Trivia / Marillion

• Black Sheep Hit: "Kayleigh", to the point of One-Hit Wonder-syndrome.
• Creator Backlash: The band in its current line-up has stepped away from some (though by no means all) of the very early stuff. "Grendel" gets the worst of it, even from Fish. Of course, this doesn't stop some fans from gleefully shouting for it...
• Creator Breakdown: Hogarth seems to suffer these on a regular basis, but the divorce that inspired half the songs on Somewhere Else stands out. A bit of a subversion as the album got a lackluster response. Fish had his share of these as well; for example, Misplaced Childhood grew out of a difficult breakup he went through, while a number of the songs on Clutching at Straws were directly inspired by his alcoholism.
• Fan Community Nicknames: "Freaks" for Fish fans; "Anoraks" for Hogarth fans.
• The Pete Best: Mick Pointer, who was the drummer on the first album and went on to found another Progressive Rock group: Arena.
• The Red Stapler: The name "Kayleigh" more or less did not exist until the song was released, but has become a popular girl's name in the years since the song was released. (Fish got the name from an alternate spelling of his ex-girlfriend's name Kay Lee.)
• Troubled Production: There's been a handful over the years, but Fugazi stands out. Named for a Vietnam War acronym (Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In), the run-up to Marillion's 1984 sophomore album involved burning through three drummers in rapid succession before settling on current drummer Ian Mosley, recording sessions spread over ten different studios each costing about £1000 a day, work hours from noon to around 3-6 in the morning, at least one engineer literally being hospitalised due to "extreme exhaustion", and a computer crash that dumped about ten hours of mixing work, driving producer Nick Tauber to tears. Oh, and then there's keyboardist Mark Kelly's story about the ghost hand... Ultimately, the band didn't actually get to hear the finished album until they were on tour, when they rented a studio in Liverpool for an hour for a playback.
• What Could Have Been: They missed out on an invitation to perform at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid because their manager had deemed it not worthwhile for singer Fish to participate in the "Do They Know It's Christmas?" single. Fish was quoted: "When it came to the bill for the concert we were passed over."

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