My ATTWT would be: Side A: Down And Out Snowbound Ballad Of Big Vancouver Burning Rope Side B: From The Undertow/Undertow The Day The Lights Went Out Many, Too Many Scenes From A Night's Dream The Lady Lies Follow You, Follow Me Sorry, Mike.
I dont like either of the B- Sides. Nor do I care for Joe and Scenes has some nice musical ideas but should have been a third B Side.
Oh my god. It's the worst song Genesis ever did. Or at least very close to it. I'll have plenty to say about it when we get there. It's so terrible.
I'll say this. You have very low standards if this genuinely is your worst song... Not trying to be a jerk, I just really want to know how someone would take Hold on my Heart over that one. Okay now I'm being a jerk.
Hold on my Heart has some absolutely GORGEOUS chord progressions in it - it’s a far more complex song than FYFM.
If you look up the film soundtrack to "The Shout" (British film from 1978), the music is credited to Anthony Banks and Michael Rutherford, with 'electronics' by Rupert Hine. The "From the Undertow" bit is played across the opening credits: a simpler version, but instantly recognisable to the one on "A Curious Feeling". The theme turns up in other parts of the film too: Interesting that Mike is credited.
I play this album much less than I used to when it first came out...for me now ATTWT as an album is less than the sum of its parts. There are great songs but the sequencing and a couple of weaker tracks let it down badly. People criticised All In A Mouses Night on W&W for the lyrics but Scenes... is even worse and not even close to the quality of the former musically. Yet it contains that great bit when Collins sings 'Once He Went To The Carnival Of Angels....' There are songs which seem not fully realised. For example Ballad of Big has a great intro and beginning then a weak chorus and that awful 'All star Indian tribe' lyric. Nothing here comes close to the quality of Blood on the Roooftops or One For The Vine IMHO.. Still craps all over Tormato and what their other contemporaries were doing at the time though.......Undertow is brilliant, The Lady Lies was a great live song and there are nice moments in some of the other tracks.
Ballad Of Big We have a nice atmospheric keyboard opening to this track, which is effectively the bridge chords and melody slightly altered to fit the start of the song. Phil gives us a drum fill and we bounce into the verse section of the song. Now I'm going to be straight with y'all, when I first got this album, I wasn't completely sold on this song. My initial thoughts were somewhat like some of you stated in our opening thoughts about the album. "a story about cowboys?" .... Anyhow, after listening to Genesis for years, you come to the realisation that lyrics aren't generally their primary focus, and as their career continued this never changed (abacab anyone?) So in light of this truth I always tended to not get too perturbed about the lyrics in Genesis songs, as I stated early on. I was encouraged by some of you guys to look at the lyrics more closely and most of the debates on here seem to have been about lyrics, so that would say a lot in itself ... anyhow. This song grew on me as a good piece of music with an unusual lyric/storyline ... I think also that the lyric here stands out so much because the first two tracks are the two most poignant, realistic, straight forward lyrics the band had ever done at this point in their career. This starts with a really cool Guitar figure. It seems to me like Rutherford was working way above himself on this album in terms of coming up with worthy guitar parts for songs, and this is a really cool opening guitar section. Also it must be noticed how cool the bassline in this verse section is. In fact the keyboard takes a back seat in the verse of this song, brave move for a now keyboard lead band. The verse is an unusual rhythm but still very cool and on the last word of the verse (Again) we change time signatures quite effectively. Also at this point the keyboards take the focus musically. Again so far as the lyrics go, it is a pretty straight forward telling of a story. I'm neither here nor there about the lyrics to this song. There is nothing wrong with them at all, but following the two best sets of lyrics that the band had ever done this comes across as lesser. On the whole this is a good album track. It holds the interest, but it doesn't stun.
Hi Mark, too late for me catch up with you all on here, I've been pretty short of time... Hope to get back to this great thread taking its due time. Leave you with this awesome choral adaptation of the beautiful "Undertow", hope you like it. Cheers.
“Ballad of Big” is definitely one of the album’s lowlights for me. The lyrics are just silly and I don’t find the music very compelling. The verses and the chorus seem mismatched. This one is next to the bottom of the barrel (not Harold) on this LP.
Ballad of Big Musically it's fine, but nothing special. But, the lyrics are pure trash. I usually pay much more attention to music than lyrics, but these are bad. Real bad. I mean, how many times in the lyrics do they refer to the character as "Big"? The character's name is "Big Jim" Cooley. I could see calling him Jim, or Big Jim. But calling him Big makes no sense at all. And the All-Star Indian tribe line literally makes me cringe when I hear it. Genesis had a brief run of western-themed songs.....Ballad of Big, Deep in the Motherlode and the (oh so terrible) Me and Virgil. Anybody know which band member influenced this?
I'm pretty much in agreement with Mark. Ballad of Big is enjoyable enough, but not outstanding. Probably Phil. Isn't he a bit of am American history tragic?
The lyrics on Ballad of Big really are one of the lowlights of the album for me. With Genesis, I am more drawn to the music than the lyrics but a bad lyric can be off putting. I find the Ballad of Big cringeworthy. I am not really sure that “an all star Indian tribe” is any worse than “a cancer growth is removed by skill” but it bothers me more. I can’t say why but I think as the songs here are a little more grounded in the real world - it seems to be raising the bar lyrically for me. Lest I sound too negative, with the repeated, serious listens for this thread the album is really growing on me and rising in my ranking of the catalog. I think the rest of side one is really a bunch of winners. I guess it was time to re-evaluate after 30 years.
In terms of the lyrics. Is the fact that we just had two of the best lyrics the band ever did what makes the lyrics on this one seem worse? I certainly don't hate the song, and to be honest I am not PC enough to care about the Indian all star tribe line. I tend to be listening to the music on this one. For me it is no worse as a song than Robbery Assault and Battery or half a dozen others I could name.
Totally agree on calling him “Big” - seems strange and bugs me for some reason. Wouldn’t “Jim” fit the music just as well? I always thought that Phil was the western influence but Deep in the Motherlode is credited solely to Mike while Ballad of Big is Collins/Banks. I know that Phil did have a big interest in the Alamo and collected many artifacts.
As I've expressed earlier, I sometimes do pay some attention to the lyrics sung in a foreign language that I'm familiar with, especially early Genesis, Peter Hammill and some others, but as a suede, the words mostly are just another instrument that flows with the rest - for most parts regarding later Genesis, I have no idea what they're singing about, reading this thread, I'm glad I don't.
This thread reminded me of how nice Undertow is. Ballad of Big, however, is my least fav Genesis track to date. And it's not just the lyrics, the lyrics and the music share a similar bombastic quality that is off putting Too much of the music has a generic soundtrack chase scene quality - if it was the soundtrack to a compelling story it might work, but not in this case. I do like the segment from 1:25 to 2:25 - but when this music is reprised towards the end the lyrics undermine its appealing qualitites.
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