SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR

Review #2 So here I am once more In the playground of the broken hearts One more experience, one more entry in a diary, self-penned Yet another emotional suicide Overdosed on sentiment and pride Too late to say I love you Too late to restage the play Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday

Every time I'm listening to these lyrics everything is coming back to me.

I have spend over 25 years listening to the first albums of Marillion, and every time I listen to these lyrics I have goosebumps. I still remember the day I listened this record for the first time. It was a blast!

It was the year that Marillion has just released 'Misplaced Childhood', and the song 'Kayleigh' was in every radio. The were promoted by 'Kerrang' magazine if you remember, so combining the song and the magazine in my mind, I thought to myself: 'Ah, another sleezy metal band that tries to achieve success with stupid ballads'. How misteken I was... I was 18 years old then, just leaving my Heavy Metal days behind, and had just started discovering the newly fownded paths of Prog-Rock. A few Eloy albums, Pink Floyd (ofc), Moody Blues, Procol Harum etc...

So, one day I entered a record shop and I saw this album. I don't know how and why, but the painting on the cover did something to me. I fell in love with it! So there I was an ignorant 18 year old boy, trying to decide what to do. Yeah yeah, stupid heavy metal band... But this cover! So I asked one guy that was working there. His answer was 'ah, some new English Progressive Rock band or something like that. But you should buy their new record. It has Kayleigh inside'. Ha! 'No I don't want Kayleigh' I thought. I want this! Anyway, I bought the record, and went straight home almost sure that I gave all my money to buy something very bad but with a great cover!

That feeling lasted up tp the point I put the record on my stereo. Side A: 1. Script for a jester's tear. hmmm let's see. I open the record's gatefold and started to read the lyrics as the voice of Fish and the first notes of the song filled the room. I have no words to express that feeling. I was shocked! How can one song can be so perfect? In a nutshell, I was listening this record for a whole week straight. Nothing else! I took it out only to replace it with 'Fugazi' that I bought a few days later. And then with 'Misplaced'... And many years later I made on my hand the tattoo I always wanted to do. The Jester, together with a part of the album's cover.

As you can easily understand I can't be objective about this record. I spend almost a decade having Marillion's records as my most beloved company in good and bad times. But now that I'm older, wiser (:P), and far more informed in Progressive Rock, I can say that it is an excellent record! From the first note until the last. (The weakest song for me here is Garden Party. My best are Script and Chelsea Monday.)

In my opinionthis is an album that every fan of Prog-Rock should have. Not only because it's a very good one, but also because - as another guy mentioned before - when all the great Prog bands of the '70's were losing their way, this album came to remind to everyone that Progressive Rock is here! And it will be as long as there are people like the ones on this site that keep the fire burning.. Thank you! :)

P.S: I'm not English or American, therefore English is not my main language. So please forgive the mistakes I surely did... :)