If Firth of Fifth doesn't make a top ten list, then I don't know what does. The band's musicality finally shines all at once. Also, yes, sophomore poetry class fantasy lyrics. No matter. This is what the soundtrack to Arthurian legends should sound like. The verse is technically in B, but E gets tonicized a lot. Banks doesn't really maintain single key structures. A lot of his chord sequences are more Romantic in the sense that they're based on voice leading & contextual shifts. The E harmonic minor flute & guitar melody was his, & it sounds perfect on those instruments first quiet & then loud, respectively. The Bach-like build around 4:11 also perfectly sets up the recap when played by the full band. As for the intro - genius. Tony's playing is just tastier & more musical than the impossibly technical theatrics of Wakeman & Emerson. Learning this by ear as a teenager was a crash course in developing some fine aural skills. It wasn't about performing the notes themselves. It was just difficult to actually to execute on the clunky RMI Electra Piano. The same limitation would later make Lamb tunes (& especially Vine) lose all their majesty on tour. In any case, every note of this song is brilliant. The other unsung hero of this track comes later in Seconds Out - Mike's bass line during Steve's solo. G*dda*mn.
Yes but that success came st a time when they did play the game (1978 onwards). The original post (not the one you’ve quoted) was talking about the period we have reached in this thread not the one where they had several no 1 albums.
I read years ago it was because getting it perfect on the RMI was really difficult due to the delay between key registers being too long and causing the intro to fall apart and the fact the piano was rather poor as well... anything but a faux synth really. It's interesting though since Firth of Fifth WAS performed post RMI during the Abacab tour while Tony was using the Yamaha CP-80 - a genuine piano that is drenched in his live performances from 78-86, but that song was done in the form it always was, no intro included. Odd because during 78-80 One For The Vine was beautiful using the CP80, it shined like a star... but not now, hehe.
I think it' a combination of both. Too many technical issues and to little to gain from them. Once the live version was established without the intro, no reason to look back. At this stage they were much more businessmen and much less young idealist musicians.
Steve always played the guitar parts live on IKWIL with Mike handling the bass, but that doesn't prove definitively who played them on the album. He used the Coral Sitar on the Selling England tour and then his Les Paul Goldtop on the 76 and 77 tours, as can be seen in the In Concert 1976 film, some of which I was there for (just the parts filmed in Stafford).
More Fool Me This song starts out with some really nice acoustic guitar. Phil lays down one of his earlier vocals, and it's probably pitched slightly high for him, although it is still a nice vocal. This is a really nice song, although I'm sure some of the prog purists weren't very happy with it being on here. There is a tenderness that Phil got on this vocal take that has a certain amount of fragility that is endearing to my ear. This is mere speculation, but I wonder if this is somehow related to the marital problems Phil was later to experience ... that ironically turned him into a songwriter and a megastar.
I wouldn't say that. Abacab is definitely odd in the regard that it kinda shows the band trying to experiment more than they have been in the past 5 years - but, again, keeping on topic I suspect the live version done since at least 76 was probably much easier to manage than to add an additional minute of the set for something that the entire band thought as the only method for Firth to exist. I'd love to know who actually played the sitar on this record. Steve is doing interviews often enough it's not unlikely to find this out without much fuss.
It's pure speculation - the entire song however probably would have made the then wive not happy, regardless. But, I love this one a lot. I remember thinking it was a Collins and Hackett song before knowing Rutherford and Banks did a bunch of 12 string back in the 70s, this one I'd do a ton of vocal covers of since it was right for my range and out of all my sloppy covers I did as a teenager, I think this track was always the strongest... probably the only one I'd let anyone listen to. Around... about 17 when I recorded this like 30 times.
I knew it was put too strongly. What I meant is that I have the feeling the guys developed a more business-oriented approach to music since the Eighties. That doesn't equal "selling out" or "being commercial". Just that they are more cost-effective in their approach to music business. By the time of Selling, they were still struggling for money, sometimes they didn't have budget reserve for changing the guitar's string, because they spent more fore their shows then what they made. And they didn't compromise with brit tv shows, as seen. That's what I say being idealists. The Eighties Genesis (as I've seen in many interviews) are more market aware and cost aware, basically more aware of the business side of things. That doesn't mean they settled for the easiest solution in studio. In this mindset, adding back the intro to a song that proved to be self-sufficient live without it would be redundant or unnecessary.
More Fool Me. Even the guy who introduced me to Genesis thought this one was "****". Is More Fool Me the real first offender in Genesis's career, leading though Your Own Special Way to FYFM? If it is, that's another proof against the Phil ruined Genesis theory: there's Mike behind all those. Personally, I think it's a nice cute song to chill out and end the side, after the previous rollercoaster. But I admit that I skipped it without remorse back in my Genesis days. As we've seen, Genesis used to alternate strong songs with shorter, softer ones since Nursery Cryme, so nothing really alien here too. Maybe its crime is to be a love song? At least For Absent Friends was about widows and cemeteries
I get the impression that nerdy college boys listening to Genesis may well have been intimidated by the idea of a Love song, and perhaps that is where the whole schtick about Genesis selling out comes from lol I really like the songs that always seem to get mentioned as the weaker ones. I personally think Follow You Follow Me is a fantastic song and it really isn't as pop, or commercial as folks make out ... especially when you take into account the fact that pop in 1977 meant the height of disco's market domination and 1977 top ten 1 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" Rod Stewart 2 "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" Andy Gibb 3 "Best of My Love" The Emotions 4 "Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)" Barbra Streisand 5 "Angel in Your Arms" Hot 6 "I Like Dreamin'" Kenny Nolan 7 "Don't Leave Me This Way" Thelma Houston 8 "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" Rita Coolidge 9 "Undercover Angel" Alan O'Day 10 "Torn Between Two Lovers" Mary MacGregor Hmmm not really fyfm territory lol Anyhow, don't let me side track us
I like the idea of More Fool Me more than the execution, sadly. I can hear a good song hiding within, and I appreciate it as a bit of a palette cleanser between Firth Of Fifth and Battle Of Epping Forest. But it kinda sounds like a demo IMHO, with warbles and inconsistent volume in the vocals. The album is 50+ minutes, so it could be easily have been left off. So I think of it now as a bonus B-side. Pleasant but not essential. --Geoff
More Fool Me I like this track, musically no wonder it's a heartfelt melody, tenderly conveying a beautiful wistful atmosphere to the whole song. .
I like More Fool Me (vocals: Phil). To me, it really sounds like something Anthony Phillips would have on one of his vocal albums. It's a nice little tune, and nothing they hadn't tried before with some of the shorter pieces on the previous two studio albums. It does feel a bit out of place on SEBTP, but I'd rather them include it on the album instead of another one we're about to get to.
Man, you just reminded me of my teenage days back in 1978... this very year I came to know Genesis at a school friend's house in my home town's neighborhood (copacabana). He spun ATTWT for us to listen to, and bingo! Immediately damn hooked by FYFM hahah ... oh boy those were really great years... I remember we then going on spinning those more romantic tunes we heard at our school female mates' parties we used to hang out to: Rod Stewart''s TTN, Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely", Lionel Ritchie's "Easy", ... and the list went on... loved to hear some music from Elton John back then too. Surprised to remind how romantic a guy I already was back then Btw, I don't think there ever were strictly commercial music, but in case I'm wrong I reckon that even those sorts of music are pretty capable of conveying such a strong appeal at some moment of our lives that many so-called "great prog/progressive rock tunes" couldn't ever accomplish...
More Fool Me I'd be lying if I said I didn't skip this track whenever convenient. It's not bad, but I just want to move on to the good stuff.
More Fool Me is poorly produced. Somebody should have said "ok, guys, let's do it again with some consistency!" It could have been more interesting, especially if there was a Hackett overdub or two.
The fact that a very well written and well sung song such as "More Fool Me" is generally regarded as one of the lesser songs in the Genesis catalogue (and rightly so IMO) is a testament to just how good they were at writing. Comparatively speaking, it's a lightweight, especially sandwiched between Firth of Fifth and Epping Forest - but you don't want every song to be fast paced and furious. Well maybe you do if you listen to the Sex Pistols, but I think people who listen to music like Genesis appreciate a few minutes of chill-out time. It is a precursor to Phil's solo career, but I think for all its simplicity that it's a good deal more interesting than most of his solo output.
I read some interview in which Collins would say that, in the early years, he would "sing with the hands in his pockets". I always thought it was just an expression! Interesting. To me, he always seemed a "natural frontman" but, obviously, it took some development on his part to work his stage character.
