Fish, a.k.a. Derek William Dick, is best known as the vocalist for Marillion in the 1980s. After leaving the band in 1988 he has had a long and illustrious solo career which is now coming to an end. Some time ago, he let it be known that Weltschmerz would be his final album and the shows to support it would be his farewell to touring as well. This sombre announcement was inspired by a lot of happenings in his own life, as indicated by the album title. He also felt the weight of his own advancing years, giving him a feeling that he was approaching his own ‘sell by date.’ We disagree on that count, but his mind seems firmly made up about making this his musical stopping point. He deserves that we respect that decision.
Weltschmerz (a German phrase, best translated into ‘a feeling of melancholy and world weariness’) has been five years in the making. During this half-decade, Fish was put through the mill. His online bio lists the following: “His father died, his 87-year-old mother moved into permanent care with Fish and his wife due to deteriorating health issues, sepsis came close to killing him, he required operations on his hands and spinal surgery, Trump was handed the keys to the White House, the German refugee crisis increased tenfold, civil war broke out in Syria, the Brexit saga turned brother against brother, and he endured a period of writers’ block. Then, depositing a metaphorical cherry on the cake, Coronavirus tilted the globe.” In other words, the album title came very naturally.
“These songs are autobiographical,” says Fish in the album’s EPK. “I’m involved in all of them and I didn’t realise that until I sang them in the studio. There’s a lot of self-examination going on here, and I learned a great deal about myself in the making of this album.”
In the end, Weltschmerz turned out to be a double album, each CD containing five tracks totalling some 42 minutes of music – just enough that it all wouldn’t have fit on a single disc. This is to the album’s advantage, as it divides the album into two more easily digestible portions. Nostalgically, this also brings shades of the old Side A/Side B-aspect for those of us who grew up with vinyl (although the album itself is spread over four sides of vinyl).
Three years into its production, Fish released a first taste of the new material in 2018 on the EP A Parley of Angels. It contained three of the songs that would be included on the album.
That EP aside, nobody can call Fish a prolific album artist in recent years, the previous two being 13th Star (2007) and A Feast of Consequences (2013). By taking his time in the studio, each album release is however more of an occasion, made under a supreme artistic licence and never released until they are ready. Like the previous couple albums, Weltschmerz has been co-written with bassist Steve Vantsis and guitarist Robin Boult.
The lyrics have always been a key part of Fish’s music, from his Marillion days onwards. This time there seem to be an extra intensity in them. Is it imagined due to the added poignancy of this being his final musical statement? Yes, possibly. That may play into things, but primarily the work on the album speaks for itself. If you pick up the deluxe book set with hundred pages of lyrics, art and personalised essays on the album and songs (you can read about them in depth, for hours!) you will get a sense of how important it is for the main man to explain what this is about. He does not want to be ambiguous about things here, he wants us to lean in and listen, take in the words, and understand where he is coming from and what it is he is trying to tell us. This is a delight, as more often than not it is the other way around – almost playing guessing games as to what a song is about.
The opening track The Grace of God starts the album on a haunting note, containing an intro during which a doctor is reading MRI scan results almost as if he’s a news reporter under the rhythm track. It is a bleak opening to an album without too many upbeat moments, containing thoughts from a man on his deathbed, as well as some thoughts from stray people around him.
Man with A Stick is a shorter and more accessible song, with a percussive bedding and overall cold wave arrangement similar to 1980s Peter Gabriel. The song explores the various uses a stick can have – a stick lends support to an elderly person, but can also be used to inflict corporal punishment. It can refer to a firearm which can be used in the name of good or evil – and in war.
Walking On Eggshells is another impactful song, describing a marriage that is suffering, every minute trying to find a fragile truce between the two parties rather than embracing the end. The easy thing would be to walk away, but there is a commitment as well – he sings “I’m always here for you,” in spite of it all, revealing a love which still lies there, buried underneath everything.
It is almost tempting to see the following song This Party’s Over as a direct continuation of the previous track lyrically (which it isn’t). One of the shorter and accessible songs on the album, it is decidedly upbeat with a slightly Celtic/folk-themed flair in its instrumentation. Joyous rhythms accompany the song where Fish is declaring the end of his drinking days. The song bubbled out “when I started to become concerned about my drinking” – something he quickly got under control.
Rose Of Damascus closes out the first disc and is the longest track on offer. It is a 16-minute cascade of voice, instruments, alternating tempos and narrated parts. It is also one of several tracks to feature musicians from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. They are prominently used here, while on other tracks they often provide a more comfortable background bedding.
The song focuses on the character of Rose and her attempts to flee war-torn Syria. It portrays the plight of refugees chillingly well, with Fish singing “This wasteland where it’s a curse to be alive.” Doris Brendel provides excellent backing vocals on the entire album, but her work on this song is particularly intriguing. She uses her voice like a percussive instrument similar to how Kate Bush used to.
John Mitchell (It Bites/Lonely Robot) has contributed the music to the lovely ballad Garden of Remembrance. The track may be the album’s most poignant moment, as it was inspired by his mother and deals with the subject of dementia. The song tells the story of a married couple and resulting issues between the husband and wife.
It was written before the pandemic, which made it take on a whole additional new connotation – that of social distancing. This is worked into the music video of the song with its depiction of a couple on a beach separated by glass. Apparently, his mother didn’t want to appear in the video but was only a few metres nearby during the filming, which saw Fish shed a genuine tear at the end of the song.
He hears a voice
He tried to recognise the source and place the name
A face so familiar
The smile soft and warm
The memory evades him
His mind wanders on
Her love a ghost of a memory
She’ll wait for an eternity
He’s still here
There is steely determination in C Song (The Trondheim Waltz). “I won’t let you bring me down” Fish sings about someone being diagnosed with cancer and refusing to bow down. The fact that the title namechecks a certain Norselands city can’t go unmentioned, and Fish explains that particular inclusion in the album liner notes: “In Trondheim, Norway I instigated a dance amongst the crowd and challenged them to dance with the stranger immediately next to them. They obligingly responded and a mass waltz broke out during the instrumental section. The dance routine was adopted and on every gig from then on the ‘Trondheim waltz’ became part of the show.”
Some dark, but very poignant, songs follow. Fish wrote Little Man What Now? Following the passing of his father, while The Waverly Steps contains the travelogue of someone who is lost and does not know where he is going. “When I wrote The Waverley Steps it was about a whole different character,” chuckles Fish. “And then I realised: ‘Fuck, it’s about me.’”
The final track on Fish’s final album is the title track Weltschmerz. It is brilliant, easily one of the best tracks on the album, and easily one of Fish’s best solo tracks of his career. What an amazing track to go out with.
I like it when an album that contains a concept or a theme, even if it’s just a loose one, ends on a note of looking back at what has been said so far and – in the most roundabout way – try to either summarise or add a more definitive statement. Not all albums are like that, but this is definitely one of those albums.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the song is the one on the album that represents the duality of Fish best. Musically it is insistent yet very melodic and pleasing, while lyrically it is sharp and a stark commentary on the state of our world today. He stands on the barricades, singing out against the injustices of the world, urging everybody to stand up for a better world. The world is in pain, and it’s up to us to make it better.
As the final song on his final album, this is a song that is bound to get some extra attention. If so, this is very deserving.
The fight isn’t over, this war still has to be won
On an unlevel playing field the conflicts rage on
Stand up to be counted, stand up to be heard
Stand up at the barricades stand up for your world
Weltschmerz – the homeless and starving
Weltschmerz – the bombed and the burnt
Weltschmerz – the poor and the lonely
Weltschmerz – the forgotten and spurned
The Weltschmerz album does emit a certain air of finality and closure overall, but it is not a depressing record. Fish prefers to think of it in terms of the 1999 cinematic masterpiece American Beauty. “I loved that movie,” he comments. “It dealt with a lot of issues like midlife crises and homophobia and yet it remained a beautiful film – a piece of art.”
The album is available as a double vinyl, double CD, and a deluxe book box with 2 CDs, 1 Blu-ray and a 100-page book filled with prose, lyrics, and artwork by Fish’s long term illustrator Mark Wilkinson.
As Fish is an independent artist, you will need to order this release from his website. This also means that the record is not eligible for chart placement. This caused a bit of a debate when it became known that the sales numbers for the album would have made it #2 on the official UK album sales charts on its week of release had it been allowed representation. It was one of the biggest sellers in the country that week, but the chart is just not not set up to reflect independent releases. Comments on the matter from the Fish camp focused on gratitude towards those who supported him, allowing him to go out in the way he preferred to – on his own terms, making this a 100% self-made artist-to-fan project.
“This is my defining statement. I knew that I couldn’t do anything more in music,” Fish insists. “It’s time to walk away. I don’t even really care how it sells or what reviewers might say. It’s a punctuation mark.”
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