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Sugar Mice is the second single from Marillion's fourth studio album, ''Clutching at Straws''. Released on 13 July 1987, it peaked at number 22 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's 8th top-thirty hit in a row.〔(Chart Stats - Marillion - Sugar Mice )〕 Outside the UK, it was released in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, West Germany and (on Capitol Records) in the USA and Canada. A number of formats were available: 7" single, 7" picture disc (containing a fold-out sleeve with a poster), 12" single, 12" picture disc. 3,000 copies of a 5" CD single were produced that were exclusively sold at concerts.〔http://marillion.ter-steege.com〕 ==Background== A protest song which directly addresses the devastating effect unemployment can have on personal relationships, the track takes the form of a melancholic rock ballad with lyrics from the perspective of a British worker who emigrates to the USA to find a job, leaving behind his family. He ends up in despair, drinking in a hotel bar in Milwaukee and blaming the government for leaving him out of work. Lyricist Fish described the background as follows: :"I was laying in bed in the Holiday Inn and looking up at the ceiling at some hearts 'n' stuff that some lovers had carved, and I was feeling really down. So I rang my old lady but it was a bad phone call; lots of long silences. I felt even more depressed."〔(Marillion - Explanation of Song Elements - That Time Of The Night )〕 The first-person narrator sums up his feelings with the metaphor "We're just sugar mice in the rain", which lends the title to the song.〔(marillion.com | MUSIC - Lyrics - Clutching at Straws | The Official Marillion Website )〕 Performing it at the band's concert ''Live from Loreley'' in 1987, Fish dedicated it to "all the unemployed people in Europe today, to the romantics, to the dreamers and to those who still have hearts". The 12" and 5" CD single featured an extended version of the title track, containing some extra music between the first and second verse. The B-side, "Tux On", is a rock song that tells the story of a rising rock star who gradually loses touch with reality and finally ends up abusing drugs. "Sugar Mice" was featured on the compilations ''Now That's What I Call Music 10'' and ''100 Hits: 80s Classics''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=100 Hits: 80s Classics )〕 A CD replica of the single was also part of a collectors box-set released in July 2000 which contained Marillion's first twelve singles and was re-issued as a 3-CD set in 2009 (see ''The Singles '82–'88''). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sugar Mice」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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