Marquee Moon
Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, and Billy Ficca formed Television in New York City in 1973. The band built a following through a residency at the club CBGB, and founding bassist Richard Hell left in 1975. Fred Smith replaced him on bass. Smith and Ficca anchored the rhythm section. Verlaine and Lloyd’s interlocking guitars then built the title track, “Marquee Moon,” into the centerpiece of the band’s 1977 debut album.
Verlaine wrote “Marquee Moon” and produced the album with engineer Andy Johns, credited as co-producer for his earlier work on the Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup. Television recorded the song at A&R Recording in New York City in September 1976, largely live in the studio. Ficca assumed the take that made the album was just a rehearsal, and Johns suggested another pass, but Verlaine told him to forget it. The song faded at 9:58 on the original LP, and the full 10:40 take was restored on the 2003 reissue. Elektra released the song as a UK single that April, and it peaked at No. 30 on the UK Singles Chart.
“One of the all-time classic guitar albums.”
The label limited the first UK pressing to 25,000 copies, with a stereo mix on one side and a mono mix on the other. Later 7-inch pressings split the song into “Part I” and “Part II” across the two sides, cutting nearly ten minutes of music down to radio-friendly chunks. Robert Mapplethorpe shot the cover photo for the album, but the band chose an altered, off-color photocopy of his image over the original print. Nick Kent’s rave review in NME helped drive the album to No. 28 on the UK Albums Chart, even as it failed to chart at all in the United States.
Television broke up in 1978 after one more album. The four members went on to reunion tours and solo careers over the following decades. Rolling Stone ranked “Marquee Moon” No. 381 on its 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, then moved it up to No. 173 in the 2021 update. U2 guitarist The Edge has said the title track changed his entire approach to the instrument, and he built his own effects-driven sound partly chasing Verlaine and Lloyd’s interlocking tone.