Marshall's House

We know a place where you can work it all out
We're going down to Marshall's House
Jimi play your black guitar
You're too late too early, tomorrow too far

And if you should start to feel a little ill
Don't you try to run or say what you feel
If I could only talk to you
There's so much to show you, so much to do

We're going down down down down
We're going down
We're going down down hand me down
Gotta catch that sound

In a rolled gold field sits a house on a hill
There's no way out, no triumph of the will
Try to help you, whenever I can
But you tripped me up and never understand

We're going down down down down
We're going down
We're going down down hand me down
Gotta catch that sound

Lyrics by:
Squire

Available on:
Marshall's House (4.15)

Details:

Throughout his career, New England — first Gloucester, later Maine, and finally Cape Cod — was the source for much of Hopper's subject matter. These coastal communities were popular destinations for artists, but the independent-minded Hopper remained distant from his colleagues, dryly noting, "When everyone else would be painting ships and the waterfront, I'd just go around looking at houses." He had a penchant for architectural styles of past centuries, especially the Victorian with its heavy ornamentation and mansard roofs. He rendered these houses with dramatic light and often in isolation. Along the coast of Maine, where Hopper visited in the late 1920s, he painted lighthouses, solitary beacons amid the landscape. Full of intrigue and mystery, Hopper's lighthouses surpass their utilitarianism and assume a commanding presence — no longer mere incidental structures like those in the seascapes of other artists. Beginning in 1930, Hopper and Josephine Nivison (who wed in 1924) spent summers on Cape Cod, where the couple eventually built a house and studio in the town of Truro. There, Hopper's style became more geometric, perhaps inspired by the architecture of the region's saltbox constructions. Always a realist painter, and critical of many modernist trends, Hopper nonetheless inched toward abstraction in these simplified compositions that experimented with the interplay of color, form, and light. For Hopper, however, architecture was never reducible to mere form — it always remained in dialogue with nature. As the artist plainly remarked later in his career, "What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house."

Squire details the origin of this track here.

"'Marshall's House' - that one was the most open to interpretation. It's a painting of a house, with blacked-out windows. So I struggled for a toehold with that one. In the end, I wrote it about a night 10 or 15 years ago when I thought I'd died.

"This was before we'd made the first Stone Roses album. It was the first time I heard Electric Ladyland. The real low point came in 'Death Valley 69 (by Sonic Youth) and I came out of it to A Certain Ratio, I can't remember the title of the song. But between those records, I was convinced I was dead. So I transplanted a second-floor flat in Chorlton onto this Edward Hopper timber country-house in New England." (John Squire, 'Anglo Plugging', 2003)

Among Squire's listening choices at this time was The Jesus and Mary Chain, a British indie rock band that revolved around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim Reid and William Reid. Hailing from East Kilbride in Scotland, they formed in 1984 (the same year as The Stone Roses) and split in 1999. Their influence on Squire is touched upon in an Xray magazine interview (11 / 02 / 04):

Why does Pollock appeal to you ?
When I first saw his stuff I was heavily into The Jesus and Mary Chain and it seemed like the visual equivalent of that feedback and masking.

The titles of two of their early singles, 'You Trip Me Up' (May 1985)* and 'Never Understand' (February 1985), are combined for one lyric (both songs are to be found on their debut album, 'Psychocandy', from November 1985).

Squire is highly praising of Psychocandy in interviews:

"That's why (the Jesus and Mary Chain's) Psychocandy was so incredible when it came out, that it could be so modern and powerful yet doff its cap to Brian Wilson and Phil Spector." (The Guitar Magazine July 1995 feature)**

Take no heroes, take only inspiration. The Stone Roses take no heroes in their estimation of rock of days gone by. To them The Jesus And Mary Chain ("'Psychocandy' had a groove to it"), The Smiths, Public Enemy and De La Soul were the best bands of the '80s. The others could have been contenders but The Stone Roses knock them cold. (NME Interview, 14th July 1990)

Psychocandy (November 1985) by The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Squire and Brown took much of their interviewing technique circa 88 / 89 from brothers Jim and William Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain (see for example, The Jesus and Mary Chain 'Music Box' interview). Respect for The Jesus and Mary Chain runs through The Stone Roses. When leaving the Roses to join Primal Scream, Mani stated that Primal Scream were one of only three other bands he would ever consider joining - the other two were the Beastie Boys and the Jesus & Mary Chain:

"After much speculation I've decided, along with Ian Brown, that it's time to end the Roses saga. I will be joining Primal Scream, who are one of only three other bands I would ever consider joining." (Mani, 1996)

In Uncut magazine from February 1998, Alan McGee of Creation Records cites The Jesus and Mary Chain as one of three key bands that influenced the Roses:

"I think the Roses were mainly influenced by three bands - by The Jesus and Mary Chain early on, 'cos I remember they used to show up at Mary Chain gigs at the Hacienda in '85-'86, but the two bands the first LP was influenced by were an American band called The Three O'Clock and Primal Scream.*** Nobody else has really picked up on that, but melodically that record was a cross between The Three O'Clock and Primal Scream. I lived in Manchester in 1988-1989, and that's when I first met Mani, so I used to hang out with them and drink with them and I know that was what they were into. And John Squire around that time was supposedly massively into Santana."

In 2007, John entitled an artwork, 'Jesus and Mary.'

The repeated words "going down" follow an earlier reference to Hendrix ("Jimi play your black guitar" - Jimi's black Fender Stratocaster), a nod to Going Down, which contains a reference to Jimi (the song, 'If 6 was 9'). The song Marshall's House is almost a homage to Jimi Hendrix (whose middle name was Marshall), being full of 'Jimi guitar effects'. Marshall's House, as detailed by Squire above, is written about a time when he first heard Jimi's 'Electric Ladyland'.

There is a reference to the Leni Riefenstahl (1902 - 2003) film, 'Triumph of the Will' (1934), the zenith of Nazist film propaganda and hugely influential directorially (the end of Star Wars Episode IV borrows heavily from it). U2's 1993 Zooropa tour wove looped images from Triumph of the Will with various war and news imagery sources, projected on a giant screen.

* 'You Trip Me Up' featured in a fax sent by John Squire to Select magazine in 1997, naming his ten favourite songs:

"I loved the TV distortion picture cover for this one and the sonic action painting approach to the guitar overdubs...another example of the endless permutation the brothers found for those three chords - changed the way I thought about writing songs." (John Squire speaking to Select magazine in 1997)

"John used to buy Mary Chain and Primal Scream records, but we (the rest of the band) didn't." (Ian Brown speaking to Uncut magazine, February 1998)

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