"Marquee Moon" is a song by American rock band

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

, recorded for their 1977 debut album of the same name. It was written by the band's lead vocalist and guitarist

Tom Verlaine Tom Verlaine (born Thomas Miller, December 13, 1949) is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known as the frontman of the New York City rock band Television. Biography Verlaine was born Thomas Miller in Denville, New Jersey and ...

. In the United Kingdom, "Marquee Moon" was released as a

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

on April 1, 1977. Its first pressing was as a 12" single only, limited to 25,000 copies, with the song in

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

on one side and in

mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...

on the other side. Subsequent pressings of the single were as a

7-inch single In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separate ...

, with the track split into two over the

A-side and B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

. "Marquee Moon" frequently appears on professional lists of the greatest songs, including ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' magazine's "

500 Greatest Songs of All Time "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring survey compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in ...

", on which it ranked 372nd in 2003 and 173rd in 2021. Based on such rankings, the aggregate website

Acclaimed Music Acclaimed Music is a website created by Henrik Franzon, a statistician from Stockholm, Sweden in September 2001. Franzon has statistically aggregated hundreds of published lists that rank songs and albums into aggregated rankings by year, deca ...

lists "Marquee Moon" as the 150th most acclaimed song in history.

Composition

Each of the song's three verses begins with a double-stopped guitar intro before

Billy Ficca William Joseph Ficca (born February 15, 1950, in Delaware) is an American drummer who was a founding member of the rock groups Television and The Waitresses. Career Italian origins, Ficca was a childhood friend of Tom Verlaine (aka Tom Mill ...

's drums come in, and after the second chorus Richard Lloyd plays a brief guitar solo. After the third chorus, there is a longer solo by Tom Verlaine, based on a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

-like

mixolydian Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' or ''tonoi'', based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; or a modern musical mode or diatonic scal ...

scale, that lasts for the entire second half of the song. On the original vinyl edition of the album, the song faded out just short of ten minutes, but the CD reissues have included the full 10:40 of the take. In concert, the band has sometimes extended the song to as long as fifteen minutes.

Release and reception

Despite its length, which would typically have been too long for most popular music radio formats, the song was released as a single in the U.K. and was a minor success, reaching number 30 on the UK Singles Chart. Because of its length, the song had to be divided between the two sides of a 7" record: "Marquee Moon" (Part I) (3:13) b/w "Marquee Moon" (Part II) (6:45). The song was also released in the UK as a limited edition 12"

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...

single. A mono recording of the song served as the

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

of the 12" single, and an alternate take was issued in 2003 on the remastered CD version of the album, Elektra/Rhino R2 73920. In 2004, "Marquee Moon" was ranked number 381 on ''

'' magazine's list of

the 500 greatest songs of all time "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring survey compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in ...

, and number 41 on its 100 Greatest Guitar Songs list in 2008. The guitar bridge from the song is quoted by

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in ...

in his 1996 song "You Bowed Down".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marquee Moon (Song) 1977 singles Television (band) songs 1977 songs Elektra Records singles Song recordings produced by Andy Johns