The greatest ode any man has written to the potential potency of his own penis. This much anyone can understand, whether or not they know what the hell a "fruitcage" is (let alone fathom why anybody would want to be in somebody else's).
Gabriel's even admitted it, declaring that he dedicated his life to music after seeing Otis Redding in 1966 at London's Ram Jam Club, and that he'd written "Sledgehammer" as "an attempt to recreate some of the spirit and style of...sixties soul. The lyrics of many of those songs were full of playful sexual innuendo and this is my contribution to that songwriting tradition."
Although he usually plays the forbiddingly visaged artiste, Gabriel revels here in a wicked (as in Good Bad But Not Evil) sense of humor. If he found it necessary to declare that "Sledgehammer" also concerns "the use of sex as a means of getting through a breakdown in communication," he had the good sense not to sing it that way. Instead, he phrases with the randy glee of a journeyman soul star like Johnny Taylor or Eddie Floyd cut loose on the finest double entendre--complete with an allusion to "Chauffeur Blues"--he's ever been privileged to get his tonsils 'round.
As producer, Gabriel's wisest decision was probably his simplest: He called trumpeter Wayne Jackson and asked him to organize a horn section. Jackson phoned his partner in the Memphis Horns, saxophonist Andrew Love, and with a few other down-home buddies, they flew to L.A. and gave a British pop star one of the most powerful charts they'd ever played. Resounding against synthesizer and rhythm guitar licks like tongues of famous flame, those horns sing at least as loud as Gabriel himself. Which, you gotta hand it to Gabriel, was the plan, proving that the guy fully understands that music, like sex, is best practiced not solo.