A Return to Eden

A Return to Eden

One of my Christmas presents was the recently released remixed Deluxe Edition of Holidays in Eden by Marillion. This was their second studio album with Steve Hogarth (H) as frontman, and it brought me back to the band. When Fish left, I’d followed him on with Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors and more. I’d struggled with Seasons End, mainly as I’d felt at times that H was sailing to close to Fish’s vocal style in how he was delivering lyrics and it was still raw. On reflection, this was all in my head; some of the tracks on that album are sublime, and the vocals match them perfectly. 

Anyway, I’d ended up chatting to another engineer during the draughting course in first year at Southampton, a friend of my lab partner Ceri. We discovered a common love for Marillion, and I said that I hadn’t really got on with Season’s End. He told me that Holiday’s in Eden was worth a listen, that the musical style had shifted and H had come into his own. I borrowed the CD, loved it, taped it, and passed it back. Eventually I picked up my own copy. 1994’s Brave re-cemented my love for the band and the rest is history.

Holidays in Eden tends to get dismissed as too commercial and poppy for Marillion. It’s true that Chris Neil, the producer, has huge pop credentials, and that EMI wanted 3 hit singles, but the album is much more than that. ‘Splintering Heart’ is possibly one of the best openers that the band has every written. It pulses with energy and menace. The ‘This Town’ trilogy at the end (This Town/The Rake’s Progress/100 Nights) shows clearly where the band would go with intertwined and complex tracks. The remix feels much more expansive, and you can hear much more detail in the tracks. Sonically, it’s impressive.

Of course, the album contains one of my all time favourites, ‘Waiting to Happen’, a song of rediscovered love that - 20 years ago - Jill & I had during the register signing when we got married. It’s a wistful story of love. 

I’ve just listened through the whole album once with the headphones on, and it’s gorgeous. I’m hoping to give it a few more spins over the next few days. But before that, there are discs 2 & 3 to listen to. These are a live show at Hammersmith in September 1991, which should be great fun.

A lovely live version of ‘Waiting to Happen’.

Waiting to Happen

I lie awake at night
Listening to you sleeping
I hear the darkness breathe
And the rain against the window

After all this time
Cynical and jaded
All the stones are diamonds
All the blues are faded

Everything I've been through
All I've seen and heard
Spend so much of my life
In the spiritual third world
But you came and brought the rain here

Something waiting to happen
Something learning to fly
We can talk without talking
From inside to inside
I have waited to feel this
For the whole of my life

We took ourselves apart
We talked about our faces
You said you didn't like yours
I said I disagree

I keep the pieces separate
I clutch them in my coat
A jigsaw of an angel
I can do when I feel low

From emptiness and dryness
The famine of our days
I watch the heavens open
Wash it all away
You came and brought the rain here

Something waiting to happen
Something learning to fly
On the edge of exploding
Something wild and alive
Something waiting to happen
Any time that you like
I have waited to feel this
For the whole of my life

MUSIC: Hogarth | Kelly | Mosley | Rothery | Trewavas
LYRICS:Hogarth

Happy Christmas.

25 December 2022

Addendum (26/12/2022).

I watched Jim Newstead’s YouTube first listen on this and despite being delightful in its own right to see someone’s first reaction to a record that I love, he makes the very valid point that there are shades of U2 and Simple Minds in the music on this album. I guess that’s part of the reason that it resonated with me as much as it did; both those bands were at the heart of my listening in the late 80s and early 90s. Simple Minds were the first band I saw live (at Leeds’ Roundhay Park), and U2 weren’t that far behind (also at Roundhay Park, disappointing in comparison to Simple Minds live). One of the things I’ve loved about Marillion over the years has been how their music has changed and developed with each album, and yet a recognisable thread remains.