Posts by thewatcher

Quote from Backdrifter

It makes absolute sense; it's about the male orgasm and being lost in the ecstacy of it.

Admittedly the first verse renders that a bit odd as it suggests ejaculating in the street but there's a bit of creative licence - the narrator is already anticipating that moment.

The glorious hook of the chorus, one of Banks's best, depicts the magic moment.

Aside from the unimaginative fade-out it's a terrific song. They should've been bold and had a post-orgasmic come-down ending.

I gather it's largely a Banks composition and certainly his lyric, and I had to have it pointed out to me by someone here that he is very prominent in the chorus with his vocal line "Beyond the silver rainbow you won't know..."

No definitely not an album closer. Maybe a side opener or a track 2. It would've been an interesting gig opener if they'd ever bothered to do it live.

Display More

Excellent description of something that could have been awkward to describe! Not sure if that was me regarding the verse (probably not), but I can definitely hear his vocal as he is doing what we used to call "seconds" in school, and it's high in the mix, surely the most prominent he's been on a Genesis track. Being around the time of The Fugitive, he was clearly willing to wade in vocally. That said, although I don't have a source to hand, I'm pretty sure Phil tried to get Tony to sing the main vocal on the album, and Mike to sing Just a Job To Do, but they didn't go for it.

Would have made what is already one of the stranger album sides in Genesis' ouevre even more odd!

Would love if they had tried it out live.

Quote from Simon1967

I always wonder how many of the fans who bought albums like IT and WCD and were new to Genesis, are still die hard fans or was just a passing music phase in the 80's?

The setlists seem to be made up of numerous songs from this period, but would the majority of people buying tickets for 2021 prefer a more varied setlist?

Personally I could easily give WCD, HOMH and LOC a miss for something else

My guess is the fans who go to see them in 2021 would agree with you. But the band themselves seem to have always labored under the assumption that concert goers will riot if they don't hear all of the band's biggest hits, treating them on some level like Rick Astley fans expecting to hear Never Gonna Give You Up. Maybe there are a handful of attendees who remember IT on the radio and decide to bumble along for the fun. But I doubt that will be the majority.

See also the multitude of rants I have posted about setlists that don't vary in a tour, which greatly restricts the scope to throw in deep cuts for longer term fans. Let them play ICD and HOMH, but why every night?

Quote from FeelItComing

I love Another Murder Of A Day and Shortcut To Somewhere. However I must be the only person who has never heard any work by either Fish or Marillion.

I can join you in that small club.

I think the most likely surprises are Squonk, Many Too Many, or maybe Watcher of the Skies. I expect one or more of those.

Other than those, I suspect most of the guesses above are going to be close to the mark.

Liverpool 2-1 Newcastle

West Ham 0-3 Chelsea

Sheff Utd 2-0 Brighton

Wolves 2-1 Burnley

Leeds 2-3 Man Utd

Aston Villa 2-1 West Brom

Blackburn 1-0 Huddersfield

Watford 2-0 Millwall

Quote from Christian

Recently, I played the "Shapes" album a lot. Still not in my Top 3, but this has grown a lot over time. Especially Silver Rainbow and Just A Job To Do

Love those tracks. They are very different (from each other, and in the 'sounding odd' sense). Along with Mama and HBTS, that album is half amazing to me. The other tracks all have something going for them, but there's just something uneven about the album. It's like if they spent another two months on it, added a couple of other tracks and made an EP out of the weaker ones, it would have been better.

Actually, just occurred to me, at the time maybe they were each holding good ideas back for fledgling solo careers. It was the first album where every song was Banks/Collins/Rutherford I believe.

Quote from genesis1964

So sad that Jim Steinman has died

Bat Out of Hell 2 was one of the two albums that most informed my subsequent tastes in music (and to some extent the person I am). The other was We Can't Dance. I can see elements of all the rock, pop, metal, grunge, electronic music etc I went on to enjoy in those releases.

Jim Steinman's passing has prompted me to go back and rediscover his work.

Quote from FirthOfFifth

I’d love to hear CAS songs. CAS, Shipwrecked and Not About Us would be great.

I'd love to hear them too but the chances are below zero. In theory, it would be no different than the band playing The Knife, but practice is often different from theory! Also I think there's a good chance Phil's voice wouldn't be up to a song like CAS which is comparable to Mama vocally.

I've been looking for an original sin, one with a twist and a bit of a spin...

"But it was long ago, and it was far away

Oh God, it seems so very far

And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car

And objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are"

Jim Steinman 😢

This shocked me when I saw the headline. He was only 73 but apparently had been sick. He has written some of the most enduring songs of the past half century including Bat Out Of Hell and Total Eclipse of the Heart. He seemed to have a love-hate relationship with Meat Loaf, in that they frequently ended up in court suing each other, but they always seemed to come back around and did their best work together.

If I recall correctly, he was also going to sing some early song himself (maybe even Bat out of Hell, or more likely an earlier song from some stage production) but a female biker broke his nose so he was unable to and the job fell to Meat Loaf. The favor was somewhat repaid when Meat Loaf ruined his voice touring Bat out of Hell, and was unable to sing the follow up album (Bad for Good). Steinman lost patience waiting for it to recover, and sang it himself. It was a relatively minor hit; when Meat Loaf was finally able to sing again, they released Dead Ringer which was much more successful that Steinman's solo attempt.

Anyway, a larger than life character, a nice guy too by all accounts, and a certified giant in the songwriting world of rock. RIP.

Quote from Padre

...and then there were three...

Abacab

Wind and Wuthering

If I could have chosen a live album - Three Sides Live

ATTWT is low down my list but nice to see it getting some love. It does have some of my favorite songs like Down and Out, and Undertow.

Welcome to the forum btw!

This would be so great. Phil played TD Garden in Boston a couple years back, just in case they want to go somewhere reliable y'know, might be a good choice... Phil would know his way around the stage and everything.

Quote from Christian

The meaning of song lyrics is very often subject to the listener's opinion

Possibly the best all-time example is In The Air Tonight!

I could hear Gabriel singing Undertow. Would have some serious Wallflower type thing going. But as for songs from 1978 on fitting on earlier albums, not much. Whodunnit could maybe be on NC instead of Harold the Barrel, but the progression in production and style makes it hard to imagine.

Have you noticed a specific influence of Genesis or the members on a song or other artist?

Two come to mind for me. Nine Inch Nails "She's Gone Away" from Twin Peaks The Return episode 8 heavily derives from Mama, I think. 'ha ha ha ha'... Etc. Check it out https://www.google.com/url?sa=…Vaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov

And much less specific, I think Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins liked to compare Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness to The Wall of their generation, but I always thought The Lamb was a much more accurate comparator. Mellon Collie was a lot less monolithic than the Wall, and a lot more varied and melodic, like the Lamb. I think The Fragile was The Wall of the 90s.

Quote from foxtwin

I think I started a thread like this (maybe?) and I had the same rules but I added one more stipulation: it can only have a complete runtime of 45-50 minutes--that's when it starts to really hurt!

An odd one to do is the "Genesis" album because, there were no B-sides were there? The solution for me would be to simply remove Illegal Alien and include the long versions of Mama and It's Gonna Get Better, then mix it up a little.

Mama (long version)

Home by the Sea

Taking it all Too Hard

That's All

Just a Job to Do

It's Gonna Get Better (long version)

Silver Rainbow

Display More

Not for nothing but Silver Rainbow would be a very odd song to end an album on.

That said, it's a very odd song no matter where it falls in the running order. I'm very fond of it.

Don't listen to a huge amount of rap/hip hop but I absolutely love this album

Why am I so blind.... with my eyes wide open?

It never would have occurred to me, but looking at the lyrics I don't think so. Steve left the band, not the other way round.