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moribund the burgermeister |
Word that Peter Gabriel had left Genesis was leaked to the NME in July of 1975. According to his official statement there were many and varied reasons for his departure from a band which was, for all intents and purposes, just about to crack the big time. Most famous of these resons was PG's "bondage to cabbages"- a half joke at his desire to play the English country squire. Underlying this throwaway soundbite was a real need to escape increasingly demanding schedules and gruelling touring commitments. History may claim that Peter was ahead of the game, bailing out of the progressive rock scene just as it entrered the threshold into "fat supergroup" pretentiousness and alienation from its audience. After all the gob-hurling punk hordes, along with their seething hatred of anything progressive, were only twelve months away. As an aside, it is interesting to note punk's hangover (ie. the same seething hatred of anything remotely progressive) in some contemporary reviewers.
In reality, it seems likely that, rather than divining the future of musical direction in Britain and the rest of the world, Peter's reasons for leaving were relatively simple. Being a member of Genesis was never without its share of tension and stress. Petty arguments, machiavellianism, even flying furniture and stomach ulcers were familiar territory for the band. For Peter, the recording and subsequent tour for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway were especially frazzling affairs: difficult childbirth and marriage crises to contend with in addition to pressures from the band. Peter had been looking to leave for quite some time when the news broke: he allowed time for the band to regroup before finally confirming suspicions to the press with his statement.
By February 1977 Peter had passed through a period of relative inactivity, frustrating piano sessions and a slightly bizarre obsession with vegetables notwithstanding (quite understandably, his wife Jill was convinced he had flipped). The punks were in full swing and Genesis had continued their path towards world domination without him. Peter had made the decision to return to music with a new clutch of songs, an impressive backing band of session men, and a reknown producer (with a galactic-size ego): our boy, little Bobby Ezrin.
An album which implies a harder edge than any previous work with Genesis, despite Mr Ezrin's tendency to smother everything with overblown melodrama, Peter Gabriel remains one of PG's finest and most sustained works to date. Consistent in its sheer variety, Peter Gabriel is an odd assortment of strangely-named characters, dramatic dynamics, off the wall humour, unexpected genre-pieces and, above all, a pervasive sense of hope.
Synthesised squiggles over jungle drums herald the opening of PG's solo career. When the chaos reaches climax, PG screams "Ah look at that crowd!" Cue the london symphony orchestra at full belt. PG likes to kick his records off with a bang (see Intruder, The Rhythm of the Heat, Red Rain), but Moribund takes the prize place for its unique blend of sinister and ludicrous, both lyrically and musically. Placed at the beginning of the first album, it offers a glimpse through the (car) windows into the strange and varied world that resides within.
The Sepencer Bright biography asserts that Moribund could have easily slotted into any Genesis record. Lyrically there are some heavy nods towards the wilder characters (eg. the lamia) from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but the presence of the London Symphony Orchestra alone places Moribund the Burgermeister within a far more ambitious context. The first album offers a statment of intent, much like the Genesis album Trick of the Tail. The songs offered are displays of competence and attempts to redefine Peter's songwriting capabilities outside the auspices of his old band. As such many of the songs are coloured by his experiences as Genesis front-man and his desire to dissociate himself from that image (for example his early concerts were usually performed in a hideous, but very plain, grey track suit and deliberately lacked any of the visual effects which caused so many headaches during concerts for The Lamb). Under such circumstances, the purpose of Moribund the Burgermeister and the reason for its position on the playlist is to acknowledge the past and prove that not only could Peter still do a Lamb, but he could out-do a Lamb!
The first and last Peter Gabriel hit for quite a while, many critics have considered Solsbury Hill to be Peter's finest moment. While this view clearly fails to take into account many subsequent successes in the catalogue, it does indicate the unusual and extraordinary appeal of this track. Built around a 7/4 time signature in a sprightly B major, the song's sunny disposition is largely thanks to the acoustic guitar riff, an instrument which has rarely been used in Gabriel's arrangements since the 1970s. Lyrically the song takes the stress and uncertainty of a future without his former bandmates and twists it into a positively electric excitement (eg. his heart's "boom boom boom"). The track's pace quickens as new instruments are added with each additional verse, the final cathartic moment occuring at the last "home" as the crash cymbal darts across the stereo spectrum (a technique applied to many of the songs insturments, so much so that listening to Solsbury Hill in audiophile headphones can create a sense of motion sickness) and the electric guitars groan down to the tonic chord over bristling shouts and odd-ball squeals. Solsbury Hill is one of the few songs in popular music to guarantee goosebumps with every listen and well deserves its place in the Peter Gabriel catalogue.
As all the Peter Gabriel fans know, PG particularly likes this song. It has never been out of his live repertoire, it's been given special video treatment years after its release (a pretty crappy video by PG standards and they cut out a whole verse!), and it holds poll position in the Shaking the Tree compilation record.
"A one..a two...uh uhn!" has got to be the best count-in Plausible Publications have ever heard (next to McCartney's count-in for I Saw Her Standing There). Alan Schwartzberg's drums thunder along, the two guitars are raunchily chrunchy, Peter groans heroically, and the organ rolls out a nice campy overtone to the second single off the first album. Musically its not overflowing with originality, but that's not the point. It's hopelessly stranded in the 70s, but that's exactly why it's so lovable. Modern Love is an engaging and effervesent rocker from a writer who doesn't seem to be able to (or more likely can't be bothered to) whip off rockers like the Rolling Stones. Given 90s hindsight, there's actually a punk/garage undercurrent in this song, which probably wasn't apparent at the time (in 1977, the word "punk" could not be associated with any music that didn't involve saliva being expelled from the body), and, true, modern love wears its glam influences more obviously than its punk ones. Lyrically, the song follows a classic comic situation of a stranger in a strange land, a character who has foolishly wandered into romance without knowing the consequences of his actions. The song actually predates future endaevours into innuendo and double entendre such as sledgehammer and steam . There are no less than four penis references:
- telescopic umbrella,
- my venus (i don't think i need to mention what "her shell" is),
- red hot magneto (a bit of stretch since it belongs to Lady Godiva, but anyway...), and the ultimate penis reference as
- PG pulls out his "pipe", invoking a somewhat startled reaction from the object of his affection. and we all slap our foreheads in mock disbelief (he pulled it out?!?!?).
The comedic vein of Modern Love suggests that Peter may have been attempting approximate the witty posturings of writers such as Martin Hall (who co-wrote Excuse Me). He didn't quite succeed on the witty front, but like the music, it doesn't seem to matter. The song seems to be proof that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that picking it apart like this only serves to make you wonder why you like it in the first place. As a single, released four months after the album and with another album track (Slowburn) as the B-side, it's hardly surprising that Modern Love assaulted the charts with all the vigour of a frozen fish. The B-sides issue is a particularly sore point has been addressed in a more appropriate rant.
Excuse Me is the most obvious backwards glance on the record. the music is a conglomeration of barbershop ballad and early southern delta jazz, with a quick nod to brass and miltary bands. As such it represents a peculiarly American sound despite its vaudevillian touches. Where most of the song's influences are 100% Americana, barbershop ballads have their roots in Elizabethan England. The Twentieth Century, however, has seen a revival in this genre's strong melodic lines and sickly sweet chromatic harmonies, especially in the United States.
Martin Hall's lyrics grinningly pun their way through three and a half minutes pleasantly enough, Tony Levin hams it up finely in what is probably the most accomplished tuba solo in pop music and Steve Hunter's pedal steel guitar offers a nicely glib and whining pathos. While this may not present the most endearing picture to the PG novice, Excuse Me actually gushes with charm in its oddly eccentric way. it's all so frightfully witty.
Those who have not read Spencer Bright's biography may be interested in the "Excuse Me annecdote" contained therein. Touring through Europe with a gaggle of seedy looking musicians, PG was pulled up by police in Switzerland. They had obviously been taking lessons in looking suspicious. their two Mercedes had stopped with engines running so Peter could make a phone call to London. PG wrapped a scarf around his neck to protect his voice, bassist tony levin is rather follically challenged (copious apologies to Mr. Levin, but it's true dammit!), and tour manager Richard Macphail was carrying a briefcase of cash in four currencies (smart move Dicky). Locals, suspecting bank robbers, contacted police. The police themselves had other ideas, accusing the band of being terrorists in the Red Army faction. While their story was being checked with Swiss promoters, to prove their story the band launched into the a capella section of Excuse Me. Peter has since described the performance as "intact". It is possible that this is a euphemism.
Like Modern Love, there's nothing too difficult about this song and it essentially remains a playful genre exercise. What is interesting about these two songs is their purpose within the playlist, serving to break up the more personal, serious and, in the case of Moribund and Dolce Vita, frankly strange elements of the album, proving again PG's versatility and willingness to experiment with image at the expense of chart positions.
Humdrum presents a change in both mood and pace from the inconsequential Excuse Me. a sober and reflective track, Humdrum moves around an axis of two major movements. It opens with a stark arrangement of keyboard and vocal, the keyboard swimming across the stereo picture, a dominant characteristic of Solsbury Hill. The voice is that of an impartial and uncaring observer, a negative state of mind, and as such acts as a thematic precursor to Mother of Violence. the latino part of the song, reminiscent of a Holiday Inn from the most dreadful excesses of the 1970s merely accentuates the negativity of the opening, couching it within a slightly ridiculous and tacky setting. there is a sense of deadness within the lyrics, of an overstimulated and frayed nervous system: "empty my mind, i find it hard to cope/listen to my heart don't need no stethoscope". The lyrics paint a picture of a person begging for confirmation that he or she is still alive.
The song then moves into the second movement. the sound picture dramatically changes with sythesisers fleshing out the sound on the tonic chord, at once inspiring goosebumps and a sense of ease. Echoes of Modern Love inform the next lines of the song ("out of woman come the man/spend rest of his life getting back where he can"), a slightly sick joke to deflate the preexisting tension within the song. Finally, as in Solsbury Hill, a catharsis is reached as the regular Humdrum state of comfortable anaesthesia (apologies to Pink Floyd), is broken. The narrator tastes freedom and drives into the sun without a look back.
Thematically an extension of Solsbury Hill, Humdrum builds on the theme of escape. the difference here is that escape is explored as an exciting venture into the unknown, rather than Solsbury Hill's return home, to something that is known. PG uses the axial arrangement to its most effective degree, contrasting each section as fully as possible and while some of the sounds within the song are now dated, this merely accentuates its themes further. Humdrum is an accomplished and underrated album track. That it featured in his live act (albeit on and off) at least until 1983 is an indication that its author held it high regard.
Focus on the musical texture of Slowburn. The rythm guitar sets a frantic pace, you can picture Robert Fripp's arms pumping away at the strings like a steam engine, Tony Levin throws in some of his signature bass hiccups, and above it all is Steve Hunter's wonderfully detatched and melodic lead guitar line. Synthesised sounds waft in and out of the picture while a piano fleshes out the chords in a subordinate, but vital role. and as suddenly as it arrived, it's all gone again, the piano now sets the rhythm while a guitar assumes wafting mode, courtesy of a volume pedal. Slowburn achieves some of the most exciting dynamics on the record without resorting to melodrama. In fact the dynamics and arrangement are so well executed, it's difficult to imagine Slowburn any other way.
Lyrically the familiar theme of strength in adversity is revisited and revised, borrowing some attitude from Modern Love. While Slowburn addresses emotions which are more or less universal, is just possible that there's a hint of anger at Genesis's "democratic" process and inevitable procrastination: "we've tried a handful of bills and a handful of pills / we've tried making movies from a volume of stills / but the words fell like hailstones bouncing at our feet / covering our feelings with a frozen sheet"? But this anger is quickly calmed as PG places it in perspective acknowleging such self-defeating behaviour at the end of the song: "darling we've got to trust in something, we're shooting down our skies".
Slowburn was released in June 1977 as the B-side to Modern Love. Musically, this pairing makes sense, each employing a similarly thumping guitar-driven pace. lyrically, Modern Love suffers in comparison, but discussion on whether Slowburn would have fared any better commercially as the single's A-side is a contentious and ultimately pointless exercise. This single is significant also for its rather risque label gimmick (see below). Remember, in any naked photograph of Peter Gabriel, the role of his penis is more than compensated for by the record turntable.
There's something about count-ins and the first Peter Gabriel record. Take this song: "A-one cluck!, a-two cluck!, a-one, a-two, a-three, a-..." Cue the drums and the intro of this languid blues pastiche. Waiting for the big one is another big departure from anything heard before or since from PG. The style being aped is the urban blues, originating most probably from the Chicago area long after Blind Lemon Jefferson had hung up his guitar and coke bottle. The difference between a Chicago club and Waiting for the Big One is that Peter takes the urban blues form and inflates it to double its normal size. The drums boom, the guitars slide and clink at the appropriate intervals and the piano tinkles away in the echoey background, all for around seven minutes.
Lyrically too, Waiting for the Big One tends to be rather weighty in its "bluesyness". Rather than lamenting at the wife packing up or the dog running away, or even coming down with some bizzare psychiatric illness, Peter goes for the full blown existential angst angle, equating new years celebrations with the end of time itelf (wow!).
Essentially this song is another genre exercise, taking on the blues with tongue planted firmly in cheek. In this respect it has much in common with the Beatles 'Yer Blues'. While the results of each are startlingly different, both songs go completely over the top in their attempt to out-blues the blues.
Along with Moribund the Burgermeister, this track has the most bombastic use of the London Symphony Orchestra. Strings! Brass! Tympani! Harps! It's all very Nneteenth Century in the sheer scale of its use of orchestration, giving the piece a very Wagnerian feel to it. Well at least until the band proper start playing that funky (very seventies) groove. Kind of like jumping from Wagner to Queen without taking a breath. Actually the move from Wagner to Queen is not as jarring as you might think, considering the musically dramatic (and often melodramatic) posturing of both composer and band. Perhaps Peter was intentionally drawing these comparisons in his arrangement.
It is unfortunate that the widescreen cinematic tale he used to accompany the music falls short of the mark considerably. Down the Dolce Vita is the only moment of musical-lyrical incongruity on Peter Gabriel. The conversational tones of the lyrics ("hey mac...", "you guys are crazy!", "they're acting weird") just seem stupidly out of place in all this elaborate music. Somehow I can't picture any of the song's characters using the word "guys". Peter uses this opportunity to introduce several characters from the Mozo story. But there's precious little characterisation in there. Compared with the enduring characters of Moribund and his mother (neither of which are part of Mozo), Aeron, Gorham and pals seem less like caricatures than vague scribbles on a resturant serviette. You get the sense that something tremendous is happening (thanks largely to the music), but there are too many holes in the story for it to make any logical sense and the listener is left guessing.
Peter has tried to explain exactly how this song fits into the Mozo caper, but it was all a bit hard to understand. Spencer Bright has also attempted an explanation, again with limited success. Down the Dolce Vita is essentially a scene setting exercise in the sleepy, yet upmarket seaside village where the story takes place. It follows a group of intrepid, testosterone charged bastions of maleness attempting to cross the sea: a feat that is often attempted without success. At this stage in the story Mozo himself is still an undiscovered tramp broadcasting on the air from his rubbish tip. This then begs the following questions: who is narrating the story from down the dolce vita? Why is so much time being taken to tell the story of Aeron, Gorham and co? Do these characters feature later in the story, once Mozo is on the scene? What the hell is going on? Such questions could easily be cleared up if the Mozo project came to realisation, but sadly, as a collection of loose ends and half-generated narratives, Mozo is nothing but speculation.
A grand song provides a grand vision for Gabriel and Ezrin's big (apocalyptic no less) finale. The metaphor of a flood is taken literally, as Here Comes the Flood (at least on Peter Gabriel) provides the musical equivalent of rising waters. Actually it's more like a tidal wave than a flood, but let's not split hairs. Suffice to say, its treatment here is colossal.
But it didn't start out that way. Without doubt, Here Comes the Flood began life on Peter's piano, as a reasonably simple quiet melody, during his hiatus in 1976. In fact, Peter's initial inspiration came whilst jogging. He had recently been reading the works of Carlos Castenada, the primary force behind "Tensegrity", a mystical form of spirituality based on the teachings of native American shamen. Castenada's writing appears to be infused with a smattering of psychobabble and great wads of speculation such that no one at Plausible Publications has yet managed to finish reading anything he has written. Gabriel however, seems to have had no such qualms and whilst jogging, influenced by what he was reading, he "...got this sense of energy coming out from the plants.
"I was running along the hill with my eyes closed and trying to feel things. Here Comes the Flood was a case of a lyric coming out effortlessly, which is very rare in my case. I felt I had plugged into something. I dashed back to the cottage and turned it into gold."
As alluded to in the first verse, Peter was also, at the time, highly influenced by short wave radio. He was particularly facinated that the radio would burst into life at night. Peter has rather confusingly stated that "...night time is more of an internal landscape, because you have more sensory information." Perhaps what he was trying to say was that for humans as highly visual creatures, the night time reduction in visual stimulation leads to a more introspective bent. Such a state of mind would provide fertile ground for the "psychic breakthrough" of Here Comes the Flood. For the flood here is a metaphor for a mental revolution. Peter envisaged a telepathic society where people would instantly be able to read each others' minds. Obviously people who had always been honest and open would find little change, but those who were two faced would find it more difficult. Peter's interest in short wave radio re-emerges on On the Air, so it comes as no surprise that Here Comes the Flood is another Gabriel song that features in the Mozo song cycle.
With the song complete, Peter demoed it with Robert Fripp. The song was treated simply and elegantly using just the primary instruments of piano and guitar. One would assume its style to be closer to Mother of Violence from the second Peter Gabriel record than what we find here. When the song was taken into the studio, Ezrin wanted no part of this "quiet version". It is here that Ezrin's style seriously undermined Peter's original intention and the recording not without some controversy (a Fripp guitar solo was "accidentally" erased off the original multitrack tape). However it must be acknowledged that Gabriel ultimately accepted Ezrin's conception, at least until after the album's release.
Peter has since dismissed the 1977 production as "overblown", stating his preference for the subsequent version recorded for Fripp's 1979 record, Exposure (a closer approximation of the demo), a view shared by the Plausible staff. Gabriel's preference is further demonstrated that any subsequent recording of Here Comes the Flood has evidently mimicked the original demo rather than the first released version (eg. the German version Jetz Kommt Die Flut, or the re-recording made for the Shaking the Tree compilation in 1990). Even the early live shows opened with a trunicated "quiet version", as evidenced on the bootleg from the Roxy in LA from 1977.
The subsequent upshot of all this is an invariably remarkable song regardless of which version one prefers to listen to. Its subtle chord changes and roving bassline create a simple, yet intriguing foundation over which is laid the sometimes straightforward, sometimes maddingly oblique lyrics, filled with internal rhymes and several levels of metaphor. Despite Gabriel's obvious affection for the song, Here Comes the Flood doesn't quite rank as high as Solsbury Hill or even Slowburn in terms of artistic merit. But there is still a lure to the song that raises goosebumps to this day, and only with Biko and Secret World has Peter created a superior ending to a record.
Written by Mercutio
while he had too much time
on his hands. Thankfully this has now been rectified.