Splendido pezzo del 1983, tratto dall’album di esordio dei Marillion. Il brano si sofferma sulla storia di una ragazza che, sognando un successo costruito sulla sua immagine – siamo nei primi anni ’80 – ma al contempo non avendo la forza, il coraggio e la tenacia per realizzarlo, decide di conquistare tristemente la sua fama ponendo fine alla sua vita. Il “Lunedì a Chelsea” è lo sfondo spazio-temporale in cui si svolge tutto: Chelsea era il quartiere di Londra celebre per essere il centro della moda mondiale.
“The Old Father”, citato nella canzone, è il Tamigi. Venne chiamato così anche nei testi dei Genesis (band a cui i primi Marillion si ispiravano fortemente). A voi il testo e la canzone (nelle parentesi quadre la parte saliente – recitata – che è anche la chiave di lettura del testo).
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.
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
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
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
[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.
Il Calamaio Elettrico 