"Adventure" Was Issued In 1978, Little Less Than A Year After Television's Debut "Marquee Moon" Had Been Released

A “Marquee Moon petit”. That is the best way to describe Television’s second LP. It was issued in 1978, and it was to be their final release for almost two decades as they disbanded some time after the record had hit the shelves.

Obviously, Marquee Moon was a hard act to follow. You must remember that the songs which were recorded for the debut had germinated over three years of live performances, and that alone gave them a crisper edge when placed against the songs on Adventure. Those were written in a very limited lapse, but at least the band exploited the bigger budget they had the second time around.

In many cases, they slowed down the tempos and came up with songs that ended sounding a little trippy. The most obvious examples are the cuts “Carried Away” and “The Fire”. The former has a sort of lulling melody that mirrors the marine themes and motifs of the lyrics in a manner not really dissimilar to that in which Yeats’ “The Lake Isle Of Innisfree” lulls you over with its vocal rhythm.

On the other hand, “The Fire” has Verlaine playing a slide part in which he uses a knife instead of a bottleneck to quite good effect. The song also has the best set of lyrics on the whole album – it must have helped that Tom picked the standout verses from over twenty he claimed he had penned. Continue reading →