[SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

  • Even words that wouldn't usually be considered as tongue twisters can be difficult to get your mouth around when singing. It's partly about scansion, tempo, the combination with words surrounding the 'problem' one... Also, you have to sing with conviction and invest some emotion in the words. I can see how the highlighted ones could be tricky in that sense. In Domino, a picture/feeling of tension and impending doom is being built up, your singing has to convey that.... In the midst of which you have to convincingly emote "SHEETS OF DOUBLE GLAZING"!

    I wonder if TB was trolling the then biggest pop star on the planet!


    To his eternal credit, he (Phil) does a great job with the words.

  • I get that things like "sheets of double glazing" in Domino are hard to sing with conviction and emotion. And "bread bin" is such a mundane object that it too might be tricky....but "undinal"? It fits the melody and timing perfectly and is the perfect word in context of "the siren's call". I'm sure I've heard that Phil won't sing it because be things "undinal" is a word that Tony made up.


    Hopefully they're all mellowing in their old age. I think they must realise that this is likely the last tour, or at best they do a two year piecemeal tour like Phil has done. It's the last chance to play/sing those songs.

  • Why have a problem singing made up words? Soley Soley (Middle of the Road), Mah Na Mah Na (muppets, Pierre Umiliano which might be spelt wrong, but I didn't make it up!)

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • Abacab is made up and works pretty well.


    Also... Sussudio? Not sure Phil can cast aspersions when it comes to inventing words. I always got the impression his issue was with how clunky the words were rather than their madeuppyness.

  • When it comes to live shows I think there are two types of bands . Those that only attract only long term fans and those that also attract people who just like what they hear on the radio or have the latest big selling albums / greatest hits collections. Genesis in their later years became the latter . Black Sabbath's final tour comprised of only early era stuff .Although a massive band it's only really fans that know their music , most people don't know their stuff. The Rolling Stones on their last tour did mostly songs that pretty well everyone would know. Some long term die hard Genesis fans will sometimes complain about keeping live sets safe. I thought that the last tour was spot on. They included ,FOF, CS , CC, LE, Ripples , IKWIL, The Cage, HBTS and Afterglow.They took up much of the set and were mainly for long term Genesis fans. There was a significant number of people there to hear the hits and music from big selling albums so Genesis have to do a balancing act with their songs ,but I do think they will do a career spanning set agiam. It would great to hear Squonk , Entangled, Thelamb , OFTV , DOAV , Say it's all right Joe, many too many . They certainly won't do all of those but I'm hoping they'll do a few.

  • How? A pun on what?

    Unicorn? A cross between a unicorn and a faun.



    Said the unifaun to his true love's eyes..." Here
    Peter gets especially sad and tragic (and it's only the beginning of the
    song!). 'Unifaun' is supposed to be a pun, a cross between 'uniform'
    and 'faun' - the 'faun' brings in the mythological element, while the 'uniform'
    brings in certain military associations. Patriotic lament over the fate
    of one's country? Whatever it might be, the subject of the song is evident
    from the beginning line: a tragic statement of Britain's current state,
    a lamentation over the enormous, unbridgeable gap between the romantic
    past and the corrupt present...


    https://newstar.rinet.ru/music/song1.htm

  • It's tenuous but I appreciate your thoughts and the link. I've always got the thing about the song lamenting the state of England (I'd suggest, rather than Britain - the commentator makes the common mistake of interchanging them*) but occasionally puzzled over that word. Ultimately I thought PG was indulging in creative wordplay along the same lines as Steve Miller's Joker's 'pompitous of love'.


    Until recently I thought Bob Mould had done the same in his song Ego Override in which he sings "I'm a phenom" but I've since learned that is a 'proper' word.


    (* He's also a bit harsh on Wimpy! But possibly just what he's been told. Personally I have fond memories of them. There's even still one hanging on in there in a town not far from me. I do like his analysis of the instrumental coda. It's also nice to see one of those basic late 90s/early 2000s sites).

    Abandon all reason

    Edited 3 times, last by Backdrifter ().

  • DWTMK is the only Genesis song which reminds me of my year there in 1972-73, with the Wimpy & Green Shield stamps references. As we drove around the country we collected the stamps everywhere we went. I think my mother was able to reclaim them for one item - a casserole dish. I think the very first day we were in London, we ate at both a Lyons Coffee House (in Shaftesbury Ave) and a Wimpy Bar (can't remember where).

  • DWTMK is the only Genesis song which reminds me of my year there in 1972-73, with the Wimpy & Green Shield stamps references. As we drove around the country we collected the stamps everywhere we went. I think my mother was able to reclaim them for one item - a casserole dish. I think the very first day we were in London, we ate at both a Lyons Coffee House (in Shaftesbury Ave) and a Wimpy Bar (can't remember where).

    I have believed for a while that Wimpy is now from a bygone age. Haven't seen one for years . Turns out out they're alive and kicking. Saw one the other day and there are around 60 left in the UK. I obviously don't go to the right places.

  • If I went to a Wimpy now I'd probably find it terrible, but it felt like a treat when I was a kid. Something about that soft roll and the meaty beef burger in it with some chopped onion. Even now when I make burgers at home it's got to be in a soft roll that's brown on top, and I always put chopped raw onion in with the burger. The local bakeries here do 'softies' and 'Glasgow rolls' that come close to the ideal. (My home-made burgers are excellent, by the way).


    It was a special treat if I then had a Brown Derby for dessert - a warm ring donut with a dollop of ice-cream perched on the hole, all covered with chocolate syrup and chopped nuts.


    Moonlit Knight is for me a sort of perfect prog song in the changes it goes through. It's a top 10 Genesis track for me.

    Abandon all reason

  • My dad collected Green Shield stamps and Texaco silver medallions to do with the Grand Prix. I remember we had 6 Emerson Fittapaldis.

    Wimpy: we have one very close but nobody in my house likes retro stuff like me. I am desperate to go again.

  • If I went to a Wimpy now I'd probably find it terrible, but it felt like a treat when I was a kid. Something about that soft roll and the meaty beef burger in it with some hopped onions.......................................


    Moonlit Knight is for me a sort of perfect prog song in the changes it goes through. It's a top 10 Genesis track for m


    Both true for me too ,though I eat vegan now. Didn't get as far as checking the menu. The food used to be served on a plate and I think the sundaes came in a little steel dish. Wouldn't it be great if they did DWTMK. I am expecting at least one unexpected or different song I think it's a possibility.

  • Err...isn't it Wimpey, not Wimpy.....as in Wimpey the house-building company?


    Another part of the narrator's lament, the England of old giving way to soulless concrete and brick boxes.Though it could well be another pun lamenting both the construction company and the soulless burger chain. Our eating habits were also transformed in the early 70s, as a nation we forgot how to cook from scratch, how to use herbs and spices and to make food that actually tastes of something.

  • My main memory of Wimpy is the time I went in our local one with my mother. There was a tramp sitting asleep at the table nearest the door with an empty cup of coffee. After a while, he suddenly woke, rushed outside and threw up in full view of the customers inside. Lovely! <X


    My other main memory of them was they served the best ice cream in the world.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!