Top 20 Marillion songs

Originally posted by infocat

Originally posted by infocat

Why would you edit out the ending of "The Space..."?  I love the ending!  (Well, I love the entire song.) 

The thing about Marillion - in my opinion, anyway - is that they could write great half-songs. Lurking within "Interior Lulu" is about 2 minutes or so of brilliant music. Ditto "This Strange Engine." Or "Man with a Thousand Faces." Or "Estonia." (The chorus just ruins it for me.) Or, to get to "The Rake's Progress" and "100 Nights," one must first suffer through "This Town." Or, "When I Meet God" was on the verge of being a masterpiece, if only the first section was thrown out and that brilliant last section was developed. (With my trusty Acoustica MP3 editor, I've combined "Quartz" with that second section of "When I Meet God" and made one brilliant prog track.) I always felt that "The Space," with a little more work, could have been one of the truly great prog songs by anyone anywhere ever. There's that great beginning, then that soaring, majestic instrumental section, and then... when H re-enters, it just becomes, well... pardon me for saying, but... a Michael Bolton tune. How I would have loved a return to the chorus, with a real chorus (like a choir or something) and then another brilliant instrumental section. It's so clear in my head, how this song should have gone, if only someone - the producer, or whoever - had some kind of vision. Anyway, I know others feel this way, - and I know others don't, LOL :-) Sometimes, a swerve away from what works isn't "progressive" more than laziness to develop a theme rather than abandoning it. In my opinion (the stress is on IMO), Marillion were often guilty of this, and it's why many of us find them so frustrating. Yet we love them so. 

By the way, have you heard the acoustic renditions of "The Space" that the band has been doing on their unplugged gigs? They might feel the same way, since they got rid of the end bit as well.

Edited by jude111 - April 30 2012 at 21:24