SHORTCUT TO SOMEWHERE

I listened to this song (and recorded it) in mid 1988 from the radio, during a series of radio programmes dedicated to the discography of Marillion in a now defunct (and missed) FM Radio station called "Rock 101" in my city. The woman who was the radio commentator said: "...and now we have a special surprise for our listeners..." and then the song was played. This song was composed by Tony Banks and Fish for the soundtrack of the film called "Quicksilver" in 1986, being the first time that both musicians collaborated together (the next time was in one of Banks`s solo albums, I think). It also has a video with Banks and Fish riding bicycles in the streets, also showing some scenes from the film which had as central theme a bicycle rider (I don`t remember well the thematic of that film now, which I watched to it on TV only once, without liking it very much).

Well. The style of the song is very Pop Rock fom the mid eighties, with Banks`s very characteristic keyboards sounds from that period of time, using some horn sounds from his synths to play a "brass arrangement melody" which is repeated several times in the song. There are also some female backing singers and drums which sound like programmed drums or real drums recorded in a very typical eighties fashion. The song is good, very typical from that period of time, but maybe more influenced by Banks`s style with Genesis during the "Invisible Touch" album period than from Fish, who sings good lead vocals. I don`t know if this single was a Hit somewhere. But at that time I liked the song very much. But with the pasing of time really I forgot about it until I saw now that it wasn`t reviewed yet in this website.

When Phil Collins left Genesis in 1996, I thought that maybe Fish could join the band as their new lead singer. Of course, it didn`t happen, but maybe a lot of fans of the band thought the same at that time.The combination of Banks`and Fish `s musical styles really worked very well for this song, so it was not very difficult then to imagine Fish becoming Genesis`s new lead singer.