"Kayleigh" is a song by the British
neo-progressive rock
Neo-progressive rock (also known as neo-prog) is a subgenre of progressive rock which developed in the UK in the early 1980s. The genre's most popular band, Marillion, achieved mainstream success in the decade. Several bands from the genre have c ...
band
Marillion. It was released as the first single from the
concept album ''
Misplaced Childhood''.
It was the band's most successful single in the UK, where it peaked at number-two and stayed on the chart for a total of 14 weeks. It also became the band's most successful single worldwide, reaching the top 10 in the Republic of Ireland, Norway and France and became the band's sole appearance on the United States
''Billboard'' Hot 100, hitting number 74 in October 1985.'
The song popularised the name Kayleigh in the UK. It was later performed by the band's lead singer,
Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
, at the
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute was a popular-music concert staged on 11 June 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London, and broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million. Marking the forthcoming 70th birthday (18 July 1988) of the ...
at
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 2002 to 2003. The stadium ...
, with
Midge Ure on guitar and
Phil Collins on drums.
Composition
"Kayleigh" has been characterised as a "tremulous
torch song
A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affect ...
".
Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
, the band's lead singer and lyricist, said that writing the lyrics was "his way of apologizing to some of the women he had dated in the past." Although he had at one point dated a woman whose forenames were Kay Lee, the song was more a composite of several women with whom he had had relationships. Fish was quoted:
I was very confused at the time, you know, I had a lot of long term relationships, a lot of 'deep and meaningful' relationships that basically I'd wrecked because I was obsessed with the career and where I wanted to go. I was very, very selfish and I just wanted to be the famous singer but I was starting to become aware of the sacrifices that I was making, and I think that Kay was one of those sacrifices that went along the road. 'Kayleigh' was not just about one person; it was about three or four different people. The 'stilettos in the snow', that was something that happened in Galashiels
Galashiels (; sco, Gallae, gd, An Geal Àth) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive ...
, when I can remember going down one night and we were both really drunk, and, you know, dancin' under a street light, and 'dawn escapes from moon-washed college halls' was part of the Cambridge thing.
According to a 2014 article in Classic Rock:
“I’d wanted to write a song about a girlfriend I’d split up with, whose name was Kay,” Fish explains. “Which of course we couldn’t do. So we added her middle name, Lee, and it became Kayleigh instead.”
In the sleeve notes for 1998’s remastered edition of *Misplaced Childhood*, Fish states that "Kayleigh" catalogued his “total inability to enter into and maintain any relationship”. The lyrics seem to cast him as the mistreater rather than the mistreated.
“Because I was in denial I might have swapped things around,” he acknowledges. “But it wasn’t just about Kay, it was inspired by three or four different people in my life.”
The guitar hook line through the verse came about, according to
Steve Rothery
Steven Rothery (born 25 November 1959) is an English musician. He is the original guitarist and the longest continuous member of the British rock band Marillion. Outside Marillion, Rothery has recorded two albums as part of the duo the Wishing ...
, from him demonstrating to his then-girlfriend what effects a chorus and a delay pedal could add to a guitar's sound. Rothery recorded the song on a chorused
Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...
guitar, using the pick and his second and third fingers to play it. The album version contained an extended guitar solo by Rothery, 27 seconds of which is edited for the single version.
On 24 October 2012,
Marillion announced on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
that "Sad news via Fish – Kay – who inspired our song Kayleigh – has sadly died. RIP Kay."
Music video
The promotional video for the single was shot in
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, where the ''
Misplaced Childhood'' album was recorded. Tamara Nowy, a German woman who subsequently married lead singer Fish, and Robert Mead, the boy portrayed on the sleeve of the album and the single, appeared in the video.
Release
"Kayleigh" entered the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
on 18 May 1985 and climbed to the number-two position. It was kept from the
number-one spot by a version of "
You'll Never Walk Alone
"You'll Never Walk Alone" is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ''Carousel''. In the second act of the musical, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the protagonist Julie Jordan, sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to comfort and enco ...
" by the charity
supergroup the
Crowd
Generally speaking, a crowd is defined as a group of people that have gathered for a common purpose or intent such as at a demonstration, a sports event, or during looting (this is known as an acting crowd), or may simply be made up of many ...
in June 1985, which was released following the
Bradford City stadium fire.
As with all Marillion albums and singles of the Fish period, the cover art was designed by
Mark Wilkinson
Mark Wilkinson (born 3 October 1952) is an English illustrator. He is best known for the detailed surrealistic cover art he created for a number of British bands.
Wilkinson's breakthrough came through his association with the neo-progressive r ...
from an idea by Fish. The B-side on the international version, "
Lady Nina
Lady Nina is a song by the British neo-progressive rock band Marillion. First released in 1985 on the B-side to the #2 UK hit single "Kayleigh", it was the only single from the Extended Play, EP ''Brief Encounter (album), Brief Encounter'' releas ...
", would go on to be used as a single promoting the 1986 US-only mini album ''
Brief Encounter
''Brief Encounter'' is a 1945 British romantic drama film directed by David Lean from a screenplay by Noël Coward, based on his 1936 one-act play ''Still Life''.
Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, and Joyce Carey, ...
''. "Lady Nina" is the only Marillion song from the Fish era to use a
drum machine. The US version of the single uses "
Heart of Lothian
"Heart of Lothian" is a song by British neo-progressive rock band Marillion. It is the fifth track on the 1985 concept album ''Misplaced Childhood''. The song was released as the third single from ''Misplaced Childhood'' on 18 November 1985 in ...
" instead, another track from ''Misplaced Childhood'' that would eventually be released as the third and final single from the album. A CD replica of the single was also part of a collectors box-set released in July 2000 which contained Marillion's first 12 singles and was re-issued as a 3-CD set in 2009 (see ''
The Singles '82–'88'').
Legacy
The song's popularity in the summer of 1985 was responsible for a significant rise in popularity of the name Kayleigh. Its popularity and legacy was addressed by Harry Wallop, writing in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' in 2011:
Some names just didn’t exist a generation ago, but have taken off in popularity. The most famous of these is Kayleigh, which came into existence thanks to the neo-prog rock band Marillion, who had a number two hit with a single of this name in 1985. It was almost unheard of before the song. But since then it has taken hold, especially with parents who grew up with a love of long-haired bouffant power ballads. A few years ago, the name made it to the 30th most popular girl’s name in Britain, and it remains popular: 267 children were named it last year. Curiously, though, it has spawned a bewildering sub-sect of names, nearly all of which are unrelentingly bizarre. There were 101 Demi-Leighs last year, seven Chelsea-Leighs and four called Lilleigh, which sounds like a sanitary product.
In 2012, it was announced that the
Scottish Borders Council
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
was to inscribe extracts from the song's lyrics into the pavement at the newly developed Market Square in
Galashiels
Galashiels (; sco, Gallae, gd, An Geal Àth) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive ...
. Council engineer David Johnstone said the authority felt it was appropriate to mark the links between Galashiels and the song:
The lyrics from the song Kayleigh included reference to the old textiles college. Some of the lyrics referred to 'dawn escapes from moon-washed college halls' and 'do you remember cherry blossom in the market square?' There was a feeling that these lyrics were really appropriate and because of the connection between the singer and Galashiels that it would be appropriate to engrave some of those lyrics into the paving and make more of a feature of it." Johnstone also said the original cherry trees referred to in the song had been removed due to disease but they would be replaced.''
In 2013, in a presentation on
crowd funding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...
for a
TED conference
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
in
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...
, Marillion keyboardist
Mark Kelly identified the song's popularity as "part of the reason I've never had a proper job and I've been able to make a living from music for the past 32 years".
In a 2021 interview about ''Weltschmerz'', which Fish described as his final album, he noted that "I'm never going to be playing stadiums or arenas again. And I definitely don’t want to be on the
chicken-in-a-basket circuit singing fucking 'Kayleigh'."
Track listing
International 7" version
Side 1
#"Kayleigh" – 3:33
Side 2
#"Lady Nina" – 3:41
US 7" version (Capitol Records)
Side 1
#"Kayleigh" – 3:33
Side 2
#"Heart of Lothian" – 3:47
12" versions
Side 1
#"Kayleigh"
lternative Mix – 3:57
#"Kayleigh"
xtended Version– 4:00
Side 2
#"Lady Nina"
xtended Version– 5:46
Cassette single
#"Kayleigh"
lternative Mix – 3:57
#"Kayleigh"
xtended Version– 4:00
#"Lady Nina"
xtended Version– 5:46
#"Lady Nina"
ingle Edit– 3:41
Marillion - The Singles "82-88"
#"Kayleigh" – 3:33
#"Lady Nina" – 3:41
#"Kayleigh"
lternative Mix – 3:57
#"Kayleigh"
xtended Version– 4:00
#"Lady Nina"
xtended Version– 5:46
Personnel
*
Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
– vocals
*
Steve Rothery
Steven Rothery (born 25 November 1959) is an English musician. He is the original guitarist and the longest continuous member of the British rock band Marillion. Outside Marillion, Rothery has recorded two albums as part of the duo the Wishing ...
– guitars
*
Mark Kelly – keyboards
*
Pete Trewavas
Peter Trewavas (born 15 January 1959) is an English musician, known as the bassist of Marillion. He joined in 1982, replacing Diz Minnitt, while acting occasionally as a backing vocalist and acoustic guitarist.
Trewavas was born in Middlesbroug ...
– bass
*
Ian Mosley
Ian F. Mosley (born 16 June 1953, Paddington, London, England) is an English drummer. He is best known for his long-time membership of the neo-progressive rock band Marillion, which he joined for their second album, ''Fugazi'', released in 19 ...
– drums
Chart performance
See also
*
Belsize Park
Belsize Park is an affluent residential area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden (the inner north-west of London), England.
The residential streets are lined with mews houses and Georgian and Victorian villas. Some nearby localities ar ...
(mentioned in the lyrics)
References
{{authority control
Marillion songs
1985 singles
1985 songs
1980s ballads
EMI Records singles
Rock ballads
Song recordings produced by Chris Kimsey
Songs written by Fish (singer)
Songs written by Mark Kelly (keyboardist)
Songs written by Steve Rothery
Songs written by Pete Trewavas
Songs written by Ian Mosley
Torch songs