I also assume it is Ant's composition since he has said the subject matter of the song is "terminal cancer". So unless someone else wrote the lyrics and told him what they were about..... Upthread someone said they were Peter's lyrics (maybe yes/maybe no - I don't know). But its DEFINITELY a mistake to just assume all of Genesis' lyrics are Peter's. Outside of the Lamb (where the lyrics were supposed to be all written by him at his insistence - which caused some band friction at the time since lyric writing had always been shared - in the end had a couple pieces written by Tony and Mike to make the album's deadline) Peter wrote AT MOST 50% of the lyrics. Oftentimes (in group compositions) after the whole band had written the music together, a pair of band members would get together to write the lyrics for it.
Peter seems to be trying to make the singing a little more heartfelt by slightly rasping it (what's the correct term in english? That thing blues singer do, btw). I gotta say, I'm not fully convinced by the attempt and I don't remember him using this technique again. It's worth noting that the backing vocals are not properly "backing": they act like an answer to the singer, like a distant choir. The contrast is striking because Peter has a strong, defined, more throaty voice while the others (Ant & Friends) all sing in a relaxed, more bodily warm voice. Whether it was intentional or just a metter of making the best of what they had, it works beautifully. It's weird in a way, musically it seems far and weak, like a backing choir with the lead singer mixed out! But again, it's an arrangement that fits the song perfectly.
Right. It seems more Ant than Peter (or Tony, for all that matters) to me too. And let's remember that Ant's leaving was a proper shock to them. He was the closest thing as a leader they had by the time, I guess. Sure "we were a collective" and yadda yadda yaddda. But it was Phillips and Rutherford to stubbornly push to become professionals, and Phillips was sort of the main writer by that point.
I remember being so disappointed that my copy of SEBTP, purchased new on LP, did not include that lyric insert. I only discovered that it was missing when I encountered somebody else who owned the record.
Trivia: When doing the remix of Trespass, no one remembered the original source of the sound effects on The Knife, so they mixed it in from a copy of the master tape instead (the original master tape is lost).
One of my most prized laserdiscs! I also have a Japanese laserdisc of Genesis: 1976 (with Bill Bruford), but that is now widely available on the DVD of the Trick of the Tail 2 disc set.
Though I prefer the released take, I always liked this rendition too, quite nice having the high harmonies at the beginning and the flute solo outro.
Highly off topic and also very boring - but since you asked... The 70s and 80s were sharply divided decades for me in every possible way. I was a school boy during the 70s in a small town, with an extremely limited exposure to anything except for football, the races and top 40 radio. I watched Countdown every Sunday night and my week revolved around predicting the National Top 10 at the end of each week's show. Wings was my favourite band, I liked Dire Straits and Queen, and was happy with that. As mentioned, prime time Genesis was obviously not commercial radio fodder and remained unknown in my little universe. In Jan 1980 I moved to Sydney to go to university. This was a huge cultural shift in so many ways, not least musically. The in-crowd worshipped The Stooges and Velvet Underground and all bands influenced by them. I had never heard this music before and I was blown away. Wings were out, Dire Straits were out, obscure 'hip' bands and a whole lot of new music was in. Top 40 commercial radio was considered to be rubbish and uncool in the extreme. So when Genesis and Phil hit the charts they were on my black list. And can I say that this was not just to appease the cool kids. I have listened to it and it represents the worst of bland commercial 80s music. 1980 was also the year I turned 18, the legal drinking age in Oz. I developed a drinking habit that was to stay with me for the next 35 years, and spent several nights a week in local pubs playing pool and pin ball and lapping up the burgeoning live music scene. I discovered many great bands playing in the pubs and I still have a lot of vinyl released by independent Sydney record labels back in the day. Great days to be alive. In the mid-eighties I added a new string to my bow. I still dug the hip independent music of the 80s but I found the 'old" Genesis and I went on classic rock archeology study that continues to this day. Through Rolling Stones Classic Albums lists I discovered Van Morrison Astral Weeks, The Modern Lovers, King Crimson and many others. Commercial radio was so bland compared to the great music that preceded it that Top 40 is still banned on my radio to this day. There is still so much great music from the 60s and 70s that I have not yet heard, I am not gonna waste my time listening to top 40 because I have found that there is zero correlation between quality and chart placing. In many cases, there is a clear negative correaltion (Genesis being a prime example). Probably too much, boring, info. But I hope that gives some insight into my musical views on Genesis.
Sorry if I caused offence, but my first post in this thread included my back story on how I discovered Genesis rather than simply reviewing an album. I don't think that I could praise Genesis any more than I did but I don't like everything that they ever released and I think that I can say this without it being a thread crap. In any case, future other comments will be restricted to the albums which I own and love if that's OK. Thanks for starting this great thread I am already learning lots of new info about Genesis that I am really enjoying.
Coming back on the cross-country train this morning and doing a cryptic puzzle, 1 down was "non-productivity of all-male country" - answer - STAGNATION.
I was aware of them - you couldn't live in Australia and not be aware of Men At Work - but they were definitely not my thing. Colin Hay did get some credibility back though when he appeared on Scrubs. Now, back to Genesis....
No worries mate, I dont mind what albums you comment on at all. I just dont want any phil vs Peter stuff and straight up put downs will get us there is a heartbeat lol Cheers
I was interested in how you felt about Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford as arrangers later on, but the context helps a lot - If you haven't yet, I'd give ATTWT a shot if you enjoyed Wind a lot, it's quite familiar territory and a lot of people dismiss it out of it being the "first" one. Either way, keep on listening.
Thanks, Not to get ahead of ourselves - but yes I will listen to 'Three' on Apple Music before the thread gets there. I may even leave the dog at home.
The 2007 remix of that one happens to be decent, as it goes. Duke... I'm sorry if they only had the 2007 remix, even I thought it was bad and was the first one I replaced in my collection for just being too loud... OT - Tell me my life is about to begin tell me that I'm a hero!
This is probably how the 'lost' version from the 22 february 1970 BBC Night Ride session would have sounded like....
"The Knife" Single by Genesis from the album Trespass Released May 1971 Format Vinyl Recorded 1970 Genre Progressive rock Heavy metal Length 8:57 Label Charisma/Virgin (UK) MCA (US/Canada) Songwriter(s) Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford Producer(s) John Anthony "The Knife" (working title: "Nice") is a protest song by progressive rock band Genesis from their second album, Trespass(1970). It was performed live often in the band's early days (a live version appears on the Genesis Live album from 1973) and has appeared sporadically in the band's setlists all the way up through 1982 (after 1975, however, they performed an edited four-minute version). The first half of the song was released as a single in May 1971 with the second half as the B-side, but it did not chart. The song was unusually aggressive for Genesis at the time, as most of their work consisted of soft, pastoral acoustic textures and poetic lyrics. It features a bouncy, march-like organ riff, heavily distorted guitars and bass, and fast drumming. (Peter Gabriel said he wanted to write something that had the excitement of "Rondo" by The Nice.) In the lyrics of the song, Gabriel, influenced by a book on Gandhi, "wanted to try [to] show how all violent revolutions inevitably end up with a dictator in power".[1] "The Knife" was usually performed as an encore. During one performance in June 1971, Peter Gabriel became so carried away at the end of the song that he jumped off the stage into the audience, spraining his ankle as a result. The cover artwork for the single features (clockwise from top left) Gabriel, Phil Collins, Rutherford, Banks and Steve Hackett. Collins and Hackett did not perform on the track but joined the group shortly after the album was recorded, replacing John Mayhew and Anthony Phillips, respectively. The song was the last encore played at the "Six of the Best" one-off reunion concert in 1982, meaning, to date, this is the final song the "classic" line-up of the band has ever performed together live. It later appeared on the 2004 compilation album Platinum Collection and the single edit is found on the expanded version of Turn It On Again: The Hits, subtitled The Tour Edition. In March 2014, Steve Hackett added the song on the playlist on the extended tour of his Genesis Revisited II album. The song also appears on the R-Kive box set released on 22 September 2014 in the UK and 29 September worldwide. The song was played live during the From Genesis to Revelation (twice), Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Wind & Wuthering, Duke and Abacab (once) tours. ---------------------------------------------------------- The last track on the album and also the only single off the album. To fit it in as a single the song was cut in two and put on both sides of the single as part A and part B ... which to me just seems really strange ..... anyhow. This song starts at a gallop and is lead off by the keyboard This song is actually in 4/4, but has a triplet feel to it. Lyrically I'm not sure it quite attains what the band was trying to say with the song, yet it is still very effective as a song. We certainly see subliminally that the leader of the revolt is happy for there to be martyrs for his cause, and there are many references to I rather than we that would underline this theme. This song more so though brings forth the new sound of Genesis. Although they never fully lost the lighter side of their music, this song signals a newer leaning towards a bit of bombast, which I personally have always been a fan of. To a large degree this new aggressive side to the band would make them a more viable entity in a musical landscape where hard rock was starting to take the flag of rock and carry it for the next few years. This is a great song, best on the album being a purely subjective idea, and I think closes the album well for two reasons. First it lifts us out of the lamenting reflections on mortality that have lead up to it, and second because it lights the way for the next album to step in.
