Chelsea Monday

[Track Info] [The Lyrics] [Explanation]

Chelsea Monday - Track Info

1. Studio version (08:16)

2. Manchester Square Demo (06:52)

3. Live (London, England - "Hammersmith Odeon", April 18th '83) (07:25)

4. Live (Utrecht, the Netherlands - "Vredenburg", October 15th 1985) (07:44)

5. Live (Leicester, England - "De Montford Hall", March 5th 1984) (08:01)

Notes: 2) is a demo recorded during the "Script" recording sessions. There are several differences between this demo and the released studio version 1).
The main differences are:
- The demo does not begin with the sound effects of the album version ("..late one!").
- The demo begins with a piano introduction instead of the bass guitar one. This piano introduction is 8 bars long, instead of the 4 bars of the album version. The piano theme leads the song during the first part of the song, until the central instrumental section.
- The central guitar solo is quite different.
- The guitar part before and during the strophe "Drifting with her incense..." is played on acoustic guitar instead of the electric one.
- The spoken part "Hello John..." is done by Mark, and it's slightly different.
- The guitar part in the end of the song, during the final strophe "Catalogue princess..." is also acoustic.
- The finale is quite different, more similar to the live versions one.
All live versions follow studio version. Introducing 4) Fish says "This is a song dedicated to the ladies".}

Lyrics by Derek William Dick (Fish)
Preformed Live for the First Time: 6 or 7-Mar-82

Published by Marillion Music, Charisma Music Publishing Co. Ltd.


Chelsea Monday - The Lyrics

Evening Standard: Late one!
Evening Standard: Late one!...

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Hiding in her cellophane world in glitter town
Awaiting the prince in his white Capri
Dynamic young Tarzan courts the bedsit queen

She's playing the actress in this bedroom scene
She's learning her lines from glossy magazines
Stringing all her pearls from her childhood dreams
Auditioning for the leading role on the silver screen

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, you'll charm them with that smile
But for now it's just another Chelsea Monday, Chelsea Monday.

Tju..
In the city of dreamers...
Drifting with her incense in the labyrinth of London,
Playing games with faces in the neon wonderland
Perform to scattered shadows on the shattered cobbled aisles
Would she dare recite soliloquies at the risk of stark applause,
to Chelsea Monday

She'll pray for endless Sundays as she enters saffron sunsets
Conjure phantom lovers from the tattered shreds of dawn,
Fulfilled and yet forgotten the St. Tropez mirage
Fragrant aphrodisiac, the withered tuberose,
Of Chelsea Monday, sweet Chelsea Monday

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child
One day they really love you, you'll charm them with that smile
But for now it's just another Chelsea Monday, sweet Chelsea Monday

Voice: Hello John, did you see The Standard about four hours ago?
Fished a young chick out of The Old Father
Blond hair, blue eyes
She said she wanted to be an actress or something
Nobody knows where she came from, where she was going
Funny thing was she had a smile on her face
She was smiling
What a waste!

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress
Buried in her cellophane world in glitter town,
Of Chelsea Monday
[Chelsea Monday]
[She was only dreaming]


EXPLANATION OF SONF ELEMENTS
Copyright © 1997 Fraser Marshall, Matthew Anderson & Bert ter Steege.


CHELSEA MONDAY

'tinsel'
Martijn Buijs said:

Tinsel:

  1. formerly, a cloth interwoven with glittering threads of gold, silver etc.
  2. thin sheets, strips or threads of tin, metal foil etc., used for inexpensive decoration
  3. something that glitters like precious metal but has little real worth

Tinsel: (adj.):

  1. of or decorated with tinsel
  2. showy, gaudy

‘Chelsea’
Pears Cyclopedia: District London, England: Fashionable residential district.

Chelsea was the centre of the fashion world in the 1960’s when models, actors and actresses and footballers all lived and played in the area. Although much of the zeitgeist has worn away, it remains a fashionable area in which to live.

‘Evening Standard’
The Evening Standard is a London-based newspaper. It is pretty right wing and comes out in several editions through out the day. The first edition actually appears about midday. This might explain why the voice asks ‘John’ if he’s seen the standard about four hours ago. The final edition hits the streets at about 4. 30 and may frequently be very different than the midday edition.

'Capri’
A Capri was a European Ford of the 1970s and early 80s. It was a mid-price range car, and looked sleek and sporty. In reality, the looks disguised an average small saloon, comparable to the Ford Escort. It was widely regarded in Britain as being a ‘poor man’s sports car’, and a trash talisman. So, although she’s looking for a prince. . .

‘St. Tropez’
Pears Cyclopedia: town in the Var Department (County) of South East France on the French Riviera; popular tourist resort; marina.

‘John’
A Londoner might use ‘John’ as a friendly way of addressing a man they did not know. It would be interchangeable with the word ‘mate’.

‘tuberose’
A pretty English girl of fair hair, and pink complexion, would commonly be referred to as an English Rose. Thus it is a pun on ‘To be rose’ in addition to its actual literal meaning.

‘The Old Father’
The River Thames. He is often depicted as an old man with a flowing white beard. Strangely, much of the imagery in the song is similar to ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’ from Genesis’ ‘Selling England by the Pound’.


Sources


Last Modified: 27 jul 2000