Click to view song info:
 

Menu:

 Site Intro

  1. Script Intro
    2.

Album Tracks:
 

  1. Script for a Jester's Tear
  2. He Knows You Know
  3. The Web
  4. Garden Party
  5. Chelsea Monday
  6. Forgotten Sons

B-Sides:

  1. Charting the Single
  2. Margaret

Garden Party - Margaret

‘Moira Anderson eat your heart out’
From Jeroen Schipper’s FAQ: "Moira Anderson is a Scottish middle-of-the-road singer, who sings, among other things, cloyingly sweet versions of Scottish traditional songs. Loch Lomond is exactly the sort of thing she would sing - hence Fish's comment."

Incidentally, the two songs bastardised in Margaret are Loch Lomond and Mairi's Wedding (Pronounced as far as I can tell from my Billy Connolly version, as 'Murray' although it would seem to make more sense if it were a Gaelic spelling of Mary or Marie.) Here they are in full, courtesy of http://www.contemplator.com/folk/:

Mairi's Wedding

Chorus 
Step we gaily on we go 
Heel for heel and toe for toe 
Arm in arm and row on row 
All for Mairi's wedding.

Over hillways up and down 
Myrtle green and bracken brown 
Past the shieling through the town 
All for sake of Mairi.

Chorus

Red her cheeks as rowans are 
Bright her eye as any star 
Fairest of them all by far 
Is my darlin' Mairi.

Chorus

Plenty herring, plenty meal 
Plenty peat to fill her creel 
Plenty bonny bairns as weel 
That's the toast of Mairi.

Chorus (Twice) 

Loch Lomond 

By yon bonnie banks 
And by yon bonnie braes, 
Where the sun shines bright 
On Loch Lomond 
Oh we twa ha'e pass'd sae 
mony blithesome days, 
On the bonnie, bonnie banks 
O' Loch Lomond.

Chorus
Oh ye'll tak' the high road 
and I'll tak' the low road, 
An' I'll be in Scotland before ye', 
But wae is my heart 
until we meet again 
On the Bonnie, bonnie banks 
O' Loch Lomond.

I mind where we parted 
In yon shady glen 
On the steep, steep side 
O' Ben Lomon' 
Where in purple hue 
The highland hills we view 
And the morn shines out 
Frae the gloamin'

Chorus

The wee bird may sing 
An' the wild flowers spring; 
An' in sunshine 
The waters are sleepin' 
But the broken heart 
It sees nae second spring, 
And the world does na ken 
How we're greetin'

Chorus

 

‘acid’
AKA LySergic acid Diethylamide or LSD. A powerful chemical which increases the production of neurotransmitter substances across the synaptic gaps of the brain (are you following this?) and thus can allow parts of the brain that are only distantly aware of each other to become best friends. Terrible hallucinations, allegedly. The verb describing being under the influence is ‘tripping’.

Infopedia 94 says: "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide - potent hallucinogenic drug, also called a psychedelic first synthesized from lysergic acid in Switzerland in 1938. Lysergic acid is a component of the mould of ergot, a fungus that forms on rye grain. The drug evokes dreamlike changes in mood and thought and alters the perception of time and space. It can also create a feeling of lack of self-control and extreme terror. Physical effects include drowsiness, dizziness, dilated pupils, numbness and tingling, weakness, tremors, and nausea.
Transient abnormal thinking induced by LSD, such as a sense of omnipotence or a state of acute paranoia, can result in dangerous behaviour. Long-term adverse reactions such as persistent psychosis, prolonged depression, or faulty judgment have also been reported following LSD ingestion, but whether these are a direct result of ingestion is difficult to establish. Physiologically, LSD may cause chromosomal damage to white blood cells; no hard evidence has been found, however, that LSD causes genetic defects in the children of users." (This is alarming (for some people...(I expect)) - Ed)

"Although LSD is not physiologically addicting, the drug's potent mind-altering effects can lead to chronic use. In the 1960s LSD use was widespread among people who sought to alter and intensify their physical senses; to achieve supposed insights into the universe, nature, and themselves; and to intensify emotional connections with others.

"The drug has been tried as a treatment for infantile autism, for alcoholism, and to accelerate psychotherapy, but no medical use has been established."

‘dope’
Hash, Marijuana, Weed, Ganja, whatever’s your fancy. All basically derivatives of a spiky leafed plant. The effects of smoking dope is to make you feel tired, often giggly, occasionally brilliant, and you get the munchies, which involves crawling to the nearest all-night garage and buying lots of pickled onion-flavour Monster Munch and Jaffa cakes. The verb describing being under the influence is ‘stoned’. So, technically, it’s obvious that Fish will be stoned before the other. But I think that’s a little too pedantic...

Infopedia 94: "mar·i·jua·na also mar·i·hua·na \,mar-e-'wä-ne also -'hwä-\ n [MexSp mariguana, marihuana] (1894)
1: the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant that yield THC (the psychoactive ingredient of dope - Stoned Ed) and are smoked in cigarettes for their intoxicating effect."

‘Margaret’
Marillion’s original touring van was christened Margaret. It was green, and they put an obituary in the paper when it broke down for the last time.

In 2002, Mark Kelly commented on the Online Forum at http://www.Marillion.com "The title was changed from Scot’s Porridge to Margaret gets her Oats after a friend of Stephanie (AKA Stef -Drummer Mick Pointer’s girlfriend, who also ran The Web for a while) called Margaret, got laid for the first time! It was later shortened to Margaret. I’ll get my anorak and scarf."

Whether this means the van comment is untrue or not, I don't know.