This thread applies to both the Fish and Hogarth eras of the band. My favorites are:

Fish- Script for a Jester's Tear and Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time of the Night

H- A toss up between This Strange Engine, The Great Escape, and The King of Sunset Town

Fish-era: Blind curve, He knows you know.

Hogarth-era: Berlin, King.

so many good ones to choose.
#1 of all of theres is probably Bitter Suite-III. Blue Angel is excellent "It was bible black in Lyon..." but so many are so excellent such as:

Fish- Scipt for a Jesters Tear, Forgotten Sons, Childhood's End?, Lavender,  Fugazi, Jigsaw, Warm Wet Circles

H- A Collection, Cover My Eyes, Gazpacho, Hard As Love, The Party

So many more, so hard to choose.  These guys do lyrics right, one of my favorite qualities of the band.

There can be only one...

FUGAZI

Certif1ed wrote: There can be only one... FUGAZI

"Pandora’s box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens"

"Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation,
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart"

Awesome lyrics in "Fugazi", to be sure, but a bit over-the-top at times.

"Forgotten Sons" is such a powerful song, and quite timely these days (unfortunately, it's timely almost any 'day', which is sort of the point):

"And so as I patrol in the valley of the shadow of the tricolour I must fear evil
For I am but mortal and mortals can only die
Asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless faceless watchers
That parade the carpeted corridors of whitehall
Who orders desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation in the guarded bureaucratic wombs
Minister, minister care for your children
Order them not into damnation
To eliminate those who would trespass against you
For whose is the kingdom, the power, the glory for ever and ever"

followed by all the sarcastic "Amens"...

"Warm Wet Circles" is another one, though I would rank it a close second to "Forgotten Sons":

"Kiss adolescence goodbye
In a warm wet circle
Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart,
A warm wet circle
Like a bullit hole in central park,
A warm wet circle
And I’ll always surrender to the warm wet circles"

'vertigo is right - Marillion defintely knows how to do lyrics right.  Masters of sarcasm couched as irony, or just plain anguish.

ClemofNazareth wrote: Certif1ed wrote: There can be only one... FUGAZI "Pandora’s box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens" "Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation, She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart" Awesome lyrics in "Fugazi", to be sure, but a bit over-the-top at times. (...)

I agree completely with what you're saying about "Forgotten Sons" - that would be #2 on my list.

But "Fugazi" is supposed to be over the top - consider what the word "Fugazi" means.

The "Pandora's box..." line refers to the nuclear-paranoid 1980s, which people seem to forget or have grown up blissfully ignorant of, especially since the cold war ended - the "Taped up painted windows refers to the very useful advice that the government used to give us as protection from a nuclear blast. "Season of the button" refers to the button that needs to be pressed in order to fire off a nuclear ICBM - but is also an archetype. We're just waiting for someone to press it - when rather than if.

The nuclear threat is just as real, if not more so today from terrorists and so on - we've just learned to live with it. The whole current Iran affair is amusing in a bitterly ironic sort of way, especially when you know how the U.N. and particularly the U.S. know about Iran's capabilities and why they are so worried... how many people are aware of this? High (or low)-fibre ignorance - filtered newspapers only reporting what they can get past the censors or what their political slants allow them to.

Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens
Waiting, wai-wai-waiting, the season of the button
The penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes
For the fashionably
For the terminally insane, insane
D-d-do you realise?
D-d-do you realise?
D-d-do you realise, this world is totally fugazi

That lot is still just as relevant as "Forgotten Sons", IMO

The next lines you quote really require the full context - there's a double-story going on here, with double meanings in all the lyrics, which make it fairly impenetrable - but Tony R (alias Reed Lover) did a superb job on interpreting them a while back (you might find it if you search ).

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real
Tears from the real

Drowning in the liquid seize on the Piccadilly line, rat race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress Ophelias hand with breathstroke ambition
An albatross in the marrytime tradition
Sheathed within the walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the Time-Life-Guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to five with suitable ties
Cast adrift as their sideshow, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm bestill, bewitch
Drowning in the real

These verses are all related and make a story of sorts - the immediate internal meanderings of the protaganist as he awakens with a hangover and goes through a process of self-remembrance, then catches a tube train. This is combined with his own views of the reality he has woken up to, and a relating of his deeper, ongoing thoughts about his relationship with archetypes found in literature.

I'm fairly sure that the line should read "Caress Ophelias hand with breaststroke ambition - an albatross in the marrytime tradition" - these lines combine Shakespeare (Hamlet) with Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - to reflect his view of his current relationship.

The line about "Aural contraception..." simply refers to the fact that he's listening to his personal stereo/mobile music device, but probably also reflect a deeper desire to be able to shut out other, possibly relationship derived conversations that are getting to him. The sexual connotations are therefore deliberate and not contrived - and are supposed to feel uncomfortable.

The rest of the song sees the protaganist taking in his surroudings and considering world matters at large, especially the nuclear threat, related with Fish's typical sardonic irony until the (non-ironic) climax in the questions;

Where are the prophets?
Where are the visionaries?
Where are the poets To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary?

...and that's just scratching the surface

Fish era - Chelsea or Script

Hogarth era (but I payed much less attention to their lyrics as well as their music during those years) - King or Estonia

I always found Chelsea monday way under-rated by fans on their debut album

Fish era: Childhood's End for me, from Misplaced Childhood.

One of my favourite tracks ever, lyrically (musically it's very good, too).

Hogarth Era: Hollow Men, from Brave

Fish era ...  Blind curve  

Sean Trane wrote: Fish era - Chelsea or Script Hogarth era (but I payed much less attention to their lyrics as well as their music during those years) - King or Estonia I always found Chelsea monday way under-rated by fans on their debut album

Yeah Chelsea Monday has always been an Script underated song, and I come to think as the most moving piece in the album. Is just so depressive.

Fish-era: wonderful poetical lines in Chelsea Monday and venomous anger in Forgotton Sons !

Hogarth-era:  ...

incubus:

When footlights dim in reverence to prescient passion forewarned
My audience leaves the stage, floating ahead perfumed shift
Within the stammering silence, the face that launched a thousand frames
Betrayed by a porcelain tear, a stained career
You played this scene before, you played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction

The darkroom unleashes imagination in pornographic images
In which you will always be the star, always be the star, untouchable
Unapproachable, constant in the darkness
Nursing an erection, a misplaced reaction
With no flower to place before this gravestone
And the walls become enticingly newspaper thin
But that would be developing the negative view
And you have to be exposed in voyeuristic colour
The public act, let you model your shame
On the mannequin catwalk, catwalk
Let the cats walk, and the cat walks

I've played this scene before, I've played this scene before
I the mote in your eye, I the mote in your eye
A misplaced reaction, satisfaction

You can't brush me under the carpet, you can't hide me under the stairs
The custodian of your private fears, your leading actor of yesteryear
Who as you crawled out of the alleys of obscurity
Sentenced to rejection in the morass of anonymity
You who I directed with lovers will, you who I let hypnotise the lens
You who I let bathe in the spotlights glare
You who wiped me from your memory like a greasepaint mask
Just like a greasepaint mask

But now I'm the snake in the grass, the ghost of film reels past
I'm the producer of your nightmare and the performance has just begun
It's just begun

Your perimeter of courtiers jerk like celluloid puppets
As you stutter paralysed with rabbits eyes, searing the shadows
Flooding the wings, to pluck elusive salvation from the understudy's lips
Retrieve the soliloquy, maintain the obituary
My cue line in the last act and you wait in silent solitude
Waiting for the prompt, waiting for the prompt

You've played this scene before

fugazi:

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a Blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real
Drowning in the liquid seize on the Piccadilly line, rat race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress Ophelia's hand with breathstroke ambition
An albatross in the marrytime tradition
Sheathed within the Walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the Time-Life-Guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to five with suitable ties
Cast adrift as their side-show, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm bestill, bewitch, drowning in the real

The thief of Baghdad hides in Islington now
Praying deportation for his sacred cow
A legacy of romance from a twilight world
The dowry of a relative mystery girl
A Vietnamese flower, a Dockland union
A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs
Magdalenes contracts more than favours
The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat

A son of a swastika of '45 parading a peroxide standard
Graffiti conjure disciples testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges
This is Brixton chess

A knight for Embankment folds his newspaper castle
A creature of habit, begs the boatman's coin
He'll fade with old soldiers in the grease stained roll call
And linger with the heartburn of Good Friday's last supper

Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens
Waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes, for the fashionably, for the terminally insane, insane
Do you realise? Do you realise?
Do you realise, this world is totally fugazi

Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries, where are the poets
To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary

emerald lies:
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To be the prince of possession in the gallery of contempt
Suffering your indiscreet discretions and you ask me to relent
As you accumulate flirtations with the calculated calmness of the whore
I am the harlequin - diamonded costume dripping shades of green
I am the harlequin - sense strangers violate my sanctuary
Prowl my dreams
Plundering your diaries, I'll steal your thoughts innocence
Ravaging your letters, unearth your plots innocence
To don the robes of Torquemada, resurrect the inquisition
In that tortured subtle manner inflict questions within questions
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue
I trust you trust in me to mistrust you

Through the Silk Cut haze to the smeared mascara
A 40 watt sun on a courtroom drama
And the coffee stains gather till the pale kimono
Set the wedding rings dancing on the cold linoleum

And accusations moths that circle on the light
Char their wings and spiral senseless suicidal flight
You packed your world within a suitcase, hot tears melt this icy palace
Dissolve a crystal swallowed by the night
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue
Looking in shades of green through shades of blue

assassin:

I am the assassin, with tongue forged from eloquence
I am the assassin, providing your nemesis
On the sacrificial altar to success, my friend
Unleash a stranger from a kiss, my friend
No incantations of remorse, my friend
Unsheathe the blade within the voice, my friend

Who decorates the scarf with the fugi knot
Who camouflaged emotion in a thousand yard stare
Who gouged the notches from the family tree
Who hypnotised the guilt in career rhythm trance

Assassing, assassing, assassing, assassing

Listen as the syllables of slaughter cat with calm precision
Patterned frosty phrases rape your ears and sow the ice incision
Apocalyptic alphabet casting spell the creed of tempered diction
Adjectives of annihilation bury the point beyond redemption
Venomous verbs of ruthless candour plagiarise assassins fervour
A friend in need is a friend that bleeds
Let bitter silence infect the wound

You were a sentimental mercenary in a free fire zone
Parading a Hollywood conscience
You were a fashionable objector with a uniform fetish
Pavlovian slaver at the cash till ring of success
A non com observer - I assassin the collector - defector

So you resigned yourself to failure, my friend
And I emerged the chilling stranger, my friend
To eradicate the problem, my friend
Unsheathe the blade within the voice

I am the assassin
I am the assassin

And what do you call assassins who accuse assassins anyway, my friend?
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Oh Gid this is a big list

• Firgotten Sons
• second half of Fugazi
• Emerald Lies
• White Feather
• The Last Straw
• White Russian
• Berlin
• The Space...
• Living With The Big Lie
• Hard As Love
• The Invisable Man
• Neverland
• The Party

Dont know too many other Hogarth era songs but theres nothing in it from this list.

Fish -- Warm Wet Circles

H -- Gazpacho

Chelsea Monday

Incubus

Fugazi

Certif1ed wrote: ClemofNazareth wrote: Certif1ed wrote: There can be only one... FUGAZI "Pandora’s box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens" "Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation, She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart" Awesome lyrics in "Fugazi", to be sure, but a bit over-the-top at times. (...) I agree completely with what you're saying about "Forgotten Sons" - that would be #2 on my list. But "Fugazi" is supposed to be over the top - consider what the word "Fugazi" means. The "Pandora's box..." line refers to the nuclear-paranoid 1980s, which people seem to forget or have grown up blissfully ignorant of, especially since the cold war ended - the "Taped up painted windows refers to the very useful advice that the government used to give us as protection from a nuclear blast. "Season of the button" refers to the button that needs to be pressed in order to fire off a nuclear ICBM - but is also an archetype. We're just waiting for someone to press it - when rather than if. The nuclear threat is just as real, if not more so today from terrorists and so on - we've just learned to live with it. The whole current Iran affair is amusing in a bitterly ironic sort of way, especially when you know how the U.N. and particularly the U.S. know about Iran's capabilities and why they are so worried... how many people are aware of this? High (or low)-fibre ignorance - filtered newspapers only reporting what they can get past the censors or what their political slants allow them to. Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends While his generation digests high fibre ignorance Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens Waiting, wai-wai-waiting, the season of the button The penultimate migration Radioactive perfumes For the fashionably For the terminally insane, insane D-d-do you realise? D-d-do you realise? D-d-do you realise, this world is totally fugazi That lot is still just as relevant as "Forgotten Sons", IMO The next lines you quote really require the full context - there's a double-story going on here, with double meanings in all the lyrics, which make it fairly impenetrable - but Tony R (alias Reed Lover) did a superb job on interpreting them a while back (you might find it if you search ). Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a blackheath cell Extinguishing the fires in a private hell Provoking the heartache to renew the licence Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover Baptised in the tears from the real Tears from the real Drowning in the liquid seize on the Piccadilly line, rat race Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth Caress Ophelias hand with breathstroke ambition An albatross in the marrytime tradition Sheathed within the walkman wear the halo of distortion Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart She hung herself around my neck From the Time-Life-Guardians in their conscience bubbles Safe and dry in my sea of troubles Nine to five with suitable ties Cast adrift as their sideshow, peepshow, stereo hero Becalm bestill, bewitch Drowning in the real These verses are all related and make a story of sorts - the immediate internal meanderings of the protaganist as he awakens with a hangover and goes through a process of self-remembrance, then catches a tube train. This is combined with his own views of the reality he has woken up to, and a relating of his deeper, ongoing thoughts about his relationship with archetypes found in literature. I'm fairly sure that the line should read "Caress Ophelias hand with breaststroke ambition - an albatross in the marrytime tradition" - these lines combine Shakespeare (Hamlet) with Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - to reflect his view of his current relationship. The line about "Aural contraception..." simply refers to the fact that he's listening to his personal stereo/mobile music device, but probably also reflect a deeper desire to be able to shut out other, possibly relationship derived conversations that are getting to him. The sexual connotations are therefore deliberate and not contrived - and are supposed to feel uncomfortable. The rest of the song sees the protaganist taking in his surroudings and considering world matters at large, especially the nuclear threat, related with Fish's typical sardonic irony until the (non-ironic) climax in the questions; Where are the prophets? Where are the visionaries? Where are the poets To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary?   ...and that's just scratching the surface

Actually, I did not know what Fugazi meant until you just mentioned this, so I went and looked it up.  Interesting.  Similar to the American equivalent FUBAR, I suppose.  Thanks for the insight - I'm playing Fugazi right now with this in mind.

Nipsey88 wrote: As far as Hogarth goes, shrug. Dunno too much by him, but I guess I like Living With The Big Lie.

 My favorite Hogarth song along with Gazpacho

Jeez, I love them all...

Neverland and Living With the Big Lie really stick out.