The Raging Muse (Fish In The Grass) Releases Gigs Lyrics Comments

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Author
Robyn Hitchcock
According to our records, Robyn has played this song 13 times, most recently at The Tote on March 08, 2024. He first performed it at Robyn and Emma's house on September 27, 2020, 3 years and 5 months earlier.

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Comments

Notes from Robyn on Patreon in 2020.
Here’s an acoustic demo of new song which I’m working on for my upcoming album, Midnight Tram to Nowhere. The recording will probably end up sounding very different to this, but this gives you an idea of the song in essence. It’s triggered by a recurring dream I have of live fishes writhing in vivid green grass in waterlogged fields. Which is more fun than it may sound, in a very English kind of way...

From Robyn in email newsletter in 2022
Songs come to me alive and flickering, fresh from the lake of my subconscious. I’m a compulsive writer. “The Raging Muse” was written in Nashville in 2020. It began life as a sketchy home recording, just me and and my old Telecaster - the same guitar I played on ELEMENT OF LIGHT back in 1986 - this time around faithfully engineered by Tubby and Ringo. Once I had the bones of the song, I sent it to my friend Davey Lane in Melbourne, who fleshed it out with spiky lead guitar and then onto Charlie Francis in Cardiff, who added the melodramatic piano and bagpipes. The fish in the grass in this song are one of my many recurring dreams, I’m sure they’ll appear again soon.

Lyrics

The raging muse got me locked up inside
The raging muse so owns me
The raging muse with her head open wide
My heavenly bride

I look at my feet
And there’s fish in the grass
The grass is so green
And the fish are alive
It’s getting to lunchtime
And the fish are all shimmering

They curl like numbers
In the bright green blades
Those fishes are feelings
Yeah those fishes are thoughts
And they never get caught

I look into my depths
And there’s fish in the grass
Under the glass
Those fishes will pass
This way and that
The cod and the sprat
Constellation of the fishes

I look in your eyes
And there’s fish in the glass
Swimming in bowls
Of perfect red eyes
It’s getting to teatime
And the fish are all hungry
And the fish are all shuddering

Ready to slither
Back into the pond
To ungrow their legs
And writhe on their fins
Like their ancestors did

Those fish in the grass
How slowly they pass
For your own sake
Never step on them

The raging muse got me locked up inside
The raging muse so owns me
The raging muse with her head open wide
My heavenly bride