The Union - Fish Forum

Help needed with Marillion lyrics

Fish Marillion - Fish-era
#1

Hello. I’m starting this topic in order to collect some prompts concerning tricky parts of Marillion’s lyrics. If you have any doubts, this is the right place to ask. Here are webpages where lots of explanations have already been provided:


http://marillion.ter-steege.com/

I’m working on my diploma paper which is Polish translation (my native language) of song lyrics chosen from Fugazi album. Obviously most of the work I do individually, however, there are some lines or phrases which I find quite difficult to translate (especially when the languages vary so much). So I’d be very grateful for your interpretations and views of the matter. Any help would be valuable!

About the lyrics of Assassing, the most problematical metaphors are

  1. Does “Unleash a stranger from a kiss” simply mean “to sacrifice somebody”? I’ve come across such translation in Polish. Not sure about that though.
  2. How to understand correctly the phrase “to hipnotize the guilt”?

Thank you in advance for any replies! These two questions is only the beginning. Incubus, Cinderella Search and Fugazi left :smile:

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#2

If you are on FB. Please contact “Marek Cieslak”. I’m sure he can help translation English - Polish.

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#3

Good luck! I’m still trying to work out the metaphors! :blush:

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#4

Alright, I’ll give it a try. Hopefully I won’t bother him so much.

#6

sorry, I gotta get my glasses checked!

#7

‘Unlease a stranger from a kiss’ means to turn a good relationship bad, to turn your lover into a stranger. The song is in the voice of Fish’s alter-ego, the Harlequin, a mischievious and Machiavellian character. Another take on this might be that he unintentionally turns his lover into a stranger by his erratic behaviour.

‘Who hypnotised the guilt in career rhythm trance’. Career rhythm trance refers to the job of a popstar - of Fish, or his alter-ego. He channels his guilt, his feelings of having let people down, into his art, into his songs. You could rewrite it as ‘to come to terms with my guilt through my music’.

There’s a similar idea expressed in these lines in ‘Script For A Jester’s Tear’:

I act the role in classic style of a martyr carved with twisted smile
To bleed the lyric for this song to write the rites to right my wrongs
An epitaph to a broken dream to exorcise this silent scream

I’ve been meaning to sit down and decipher the metaphors in Fish’s Marillion lyrics for a while, but in the end it’s all down to opinion…

Good luck with your project!

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