Back in the spring/summer of 1987 a friend of my older brother caught wind that I was a Genesis fan of epic proportions and, as good elders do, gave me the "If you like Genesis, you should check out..." speech familiar to many a proghead. A tape was also included. While I cannot recall the whole spiel, Marillion was on the list as the accompanying tape, which I still have, contained the 12" single for the band's "Market Square Heroes". The b-sides were "Three Boats Down from the Candy" and "Grendel", the 17 minute epic that lovingly borrowed a bit from Genesis' own epic, "Supper's Ready".
A friend of mine whom I'd suckered into being a Genesis/prog fan a couple years earlier and I went out on a mission to find more Marillion. While I'm not sure, I'd bet we made our way to the Rolling Stones music store out by the HIP (Harlem Irving Plaza). Chicago music lovers know where I am talking about. I don't recall what Marillion album my friend bought but I went home with their fourth album, Clutching at Straws. The anguish and melancholy of Fish's lyrics (along with some angry and sorrowful music) were perfect for a disconsolate teenager who had just a couple months previously been uprooted from Chicago to the backwoods of Wisconsin.
Roughly a year later I was shocked to hear that Fish had left the band. And so my proggy path had been riven in twain. I still had Marillion to follow with their new singer, Steve Hogarth, but also Fish's solo career.
A few years ago Fish announced that he was to retire from music after a final solo album and a farewell tour. The album, Weltschmerz, was released in 2020 while the tour was, like most things, delayed by Covid. Endings invariably give way to reminiscence and reflection and with 30+ years of fandom under my belt, I joyously looked back at his career.
One thing that has made his solo work so interesting is that Fish is not much of a composer so he collaborates with others who can devise musical accompaniment to his lyrical musings. Some collaborators stuck around for multiple albums while others worked on one before moving on. This means that there is some continuity but also plenty of variation in his solo work.
I am loathe to label any of Fish's albums as my favorite although I do feel some are better than others but find that each has its place. Listening to a YouTube playlist recently, a live version of "Jungle Ride" came on and I was reminded again what a fantastic song it is.
The song appears on his fifth solo album, Sunsets on Empire, from 1997 which is famous in proggy circles for being the one where Fish collaborated with Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree. Wilson produced it, played on it, and co-wrote 6 of the 10 songs. "Jungle Ride", however, was co-written with guitarist Robin Boult who had been one of Fish's co-conspirators since his second album, Internal Exile.
As with a lot of music in my collection, Sunsets on Empire is inexorably intertwined with a period in my life, in this case it's my misbegotten mid-20s. My friendship with my roommate had become frayed to the point of being irreconcilable and there was, unsurprisingly, a woman involved. Fish was having marital problems when he wrote the lyrics for Sunsets on Empire and it was hard not to feel a sense of connection.
But "Jungle Ride" is more concerned with one of the other themes of the album, manhood. Sunsets on Empire isn't a concept album focusing on all things masculine but it is a motif that appears every so often.
The theme is most overtly expressed in the song "Brother 52", about an American biker and Fish fanatic who felt that the collapse of society was nigh and so he started stockpiling weapons. This drew the attention of the federal government and ended in a shootout with ATF agents. The refrain of "We are lover, warrior, magician kings" is a reference to the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. The authors use Jungian theory to explore masculinity via the four titular roles/archetypes. It's been ages since I've read the book but I think the gist of it is that healthy masculinity involves balancing "mature" expressions of these impulses, which are the primary ones in men.
Elsewhere on the album Fish is a loving and protective father to his daughter Tara on the song bearing her name. "Goldfish and Clowns" chronicles an incident in which Fish had a tryst, of sorts, with a woman who wasn't his wife that he met at a party. And so we get a song about being a husband and the things that go along with that role - love, fidelity, etc.
"Jungle Ride" takes the listener back to the fairs of the singer's youth and the ride that gives us the title. Therein we find men-in-training awkwardly jockeying for the attention of pretty girls as gangs of boys/young men prowl the midway looking to stir up trouble and get into fights. This was an era
Where men don't cry and husbands lie and you never have to justify a kickin'
When mates jump in to save your skin if a chib is ever pulled out in a square go
It's a song about immaturity/boyishness on various fronts. It is also a stunning song musically. After Fish's spoken word intro, Robin Boult's melodic acoustic guitar sits atop a tom-heavy beat from drummer Dave Stewart that is joined by the extra percussion of Dave Haswell. (Conga? Djembe?) The air is thick in the dream-like atmosphere here. Just shy of the halfway mark, the band fall into a hypnotic groove while a violin solos and sultry, wordless vocals weave from left to right like a beautiful woman tempting and teasing.
A true highlight of a career with many.
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