You And Marillion - Heidi Huff Story

My name is Heidi Huff and I grew up in Minnesota (USA).  I was in high school the first time I heard Marillion.  I think it was 1988.  Tod, a boy I knew from school surprised me one day at the McDonalds where we worked by giving me a cassette tape including most of “Clutching at Straws”.   I am not sure why he did that, but I am so glad he did.

I played that tape until it died.  It was quite fitting.  At the time I felt my father was drinking far more than he should.  I had a hard time communicating with my father and didn’t know how to tell him that it was affecting me.  There were so many other problems in my young life and his drinking added to my own feelings of instability, depression, and fear. I played and rewound the tape over and over until I was able to write out the words to each song.  I placed the lyrics to “Going Under” and “Just for the Record” on the driver’s seat of his truck, after asking my step-mother her opinion.  I was so scared he would be mad at me.  I guess he was not because nothing really came of my message, but at least he understood I worried.

In the summer of 1989 I ran away from home; that tape came with me. 

Eventually, I had a job and an address, so I was able buy the first four studio albums.  I did not know Fish had left the band.  I really did not know anything about Marillion except that they fundamentally changed the role music had in my life.  They changed it so drastically that many bands I thought I liked as a teenager become meaningless to me.  I had never heard music before that physically affected me; that could cause an involuntary ache, or a flutter in my chest, or even the inability to hold still as the music built and then released.  And, no matter how many times I played a song, my reactions never lessened!  My expectations for music totally and permanently shifted. 

I was nervous the first time I picked up a Marillion CD and realized that Fish was not the lead singer.  It was 1994 and “Brave” was mixed in with some new releases at the record shop.  There were listening stations at the store, so I put it in the player, and… wow. Wow.  That CD went on heavy rotation for the next two years.  Although not exactly my story, “Brave” was something I unfortunately could relate to.  To have a man so correctly capture the atmosphere of a young woman in crisis seemed impossible to me, yet there it was.  I get emotional just thinking of that accomplishment alone.  Steve Hogarth absolutely proved, and has continued to prove, that he and Marillion were meant for each other.

In no time at all, I found CDs I had missed and made sure I did not miss any more of them.  My dream was to see Marillion perform live.  In 1997 I was finally able to.  It was one of the best nights of my life. 

Twenty years later I was able to thank Tod for that first cassette tape and tell him just a little bit of what it meant to me.   I just love it when things come around full circle.

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