FISH
Time gentlemen, please: prog’s great warrior-poet bows out with a career-capping masterpiece.
Words: Dave Everley Illustration: Mark Wilkinson
And so this is it. The end. Last orders on a career that has finished where it began more than 40 years ago, in the heart of Lothian, having circled the globe a hundred times over, taking in all the boozy highs and red-eyed lows life has to offer. The old warrior-poet is draining his glass one final time, proud of everything he’s achieved but aching-boned and world-weary. He’s almost done with this, almost ready to retire to his garden and write books and screenplays. Almost, but not quite.
It’s been five years since Fish announced that his next album - this one - would be his last. At times it looked like he’d never even make it this far. The catalogue of woes which have plagued the big man since 2013’s A Feast Of Consequences are enough to fill an entire volume of his oft-mooted autobiography: failed romances and family bereavements, hand surgery, spinal operations, writer’s block, two bouts of sepsis, one near-death experience and a full-blown global pandemic.