Marillion (79,50 %)
Clutching at Straws (67,35 %)
In collection
Released: 1987-06-22
Type: Studio
Type: Studio
Ranking:
Artist:
6
Year (1987):
30
Decade (1980's):
209
Overall:
1123
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1.
Hotel Hobbies
 03:34
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2.
Warm Wet Circles
 04:24
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3.
That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)
05:57
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4.
Going Under
02:45
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5.
Just for the Record
03:08
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6.
White Russian
06:26
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7.
Incommunicado
05:15
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8.
Torch Song
04:03
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9.
Sláinte Mhath
04:42
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10.
Sugar Mice
05:45
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11.
The Last Straw/Happy Ending
 05:59
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Album length:
51:58
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Lyrics |
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1.
Hotel Hobbies
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Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors Bell boys checking out the hookers in the bar Slug-like fingers trace the star-spangled clouds of cocaine on the mirror The short straw took its bow The tell tale tocking of the last cigarette Marking time in the packet as the whisky sweat Lies like discarded armour on an unmade bed And a familiar craving is crawling in his head And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen Introducing characters to memories like old friends Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines A fever of confession a catalogue of crime in happy hour Do you cry in happy hour, do you hide in happy hour The pilgrimage to happy hour New shadows tugging at the corner of his eye Jostling for attention as the sunlight flares Through a curtains tear, shuffling its beams As if in nervous anticipation of another day |
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2.
Warm Wet Circles
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On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins Where ceremonies pause at the jeweler's shop display Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home And the pool player rests on another cue Last nights hero picking up his dues A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet She's staring at the brochures at the holidays Chalking up a name in your hometown Standing all your mates to another round Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away the warm wet circles The warm wet circles I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths A classroom's shabby butterflies Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts and token proclamations Rolled from stolen lipsticks across the razored webs of glass Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling jealous confidantes She faithfully traces his name with quick bitten fingernails Through the tears of condensation that'll cry through the night As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye In a warm wet circle Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle Like a bullet hole in Central Park, a warm wet circle And I'll always surrender to the warm wet circles She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the Fidra lighthouse Giving it all away before it's too late She'll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle Giving it all away and showing no shame She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart a warm wet circle She'll realise that she played her part in a warm wet circle It was a wedding ring Destined to be found in a cheap hotel Lost in a kitchen sink or thrown in a wishing well |
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3.
That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)
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At that time of the night When streetlights throw crosses through window frames Paranoia roams where the shadows reign Oh, at that time of the night At that time of the night Your senses tangled in some new perfume Criticism triggers of a loaded room Oh, at that time of the night So if you ask me How do I feel inside I could honestly tell you We've been taken on a very long ride And if my owners let me have some free time some day With all good intention I would probably run away Clutching the short straw At that time of the night When questions rally in an open mind Summon all your answers with an ice cubes chime At that time of the night At that time of the night Pretend you're off the hook with the telephone Your confidence wounded in a free fire zone Oh, at that time of the night So if you ask me Where do I go from here My next destination even isn't really that clear So if you join me and get on your knees and prey I'll show you salvation We'll take the alternative way Clutching the short straw If I had enough money I'd buy a round for that boy over there A companion in my madness in the mirror the one with the silvery hair And if some kind soul could please pick up my tab And while they're at it if they could pick up my broken heart. Warm wet circles |
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4.
Going Under
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Is it wrong to talk to myself even when there's nobody else I'm just checking out that I'm not gone under the water Thrown on the beach like a seal ready for slaughter Can't you understand that the way things were planned It never worked out so I just went crazy I took to the drink, like something says its "maybe" I ain't got no excuse and that's really the news Got nothing else to say, that it's my way, it's always my way I seem to be running away so often I'll try anything once and that's the way we should be But it's always the same getting caught up again in a habit A habit I just can't shake off the way it always turned out Can you understand it's the way I choose to be Everything seems so easy this way but I'm going under fast Slipping away Am I so crazy |
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5.
Just for the Record
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Many's the time I've been thinking about changing my ways But when it gets right down to it it's the same drunken haze I'm serving a sentence to write life's sentences It's only when I'm out of it I make sense of this Just for the record I'm gonna put it down Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym Just a bar room dancer on my final fling Just another writer paying off my dues Just finding inspiration well that's my excuse Just for the record I'm gonna put it down Just for the record I'm gonna change my life around Just another empty gesture with an empty glass Just another comic actor behind a tragic mask But I've got no discipline got no self control Just a little less painful here when my back's against the wall It's too late, I found, it's too far, I'm in two minds Both of them are out of it at the bar When you say I got a problem that's a certainty But I can put it all right down to eccentricity It's just for the record it's just a passing phase Just for the record I can stop any day |
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6.
White Russian
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Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here, where do we go from here Where do we go from here, where do we go from here They boarded up the synagogues, Uzis on a street corner You can't take a photograph of Uzis on a street corner The DJ resigned today they wouldn't let him have his say Surface scratched where the needles play, Uzis on a street corner Where do we go from here Terror in Rue de St. Denis, murder on the periphery Someone else in someone else's pocket Christ knows I don't know how to stop it Poppies at the cenotaph, the cynics can't afford to laugh I heard in on the telegraph there's Uzis on a street corner Where do we go from here, where do we go from here The more I see, the more I hear, the more I find fewer answers I close my mind, I shout it out but you know it's getting harder To calm down, to reason out, to come to terms with what it's all about I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, I can't pretend everything's all right My ideals, my sanity, they seem to be deserting me But to stand up and fight I know we have six million reasons They're burning down the synagogues, Uzis on a street corner The heralds of the holocaust, Uzis on a street corner The silence never louder than now, how quickly we forgot our vows This resurrection we can't allow, Uzis on a street corner Where do we go from here, where do we go from here We buy fresh bagels from the corner store Where swastikas are spat from aerosols I sit in the bar sipping iced White Russian Trying to score but nobody's pushing And everyone looks at everyone's faces Searching for signs and praying for traces of a conscience in residence Are we sitting on a barbed wire fence Racing the clouds home, racing the clouds home We place our faith in human rights In the paper wars that tie the red tape tight I know that I would rather be out of this conspiracy In the gulags and internment camps frozen faces in nameless ranks I know that they would rather be standing here besides me Racing the clouds home, racing the clouds home You can shut your eyes, you can hide it away it's gonna come back another day Racing the clouds home, are we racing the clouds home Racing the clouds home |
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7.
Incommunicado
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I'd be really pleased to meet you if I could remember your name But I got problems of the memory ever since I got a winner in the fame game I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin' incommunicado And I don't give a damn for the Fleet Street aficionados But I don't want to be the back-page interview I don't want launderette anonymity I want my hand prints in the concrete on Sunset Boulevard A dummy in Tussaud's you'll see Incommunicado, incommunicado I'm a Marquee veteran, a multimedia bona fide celebrity I've got an allergy to Perrier, daylight and responsibility I'm a rootin'-tootin' cowboy, the Peter Pan, the street credibility Always taking the point with the dawn patrol fraternity Sometimes it seems like I've been here before When I hear opportunity kicking in my door Call it synchronicity call it deja vu I just put my faith in destiny - it's the way that I choose But I don't want to be a tin can tied To the bumper of a wedding limousine Or currently residing in the where are they now file A toupee on the cabaret scene I want to do adverts for American Express cards Talk shows on prime time TV A villa in France, my own cocktail bar And that's where you're gonna find me Incommunicado, incommunicado Sometimes it seems like I've been here before When I hear opportunity kicking in my door Call it synchronicity call it deja vu I just put my faith in destiny - it's the way that I choose Incommunicado, incommunicado It's the only way |
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8.
Torch Song
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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 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 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 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 We burn a little brighter now |
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9.
Sláinte Mhath
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A hand held over a candle in angst fuelled bravado A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far This is the story so far Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins You scrawl out your poems across a beer mat or two And when you declare the point of grave creation They turn round and you to tell them the story so far This is the story so far And you listen with a tear in you eye To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply Is Slainte Mhath Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns Holding their own last orders commanding attention We sit here and listen to all of the story so far This is the story so far Take it away, take it away, take it away Take me away, take me away, take me away From the dream on the barbed wire at Flanders and Bilston Glen From a Clydeside that rusts from the tears of its broken men From the realisation that we've been left behind Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line Waiting on the whistle to blow We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows Broken promises but the whistle still blows Waiting on the whistle to blow We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow |
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10.
Sugar Mice
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I was flicking through the channels on the TV On a Sunday in Milwaukee in the rain Trying to piece together conversations Trying to find out where to lay the blame But when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend For when it gets right down to it there's no one here that's left to blame Blame it on me, you can blame it on me We're just sugar mice in the rain I heard Sinatra calling me through the floorboards Where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme To the jukebox crying in the corner While the waitress is counting out the time For when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend For when it gets right down to it there's no one really left to blame Blame it on me, you can blame it on me We're just sugar mice in the rain 'Cos I know what I feel, know what I want I know what I am Daddy took a rain check ' Cos I know what I want, know what I feel I know what I need Daddy took a rain check, your daddy took a rain check Ain't no one in here that's left to blame but me Blame it on me, blame it on me Well the toughest thing that I ever did was talk to the kids on the phone When I heard them asking questions I knew that you were all alone Can't you understand that the government left me out of work I just couldn't stand the looks on their faces saying, "What a jerk" So if you want my address it's number one at the end of the bar Where I sit with the broken angels clutching at straws and nursing our scars Blame it on me, blame it on me, Sugar mice in the rain, your daddy took a rain check |
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11.
The Last Straw/Happy Ending
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Hotel hobbies padding dawns hollow corridors A typewriter cackles out a stream of memories Drying out a conscience, evicting a nightmare Opening the doors for the dreams to come home We live out lives in private shells Ignore our senses and fool ourselves To thinking that out there there's someone else cares Someone to answer all our prayers Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine Pretending the end isn't quite that near We make futile gestures, act to the cameras With our made up faces and PR smiles And when the angel comes down, down to deliver us We'll find out that after all, we're only men of straw But everything is still the same Passing the time passing the blame We carry on in the same old way We'll find out we left it too late one day to say what we meant to say Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water Those problems seem to arise the ones you never really thought of The feeling you get is similar to something like drowning Out of your mind, you're out of your depth, you should have taken soundings Clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws And if you ever come across us don't give us your sympathy You can buy us a drink and just shake our hands And you'll recognise by the reflection in our eyes That deep down inside we're all one and the same We're clutching at straws We're still drowning Clutching at straws |