Way back in 1987, serendipity made it so that I first heard this song by Marillion, just as I was finally making sense of geometry (better late than never!) and fascinated by the properties of circles, and also just as I was irreversibly falling into philosophy, pondering what it meant to be aware of a universal concept. My fate was sealed.
There are circles everywhere, and my ability to find how they are all the same, even as they are also different, is one of those wonders of the mind.
Fish's lyrics were at their height for this album, approaching the level of genuine poetry, as he compares all sorts of circles, and how they move our lives:
The engagement ring, The pool ball. The ring of old beer on the bar, The glow of the streetlights. The glow of the headlights, The tube of lipstick. The cigarette. The turning finger. A mother's kiss on a first broken heart, A bullet hole. Ultimately, the cycle of all things coming around again, right back where they started.
And, most explicitly, the warm wet circle of sexual intimacy, and how foolishly it is all lost.
What a brilliant tune, though maybe it was just my take on it that made it special to me. . .
Marillion, "Warm Wet Circles", from Clutching at Straws (1987)
On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweller's shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
'Til they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweller's shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
'Til 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 'til the barman wipes away the warm wet circles
The warm wet circles
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 'til 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
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
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
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
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
The song is actually part of a trilogy on the album that all flows together, "Hotel Hobbies / Warm Wet Circles / That Time of the Night". You know you just want to listen to the whole thing! ;-) Bill me if you think it was a wasted fifteen minutes.
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