Marillion - That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)

From "Clutching at Straws", 1987.

Marillion is a British rock band, comprising (at the time of "Clutching at Straws") Fish (vocals), Steve Rothery (guitar), Pete Trewavas (bass), Mark Kelly (keyboards) and Ian Mosley (drums). "That Time of the Night" is the third track on the album. It features some amazingly lyrical bass, together with clever rhythmic ideas and some great interplay with the drums.

"That Time of the Night" is in standard tuning for a 4-string bass. Play it clean, with fingers.

Playing

"That Time of the Night" begins where the previous song, "Warm Wet Circles" leaves off. The first eight bars feature a syncopated rhythm (in 5/4) that underpins the first section (actually a bridge from ‘Warm Wet Circles’).

The next 8 bars contain a different closing riff:

The following bars get gradually more elaborate. Note the natural harmonics in the first and 14th bars, and the chord slide in bar 9.

The song (at 1:39) now begins to move into the main verse riff, using a similar rhythm (this time in 4/4) in a different chord sequence.

The verse riff now enters, and the transformation from syncopated 5/4 into more conventional 4/4 is complete. Trewavas now feels free to adorn the riffs, so quite a bit of ad-libbing goes on. The base riff is:

Each time around, something new happens, which makes this quite an interesting bass part.

The chorus follows (2:39), with a different feel.

To lead back into the verse riff, a version of it in D minor (a perfect 4th higher) is played first:

A second verse is played, followed by a second chorus. An outro section then follows (‘clutching the short straw’, 4:20):

This is played 4 times, with slight variations each time, followed by the last 4 bars again.

The end of the song (5:22) has a repeating guitar riff, and for the first few bars the bass plays before trailing off: