I listened to Marillionâs newest release,
Marbles in the Park. Itâs a live album, recorded at their 2015 Marillion Weekend at Center Parcs, Port Zelande, Netherlands. If this is anything to go by, their reputation as a fantastic live act must remain intact (⦠Steve Rothery is such a very fine guitarist ⦠oh my!).
One of the songs they did was âOcean Cloudâ which Iâve loved since I first heard it. It was conceived by Steve Hogarth and inspired by him by having seen a clip on TV showing a man being hauled out of the ocean and helped ashore (in Dooag, Achill Islands, Ireland). That man was Don Allum and he was completing what was to be his final odyssey â his third solo row across the Atlantic. He remains the first and only person to have rowed alone across the Atlantic in both directions and he did it in a 19ft and ten inch open plywood dory named QE3.
He was just an ordinary man who is virtually unheard of except in ocean rowing circles and yet he undertook these epic single-handed voyages. He died at the age of 55 having sustained irreparable damage to his organs by the deprivation of those trips, and he was a realist ⦠knew the score, exactly. He said he was a happy man, having completed what he set out to do, and that he was ready to go whenever it was his time. An extraordinary story which h chose to retell in âOcean Cloudâ.
So fascinating, these people who drive themselves to accomplish incredible solo feats ⦠for anyone who might be interested, here is link to Don Allumâs log of his final journey â¦
http://www.cns.gatech.edu/~predrag/frien..._allum.htm, also a short clip of an interview with Don himself â¦
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5E8UfU-A0.
There is something of h in there too though, something about the resilience of the âlittle manâ, perhaps, resonated with him and recalled for him a bullying episode heâd experienced as a child â at the hands of a teacher who called him a âcream puffâ and humiliated him in front of his classmates â another type of damage! Directly from the horseâs mouth, so to speak ⦠an interview with h about the song ⦠well worth the time, IMHO â¦
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FTlfFBwBf8
And, of course, the song in question, which is not from the live album, but from the original
Marbles as the live clips wonât play in my country ⦠sigh â¦
[video=youtube;Qx5dzaYrcoQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx5dzaYrcoQ[/video]
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