Torch Song

[Track Info] [The Lyrics] [Explanation]

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Torch Song - Track Info

  1. Album version (04:05) [Clutching At Straws (1987)]

    Notes: is joined to Slainthe Mhath, which comes after.

    Lyrics by Derek William Dick (Fish)
    Performed Live for the first Time: September 19th 1987

    Published by Marillion Music, Charisma Music Publishing Co. Ltd.

Torch Song - The Lyrics

Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now.
Something about roman candles fizzing out, shine a little light on me now,
Found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation, alcohol can thrill me now
It's getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
I just burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now, yeah.

Doctor says my liver looks like leaving with my lover, need another 'time out' now
Like any sort of hero turning down to zero still standing out in any crowd
Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams, sweating out a happy hour,
Where you're hiding 29 you know it ain't a crime to burn a little brighter now,
burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now, burn a little brighter now

Dr. Finlay:
And my advice is if you maintain this lifestyle you won't reach 30

Torch:
Christ -- it's a romantic way to go really,
it's part of the heritage, it's your round i'n'it?

We burn a little brighter now, yeah
Read some Kerouac and it put me on the tracks to burn a little brighter now.
It was something about roman candles fizzing out, shine a little light on me now
Found a strange fascination with a liquid fixation, alcohol thrill me now
Getting late in the game to show any pride or shame
burn a little brighter now, we burn a little brighter now, yeah

Burn a little brighter now, we burn a little brighter now

(Virgin Airways, 747- Newark-Heathrow)



EXPLANATION OF SONG ELEMENTS
Copyright © 1997 Fraser Marshall, Matthew Anderson & Bert ter Steege.


Torch Song

Debbie Voller: Fish: This is the heavy, romantic-drinker-type-song, y'know, "I am the romantic writer searching for world experience and I don't care if I die young!" Torch is smoking and drinking and coughing and you can hear this Dr. Finlay character going "If you maintain this lifestyle you won't reach 30" Actually, the coughing noises are for real - I'd had a heavy night the night before!

'Read some Kerouac'
Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia says:KEROUAC, Jack (1922-69). The writer who coined the term beat generation and became its leading spokesman was Jack Kerouac. The beat movement, a social and literary experiment, originated in the bohemian artists' colonies around San Francisco, Calif., and Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s. Its adherents felt alienated from conventional society and often adopted unconventional styles of life.

Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Mass., on March 12, 1922, to French-Canadian parents. He went to school in New York City and afterward served in World War II. After the war he became a wanderer, traveling through the United States and Mexico, unwilling to hold a steady job. His first novel, 'The Town and the City', published in 1950, was fairly well received.

Uncomfortable with conventional writing forms, Kerouac developed an unstructured, flowing, and spontaneous style that first made its appearance in 'On the Road' (1957). This book, the bible of the beat movement, deals with the frenetic travels around the country of young people who, though poor, were in love with life, love, sex, drugs, jazz, and mysticism and completely rejected the standard values of the time.

The book drew public attention to the existence of a widespread subculture of artists, musicians, poets, and eccentrics that Kerouac had met on his travels. 'On the Road' made him the culture hero of the movement.Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Oct. 21, 1969.

It is 'On the Road' to which Fish is referring.

'Dr Finlay'
Doctor Finaly was a fictional Scottish doctor in a TV programme of the same name in the 1960s. They've recently brought him back with a son in tow.


Sources:


Last Modified: 27 Jul 2000