The Uninvited Guest? My analysis of the Steve Hogarth era of Marillion

‘The Banquo at your banquet…’ — ‘Uninvited Guest’ — Marillion (1989)

Introduction

Christmas 1988. Struggling musician Steve ‘H’ Hogarth visits his music publisher’s office asking about work. Perhaps Steve could make himself useful doing some administration, promotion or — doubtless preferably — running the demo studio over the festive season and into the new year? Anything for a little money. Disillusioned with the music business, Steve and his partner are dreaming of leaving the Big Smoke and retiring to the Peak District where Steve is hoping to become a milkman. Steady money, steady hours — everything the life of a jobbing musician is not. With regard to the festive job opportunities, the office manager tells Steve: ‘Well, Marillion are looking for a new singer!’ ‘I didn’t mean that sort of work!’ deadpans Steve. But fate takes a hand….

Part 1: Cover my EARS!

Imagine the scene, it’s 1992 and I am on a placement year out of university. Living at home - not very rock’n’roll — but how many of us really were, back then? I am trying to catch up with music, and my CD collection is building up apace. Time to get a Marillion album on my shelf. I’ve loved this band since I heard ‘Assassing’ on BBC’s Top of the Pops in 1984. I really needed ‘hard’ copies of that song, plus ‘Kayleigh’, ‘Lavender’ and ‘Incommunicado’, a wonderful, sunny, soundtrack to those formative teenage years at school.

So, I buy 1992’s hit Marillion compilation ‘The Singles Collection’. For nearly four years now I have been aware that national treasure Fish has been replaced by another singer — but I’ve only the vaguest idea of who that is. I put the CD in the tray and press play. We open with ‘Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven)’…..a typical Steve Rotherey delay pedal figure introduces the song…but then, WHAT ON EARTH? Dangerous shapes…girls in movies…smiling girls on hospital wards? And the guy’s voice? This…is TERRIBLE! Bring back Fish!

Looking back on that album (subtitled ‘Six of one, half a dozen of the other’) it’s easy to see why the casual listener — the buyer who wanted the 80s hits — was confused by this album. Although Fish fans got few extras (like an extra forgettable 60 seconds of Assassing) Steve Hogarth got a full seven tracks (as opposed to Fish’s six — hence the subtitle) and — to be honest — how many of them were actually any good? The clincher for current fans was a cover of Rare Bird’s ‘Sympathy’ an event that Fish once said he ‘couldn’t give a diddly-squat about’ — and who could disagree? I have avoided this track for at least 25 years, and I am not in a hurry to listen to it again. I couldn’t even hum the tune to ‘I Will Walk on Water’, the other exclusive track. The ‘half a dozen of the other’ was more like slipping into a bath of Radox, rather than a acid bath of Fish’s invective and deep, complex, wordplay.

And with the best will in the world, didn’t ‘Pain and Heaven’s’ chorus sound like an independent radio jingle for a new local family solicitor? “Divorce? Payne and Evans can help, just off the marketplace.” This wasn’t the Marillion I’d come to expect. This was a very different sounding band in tone and sentiment. I was yearning for the magnificent desperation of the Fish years, the triumph of the human spirit against almost insurmountable odds, in a world that was totally Fugazi.

PART 2: Giving a warm welcome to ‘The Uninvited Guest’

This new material was different. Yes, the title, ‘Pain and Heaven’, suggested that magnificent desperation, but something was missing. It didn’t sound like vital music. It sounded sentimental. It didn’t really sound desperate, as such, it just sounded melodic. Was there anything else that could rescue this? Was all lost for me and Marillion as the 90s beckoned? Well, there was something else on that album that kept me listening to the new Hogarth era. And it was the song ‘Uninvited Guest’.

Despite being pretty unenthusiastic about the Hogarth tracks on ‘The Singles Collection’, there was something there — ‘Uninvited Guest’ was as crunchy and catchy a rock song as you could ever hope to hear, with genuinely deep and complex lyrical themes. And I think it helped when the sleeve notes hinted that the subject matter may have been a Scotsman! There was a little hint of satire there, a bit of much-needed bite.

The other standout track for me was ‘Hooks In You’, although it sounded like ‘Incommunicado’s’ younger brother, it was pretty good. And, thankfully, at that time I hadn’t seen the videos to any of these songs, which would have put me off the whole thing, but that’s more a comment on terrible late 80s music videos than Hogarth-era Marillion! So, at least the Uninvited Guest meant the non-Fish tracks on The Singles Collection weren’t a complete write-off.

And there the CD sat for nearly 5 years….my sole Marillion album. Could there be something there for me and Marillion into the 90s and beyond?

PART 3: The Last Straw — how Fish’s last album got me into H

It’s 1999. I am keeping track of Marillion through music magazines and most music mags are pretty unenthusiastic about the subsequent albums. Oh dear! Maybe I was not alone in my thoughts about ‘the new guy’? However, I’ve yet to hear anything beyond ‘The Singles Collection’.

So, what was the trigger that led me back to a reappraisal of the Hogarth-era band? Fish! Strangely, it was ‘Clutching At Straws’, Fish’s final album! This was a titanic Marillion album and the clear line of succession from ‘Misplaced Childhood’ to ‘Straws meant I finally understood the level of success that late 80’s Marillion had enjoyed. From this day forth, ‘Misplaced Childhood’ and ‘Clutching At Straws’ would occupy the top two of my Fish-era album favourites, the positions only swapping depending on which album I had last played!

In fact, ‘Clutching At Straws’ was so good, and the band were clearly on a roll, surely it would be rude of me not to check out the album that followed it? Season’s End.

PART 4: ‘Season’s End’

For a committed Fish fan like me, ‘Season’s End’ was a natural first choice. The music was partly leftovers from 1988, some of which Fish had sung on, and the sleeve still had the old Marillion logo. So, surely there could be some vestiges of the old Fish magic? There was! I enjoyed Season’s End a lot. The opener, ‘King of Sunset Town’, was a proper Marillion track, and you could imagine Fish singing over this one, despite it being a bit less downbeat.

And the voice! It has been suggested that towards 1987–88 Fish was losing his voice, especially live, his range beginning to limit, but no-one can level that accusation against H on this performance! Steve’s voice is astonishingly versatile, with a huge range. However, his phrasing was not necessarily as clear as Fish, who approached his vocals with a spitting enunciation. But H’s style was unique, and he was no Fish clone.

PART 5: ‘Berlin’ — and being won over to the other side!

Another stand-out track is ‘Berlin’, with dark and complex lyrics by John Helmer who, incidentally, did most of the lyrics for the aforementioned ‘Uninvited Guest’. At this point in Hogarth’s career, I would say without hesitation that Helmer is ruling the lyrical roost. ‘Berlin’ aligns the joyless life of being a showgirl/stripper in a seedy Berlin club during the Cold War, with the risks that people would take to cross from East to West — even risking death for freedom, and love. It’s a wonderful track, and there’s even a sax solo. And you don’t even notice that there’s a sax solo on a Marillion album!

Season’s End finishes with another remarkable track, ‘The Space’. Hogarth’s lyrical idea is interesting, but it’s the music that makes it! Sweeping, dramatic, guitar and synths make the point to the listener plain: Marillion was never just Fish! Marillion make the music. And what music!

One of the most poignant comments I ever saw on a Marillion fan page went like this:

‘I cried when Fish left Marillion, but then I cried when I heard Steve sing, ‘After Me’’.

With this song, with its shades of the first verses of ‘Stairway to Heaven’, Steve arrives — and shines — without the rest of the band getting in the way of his voice. It would be years before Marillion’s musicians learned how to give Steve vocal space in the same way they had Fish. I am of the view that Steve Hogarth wasn’t well-served by the mixing of Marillion’s albums (and for that matter, neither was Pete Trewavas, but that’s a story for another time). The band were still making a hole that Fish would fill, sonically, but Steve’s voice wasn’t the same timbre, and his phrasing was slower, much slower. In some ways, the band changed their sound over time, and H’s voice sounded a lot better after that.

PART 6: ALL HAIL KING STEVE!

1994’s ‘Brave’ was disappointing in the sense that it never got going for me, despite some high points, but there was a standout track on 1995’s ‘Afraid of Sunlight’ called ‘King’. And I am firmly of the opinion that this is one of Marillion’s finest ever tracks. That theme of magnificent desperation is back with a vengeance on this one. The song drips desperation as it climaxes. Although the path leads to death for the celebrity — and it’s surely Elvis and Kurt Cobain in mind here — it’s not hard to imagine Fish (not suicidal, I hasten to add) trapped by management, fickle fame and uncertainty, desperately wanting to get out of the Marillion spotlight.

As the 90's headed towards the new millennium, it was clear that Hogarth had found his footing and had made an indelible mark on Marillion — on his own terms! And, for that, to step out of the Big Man’s shadow, Steve H deserves a lot of credit.

PART 7: I’m GONE for ‘You’re Gone’!

2004 saw the band come back with an album called Marbles, which is a fan favourite, not one that I’ve really got into, but there’s some good stuff on there. And back into the top 10, the UK Charts with a wonderful song called ‘You’re Gone’ which somehow brings together all those classic Marillion elements that you could argue were on their biggest 80's hits like Kayleigh and Lavender. And yet H makes it all his own, particularly in the middle and closing sections where he uses his incredible voice to great effect, singing about how he and his lover (or perhaps the spirit of his dead father?) ‘have the early hours’.

H sings ‘You’re Gone’ in a way Fish never could, with an incredible falsetto. Here, Marillion evoke their musical own past rather than trying to run away from it, which they spent a lot of the 90's doing. It’s a satisfying brew, even though Marbles does have some long-winded moments.

PART 8: Half Full Jam/Woke Up

In 1995, Marillion record ‘King’. Just over a decade after that, they record a double album called ‘Happiness in the Road’. On this album is a song that is one of my personal Marillion favourites called ‘Half Full Jam’, and it’s accompanying ‘parent’ song ‘Woke Up’, both inspired by a philosphical author’s thesis that life is best enjoyed ‘half full’. ‘Half Full Jam’ is a great building rock track, organ, drums, bass, and an incisive lead guitar, but the desperation of Hogarth as he screams his heart out about, to my mind, his life, his recent divorce, perhaps the loss of his children from his household. It’s desperate but glorious stuff. I imagine him waking up alone in Aynho (or some other honey-coloured North Oxfordshire village), his wife and children gone, rattling around in an empty cottage. Another rock star failed marriage. Perhaps he even regretted not getting to the Yorkshire Dales in 1989 and leaving it all behind? Perhaps it’s not even about Steve? But that shredded vocal is hard to disguise, as is the track is essentially unnamed and hidden away at the end of the first CD of ‘Happiness is the Road’.

CONCLUSION: ‘We have the early hours….’

Steve Hogarth changed Marillion in many ways, but it’s undeniable that the band kept many of its existing fans and grew them into a large but very resilient, imaginative and loyal family that have kept the band afloat through some very dark times, financially more than creatively. They wouldn’t have achieved that with a cut-price Fish clone, in the same way that Genesis would not have survived with a plastic Gabriel, either. Apart from their early 90s attempts to go mainstream pop/rock, Marillion have done it their way, in no small measure to the lyrics, stage presence and charisma of Steve Hogarth.

At one time, princes in exile raised a standard Drambuie to Marillion. H’s tipple is harder is define, but we certainly know the glass is half-full.