Marillion's origins can be traced to Aylesbury, Bucks, where drummer Mick Pointer, bassist/soon-to-be-vocalist Doug Irvine, and guitarist Andy Glass decided to form a purely instrumental group under the moniker of Electric Gypsy. The band didn't hesitate in changing its name to Silmarillion (one of famous writer J.R.R. Tolkien's novels concerning the First Age of Middle Earth) soon afterwards, however, and even acquired keyboardist Brian Jelliman and replaced Glass with Steven Rothery, who joined during the summer of 1979 after answering an ad from Pointer in the British music press. As Electric Gypsy had been a rather short-lived, albeit promising, venture, the band was aching to write new music and create an interesting setlist that transcended previous efforts like "Alice" and "Lady Fantasy," which led to Silmarillion's first ever performance at Berkhampstead Town Hall in Hertfordshire during March of 1980. This would in turn initiate a brief string of concerts, amidst which the band would decide to shorten its name to Marillion in order to avoid any sort of copyright conflicts. This, however, was perhaps the only important event to take place in the course of the year, which was otherwise spent in recording demos and playing the aforementioned concerts without much success or dismay.

1981 would instead be a decisive year for the band, as Irvine would decide to leave and in doing so left the door wide open for two young lads from Scotland who were rather enthusiastic about joining the group and had just answered an ad from the band that had been placed on 'Musicians Only.' Diz Minnit (bass) and a vocalist called Derek William Dick, known amongst normal mortals as Fish, joined the fold immediately after auditioning; the latter with a take on the Genesis song "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)."

The choice would soon prove to be a clever one, as Fish's lyrical creativity and dynamically melodramatic abilities would become one of the band's main driving forces and stamp its revamped songs with new flashes of dazzling personality, which were to be complemented with a certain singer's trademark theatrics and imposing stage presence, which derived much of its quintessence from the erratic use of masks, make-up, and costumes (a practice that the rest of the band would see itself dragged into as well). This youthful exuberance bared remarkable similarities to singer Peter Gabriel's stint with Genesis, and thus helped establish Marillion's progressive character and favorably set the stage for one of Britain's premiere emerging prog rock bands.

Meanwhile, Dave Stopps, the band's "manager," booked some gigs at Friars Club (which he coincidentally ran) in Aylesbury and would eventually get Marillion the opening spot for acts such as Spirit, Budgie, and Girl, which would give the band considerable exposure and a steadily growing fan base. By then, the band had already begun to experiment with visually challenging stage scenes and concepts, which earned it a vivid reputation and would eventually allow Stopps to book a session on Tommy Vance's Friday Night Rock Show on BBC's Radio 1.

The year, however, was not to be without its additional personnel shifts, this time in the form of Brian Jelliman's departure in favor of Mark Kelly. Jelliman's exit from the Marillion stage was mainly due to his job at the Unemployment Benefit Office, which required considerable attention from him and therefore compromised his commitment to the band. Kelly, meanwhile, had played with his outfit, Chemical Alice, in a concert that Marillion opened, and in the process captured the attention of the band, thus igniting a consensus that would decide the replacement situation by the end of the year. Despite the member rotation, however, the band had already gathered quite a following and generated considerable press attention, which allowed it to tour England and Scotland, cause quite a commotion there, and earn an auspicious (or unfavorable, depending on who was asked) comparison to early Genesis. It was during this time that several of the songs appearing on Marillion's first two albums underwent a serious metamorphosis after being comatose for a couple of years, which would allow them to appear on the aforementioned albums. Other early gig standards, such as "Grendel" and "Three Boats Down From the Candy," would practically disappear, and would not resurface again as anything other than B-sides or bonus tracks from special edition albums.

1982's advent would see Marillion reach enviable levels of popularity as the band headlined the London Marquee and soon afterwards was featured on Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show (which had rejected the band once before). But not everything was to remain ideally perfect, as Diz Minnit was fired from the band sometime during March and left newcomer Peter Trewavas, formerly of The Metros, with precious little time to learn the band's material in time for a significantly extensive tour of Scotland; a task that he nevertheless succeeded at with outstanding diligence. With the first "professional" lineup of Marillion thus established, a worldwide recording contract was signed with EMI Records in September; two months after John Arnison had been established as the band's new manager.

With a new manager and a record contract thus secured, Marillion recorded "Market Square Heroes" as its first single to be released (its B-side being "Grendel"), managing to hit the charts and thus pave the way for its upcoming debut album. More importantly, however, it was what began a long-lasting relationship with fantasy artist Mark Wilkinson, who would produce the band's artwork during the next five years.

Script For a Jester's Tear, Marillion's first studio album, would be released in March 14, 1983. Recorded at Marquee Studios in London under the helm of producer Nick Tauber, the album would garner critical acclaim and a position as one of the best efforts to come out of the neo-progressive scene that was in full bloom at the time. A rather ironic outcome, as the band had been short of material when it entered the studio and didn't even have a finished title track to show for then. The outcome was a vibrant record that would leap from piano gentility to fortissimo strength with surprising agility, and which highlighted Fish's poetic whimsies in scanning broad horizons of emotional and social aspects, the latter of which were explored with an interestingly sardonic bite. The infamous vocalist's ambitious genius, however, was still in its cocoon, delving into a conceptual surface that would later evolve into even more complex visions and bigger-than-life dramas. Wilkinson's front cover art, meanwhile, paralleled the album's contents in a frighteningly visceral manner, overflowing with metaphoric imagery and hidden messages. The album's success was furthered by the band's extensive promotion tour, which would eventually end at the Hammersmith Odeon in London and be accompanied by the videotape Recital of the Script. Certainly a bright step for a band that had been rejected from Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show a couple of years before.

Marillion's sophomore effort, Fugazi (a title that Fish came up with after reading Nam; a book on Vietnam), would be released in 1984 after recording the album at Manor Studios in Oxfordshire with Simon Hanhart as the sound engineer and Tauber in charge of production once again. The process had been considerably chaotic, as additional in-between writing and recording was done at Rockfield Studios in South Wales and at the Maison Rouge Studio, and the mixing was then carried out at Abbey Road Studios, the Maison Rouge Studio, Odyssey, and Wessex. All in eight weeks: six of them intended for recording and two for the mix. This resulted in a rather hastened process that would leave key decisions until the last minute and would collapse into fugazi (to put it nicely, a bloody mess). The pressure placed on the band by EMI reached such ridiculous levels that the band did not get to hear the finished album until it was already on tour.

Despite the unlikely handling of the record, however, Fugazi continued in the tradition of the band's debut and demonstrated a greater degree of maturity that in turn would bring Marillion greater commercial success. The album saw the evolution of a band that was quickly leaving its influences behind and creating an unmistakable identity of its own…an identity that, according to the band, was what demanded the dismissal of drummer Mick Pointer prior to the album's making.

Despite the holding of auditions at Nomis Studios, the band opted for ex-Camel Andy Ward as a replacement for Pointer, more because of Ward's reputation than anything else, proof of which is the fact that he never auditioned for his spot in Marillion. His stint in the band was rather short-lived, however, as he very nearly suffered a nervous breakdown halfway through its American tour. John Martyr would be the band's next choice, recording a new version of "Market Square Heroes" for the American market and playing with the band during a week of shows at New York City's Radio Music Hall opening for Rush, which wouldn't suffice to keep the band from accepting Jonathan Mover's request for an audition and his subsequent admission into the drumming position. Mover then managed to record "Punch & Judy" on Fugazi before being ousted despite the fact that the band was in urgent need of a drummer at the time. Later on, Fish hilariously admitted to engaging in "psychological warfare" with Mover due to his dislike for him and his preference for Ian Mosley, a drummer that had been playing with ex-Genesis Steve Hackett. Mosley's integration into Marillion marked the end of an absurdly revolving series of drummers and would cement the band's approach and attitude in time for the band's most ambitious work, which was just around the corner.