It debuted at #1 on my personal charts and stayed there for five weeks. In retrospect, with its nauseatingly fast pace, “Incommunicado” is the weakest song on the album although it was the logical choice for the first single. Music writer Paul Stenning took a very different stance, calling it “the most original commercial composition of all time.” WK In the context of the album, which explores a narrator named Torch as he struggles with alcoholism, the “fast, anthemic rock song” WK “is a necessary mood-lifter…[which] reveals Torch imagining himself as a ‘winner in the fame game.’” JC Chris Wilkinson, the band’s longtime artist for album covers and singles, depicted a “character standing at the door apart from the crowd…alluding to the song’s main topic, alienating artists from their fans and reality in general.” WK Adam Wakeman, the son of Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman and a keyboardist in his own right with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, has cited Mark Kelly’s keyboard solo in the song as an inspiration. WK

Torch Song Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 5 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: These songs “document Torche’s growing realization that he’s killing himself, and the notion he doesn’t care, because it takes him away from the misery of real life. In arguably one of his best lyrics, Fish contrasts the wasted lives of World War I in the trenches with the Scottish shipbuilders seeing their livelihoods destroyed by Thatcherism, and the band pull out all the stops to conjure Torch’s helplessness.” JC-74

Slainte Mhath Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), The Thieving Magpie (live, 1988), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 7 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: See “Torch Song.”

Sugar Mice Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (see lyrics here) Released: 7/13/1987 as a single, Clutching at Straws (1987), The Thieving Magpie (live, 1988), Best of Both Worlds (1997), Best of Marillion (2003), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) B-side: “Tux On” First Charted: July 25, 1987 Peak: 22 UK, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2.735 video, 3.34 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The slower tempo “Sugar Mice” was released as the second single from Clutching at Straws. The term “sugar mice” is a reference to a sugar candy popular in the United Kingdom, especially at Christmas time. The phrase “sugar mice in the rain” thus becomes an analogy for the fragility people have in their lives as sugar mice would disintegrate in the rain. “Sugar Mice” memorably peeks into the into the mind of a man who leaves his family because he can’t beat the bottle. It “directly addresses the devastating effect unemployment can have on personal relationships.” WK The song captures the achingly painful moment when the main character talks to his kids on the phone and tries to explain why he left. Lead singer Fish said the song grew out of “a bad phone call home to a very upset girlfriend.” JC He was in a Holiday Inn and feeling down. After the call to his girlfriend, he ended up feeling even more depressed. WK On my personal charts, it would become the third song from the album to top my charts, following five weeks by the lead single “Incommunicado,” eventual third single “Warm Wet Circles” for four weeks, and then “Sugar Mice” for three weeks. All told, the three songs collectively locked down twelve consecutive weeks at the top of my personal chart. The song features “one of the purest guitar solos ever committed to tape” JC-74 by Steve Rothery.

The Last Straw Marillion

Writer(s): Derek Dick (Fish), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas Released: Clutching at Straws (1987), The Last Straw (Fish live, 2022) Peak: 2 DF Click for codes to charts. About the Song: This song “brings us back to Torch in his room…Hard at work, keys clattering against the paper, he muses on what he has seen, creating his masterpiece on the human condition. It’s too late and the damage is done.” JC-74 “The band turn savage…building to a desperate climax as Torch realizes it’s too late to change and his addictions have beaten him.” JC-74 Fish sings, “Those problems seem to arise / The ones you never really thought of / The feeling you get is similar to something like drowning.” He also proclaims, “We’re terminal cases that keep taking medicine / Pretending the end isn’t quite that near.” The lines were eerie foreshadowing to the end of an era; it would be Fish’s last album with the band.

Resources/References: JC Jon Collins (2003). Separated Out. Helter Skelter Publishing: London, England. WK Wikipedia page for Clutching at Straws WK Wikipedia page for “Incommunicado” WK Wikipedia page for “Sugar Mice” WK Wikipedia page for “Warm Wet Circles” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/14/2008; last updated 7/17/2026.