The PETER GABRIEL anniversary year 2022: Part 1: PG1 / Car

  • I was just listening to this album and was reminded of why I don't care for "Waiting for the Big One" all that much: with his mumbling, occasional squawking, etc., Peter ends up sounding like someone who can't sing. If the vocal was just more on-target, it would be a much better song overall. (BTW, I wonder why there's no credit for the backing vocals at the end.)


    As for "Excuse Me": Yes, it is very much like a joke track, but in my opinion it's done well enough to still be a worthwhile song. It does strike me as kind of odd that Peter's first album would have a song with lyrics written by someone besides himself, though -- Martin Hall, who would later write the lyrics to "Holy Deadlock" on Ant Phillips' SIDES.


    On another note, I don't really share the opinion that the original "Here Comes the Flood" is overproduced, although I'll admit I haven't listened to any alternate version.

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    Edited once, last by DecomposingMan ().

  • It does strike me as kind of odd that Peter's first album would have a song with lyrics written by someone besides himself, though -- Martin Hall, who would later write the lyrics to "Holy Deadlock" on Ant Phillips' SIDES.

    I have this vague memory of reading that PG had a plan to do a whole project of some kind in collaboration with Hall. It didn't happen obviously but the Excuse Me lyric was the one thing that survived.

    Abandon all reason

  • On another note, I don't really share the opinion that the original "Here Comes the Flood" is overproduced, although I'll admit I haven't listened to any alternate version.

    Here is the version from Robert Fripp's Exposure album:

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    Here is a solo piano version from a Kate Bush special:

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    I find the starkness makes the song more haunting, but no less powerful. The booming drums and guitars are just too much for me in the studio version. My guess is that Peter himself preferred starker versions as this how he has mainly played this song live ever since.

  • Here is the version from Robert Fripp's Exposure album:


    Here is a solo piano version from a Kate Bush special:


    I find the starkness makes the song more haunting, but no less powerful. The booming drums and guitars are just too much for me in the studio version. My guess is that Peter himself preferred starker versions as this how he has mainly played this song live ever since.

    To me, these are like hearing a nice, stripped-down version of some song on a live album: an interesting and even revelatory alternate take, worthwhile to have alongside the original studio version, but I would never want to replace the original with it.

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