40 Years of Misplaced Childhood

June 17th marks the 40th anniversary of Marillion's album Misplaced Childhood.

Forty years ago this month, between May and June, Marillion went into the Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin to create a masterpiece produced by Chris Kimsey (who had previously worked with the Rolling Stones). Between Tequila, heroin and LSD trips, “Fish” - the lead singer wrote most of the songs on this album.

According to him: “I was in ‘Padres Bay’ when suddenly I felt a child standing behind me on the stairs. I knew he was dressed as a soldier and vanished as soon as he entered the corner of my eye. Perhaps it was my muse; perhaps it was the drug. It was enough to propel me into reaming off a large scrawl of prose.”

I was 16 years old, at the height of my adolescence, when I vibrated with the opening song of the album “Pseudo Silk Kimono”. The whole record, which was also a cassete and CD, emerged from a musical genre that was sinking. A musical genre that was obsolete: progressive rock, with Genesis and Peter Gabriel at the top of the game.

At the time of the album's release, Dire Straits, Tears for Fears, Madonna or Bruce Spingsteem dominated the music market. This album broke with the musical status quo of the time. This album is constantly cited as one of the all-time masterpieces of progressive rock and has become an object of worship to this day. For me, it is.

Then there were other records. Perhaps I'll return to the subject in a future post. All that counts now is the ephemeris: Misplaced Childhood.

If you'll allow me, I'll share the ones I most enjoyed and still listen to today. This initial triptico is fabulous.

Kayleigh. The lyrics that all of us men would like to write. Don't you think? Of course you can relate to this song, no matter how old you are. How many invisible tears, you know?

So as not to bore you any further, I'll leave you with our daily question. When I listen to it, it gives me power. (If you allow yourself to be enveloped by the progressive rock beat, perhaps we'll be complicit with the lyrics of “Fish”).
"“And I found direction
There is no childhood's end”.

• Copyright of the initial cover, Mark Wilkinson.

✍️ My native language is Portuguese. The translation was done through DeepL.com (free version).