Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Marillion - Angelina

On Sound Opinions last week they did a show with a "radio" theme. Songs about radio and how radio was involved in the history of Rock and Roll more or less.

of course they play songs about it and also at the end they encourage listeners to call up about the show. Offer suggestions of songs as well.

well, a few years ago I was able to be a guest on Radio K's Sunday guest-project show. I forget the name. But it was obviously after I was done doing radio at KFAI, and Marillion's incredible double record from 2004, "Marbles" was released after I finished volunteering as a dj at KFAI. So I naturally never was able to play anything off Marbles on KFAI. But in this situation, it probably made sense to, given how much I had listened to it in the recent months. And what song, but "Angelina" would make a lot of sense to play as it was sort of about radio itself.

This is some kind of sync-ed foreign film/short film that uses it pretty effectively, although many of the images in here I never really have pictured with this song/



Steve Hogarth, whose Marillion's singer and lyricist (along with John Helmer occasionally) kind of explains more about it here.


it really is a wonderful track, and one very relate able to anyone whose lonely and finds comfort in something on the radio. I won't deny, I have been through that far more than I ever would like to imagine.

I was thinking of calling up Sound Opinions and suggesting this, but as I often do when I get an idea to call and leave them a voicemail, I find it's probably not worth it. I have called a few times and they never played my messages. They did once or twice, but I'd guess I've tried more than twice that many times, that the odds are they wouldn't play my message. Let alone the fact when they play the caller's messages, and they allude to a piece of music, they play a clip from it. The guys from Sound Opinions including the producers, I'd suspect have never heard this Marillion track anyway, and may not desire to even try tracking it down and cutting a short clip to include with my message. But I can't be sure, since it was in Chicago (where Sound Opinions is based) I saw Marillion twice (or once, and one time as "Los Marillios Trios") in 2004 and 2005. On the last tour they did of the US supporting Marbles.



Fuck, Marbles is such a great record. It wouldn't surprise me to see it find the legendary/legacy status that Brave has found, if it hasn't already. In 10 or 20 years, Marbles will be one of those records people cite from the 2000's. It's just perfect, and even with some extensive song lengths, the whole record flows so incredibly well, they don't feel as long as they are really. And many of the shorter songs are very accessible, that any new or non fan could easily enjoy them.

And this song, Angelina, while not my favorite part of Marbles, is as good a song the band have written in their career. Someday maybe some girl named Angelina will become a disc jockey and she'll have to use it as her theme music. Or perhaps even some female dj will take on the radio-name Angelina, just like Margarita. Hell, maybe even a drink will be named Angelina like that as well (if there isn't already one or more).