"Marquee Moon" developed from Television's early live shows in the mid-1970s, and even when first performed was an eight-minute epic with complex key changes. As it became more complex and challenging with repeated playing, Richard Hell was apparently forced to leave the band because he did not have the skill necessary to play it.^{[citation needed]}

Each of the song's three verses begins with a double-stopped guitar intro before Billy Ficca's drums come in, and after the second chorus Richard Lloyd plays a brief guitar solo. After the third chorus, there is a longer solo by Tom Verlaine, based on a jazz-like modal scale, that lasts for the entire second half of the song. On the original vinyl edition of the album, the song faded out just short of ten minutes, but the CD reissues have included the full 10:40 of the take. In concert, the band has sometimes extended the song to as long as fifteen minutes.

Despite its length, which would typically have been too long for most popular music radio formats, the song was released as a single in the U.K. and was a minor success, reaching #30 on the English charts. Because of its length, the song had to be divided between the two sides of a 7" record: "Marquee Moon" (Part I) (3:13) b/w "Marquee Moon" (Part II) (6:45) [1]. The song was also released in the U.K. as a limited edition 12" vinyl single. A mono recording of the song served as the B-side of the 12" single, and an alternate take was issued in 2003 on the remastered CD version of the album.

The song was listed at #372 on Rolling Stone's 500 Best Songs of All Time in 2005.

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy often cites Television as an influence, and incorporates a lick form Verlaine's solo into his similar section in "At Least That's What You Said". The lick can be heard starting at 6 minutes and 50 seconds into "Marquee Moon" and 4 minutes and 35 seconds into "At Least That's What You Said".