Tony has said the title track to ATOTT was an old song (from his short time at university before deciding to take a year off to try his luck with music as a career). I'm not sure if it was 100% written in university, or if he revised/rewrote it from what it originally was for the album.
The Waiting Room This is essentially an instrumental. We have a series of windchime sounds and some synth sounds developing. Also there is a guitar? part that bears some resemblance to flight of the bumblebee. Some of the synth sounds seem to be inspired by Pink Floyd's On The Run. We have a sound like a big crash and then a sense of melody and beat comes into the track. Over the top of a vamp on a single chord we get get some synth and guitar melodies entwined. Collins plays around with beats underneath this. I guess this is one of those tunes that isn't essential, but it isn't bad as a breather amongst the heavy narrative.
I always assumed that the crash was someone pulling the chain to flush a toilet. The driving instrumental which emerges from the musique concrète section is one of Genesis's finest musical tours de force (imho).
The Waiting Room. Easily my least favorite track on the album. The first part proves that good avant garde noise-music isn't easy to create, as this example is just aimless, pointless and has no structure. The second part sounds like it was taken from an impromptu jam session and really doesn't go anywhere. The track dones on for five minutes and could easily be exorcised from the album with no complaints from me. (However, I prefer The Waiting Room over Epping Forest! LOL) This track is a big letdown from the excellent Side 3 opener.
Isn't talking about "structure" a little out of place with pseudo-avant-garde music? Plus, it has a structure, a straight arrow created by density of layers and concentration of events (a Stockhausen-like-ish "gruppen" approach - not that the reference or the derivation is necessary, of course). And it's an almost soundtrack-like description of the narrative of that moment, as described in the accompanying story, exploring the tunnel starting from darkness, seeing the weird globes up until the start of Anyway. So I wouldn't call it either filler or unessential. It's part of the story and it's all about atmosphere and transition. The last jamming part is less easy to pinpoint, to me at least. It feels a little patched up, like if the guys were afraid to make an entire piece totally out of noise. Maybe it's an impressionistic bit telling about Rael's shift of feeling? It is a sort of a stroboscopic flash of lights? Don't know... Still, whiteout it the start of Anyway would maybe be less impactful and more abrupt.
Part of the story associated with this song "He panics, feels around for a stone and hurls it at the brightest point. The sound of breaking glass echoes around the cave. As his vision is restored he catches sight of two golden gloves about one foot in diameter hovering away down the tunnel. When they disappear a resounding crack sears across the roof, and it collapses all around him. Our hero is trapped once again. "This is it" he thinks, failing to move any of the fallen rocks" Phil and Tony on the Waiting Room Tony Banks describes creating this song in Hugh Fielder’s book The Book Of Genesis: The best jam we had in the rehearsal room ended up being called The Waiting Room, which we called The Evil Jam. We switched off all the lights and just made noises. And the first time it was really frightening. Phil Collins from the same source: The Evil Jam started with Steve inventing noises and Tony messing around on a couple of synthesizers – we were just mucking about with some really nasty sounds. We were all getting very intense; Peter was blowing his oboe reeds into the microphone and playing his flute with the echoplex on when suddenly there was this great clap of thunder and it started raining. […] We were all making these weird noises when the thunderstorm started and it began to pour down. And then we all shifted gear and got into this really melodic mood.
Maybe you're about right. But the last minutes sound to me kind of like a fairly interesting Ambient music; on the other hand nothing of PF's On The Run ever resonated with me at all.
I'm certainly not an expert on avant-garde music, but if I compare it to something like Revolution 9 (which I consider an excellent piece - well thought-out, well planned and executed brilliantly), The Waiting Room just comes across as something thrown together quickly without a lot of thought behind it. At least that's what my ears hear. I've read where the guys (especially Phil) have said that The Waiting Room was an extremely fun piece to record, with all the thrashing and such. I guess it's kind of like being able to demolish a room in a house or sledgehammering a car. I agree it does serve a purpose, bringing ugliness back to the fold as The Lamb is not exactly a bright and cheery record to begin with! I still don't ever skip the track when I listen to the album, but it doesn't capture my attention in the least.
I wasn't trying to sound like I was criticising either band, merely an observation ..... It could also be a fairly generic synth sound of the day
^I wasn't disagreeing with you at all, just gave my point of view, i.e. that I liked the somehow unique vibe of the WR's last couple of minutes or so.
From Gli Anni Prog (re-translations mine) Tony: The Light was a rare piece brought in by Phil, that at the time wasn't writing anything. Verse and chorus are his, the dramatic chord link at 37" is a band jam but was made for The Light too. The Waiting Room starts as a Steve's idea and it's based on the conceptual progression from darkness to light. It was jammed many times before the final commitment on record but the most fun and spontaneous was the very first one at Headley Grange, inspired by the creepy night atmosphere at the Victorian house. They turned off the lights, jammed with noises and got scared! So Banks came up with a 2-chords sequence to brighten things up and they went along. It never worked that well again, he says. Mike "didn't have much to do" and "was trying to do something but I'm not sure what exactly" ( ). "Pete went away". During the second part, "Phil couldn't help complicating it a bit": he had a huge drum kit by then and he states the 74-78 period is the peak of his drumming career. The crash is the last thing added. Phil: They started with the idea to move from darkness to light. They made noises, Steve was using effects, outside it was pouring down. Then Tony started playing those chords, the pace changed, rainbow came out, rain stopped and it was sunny again. "I'm not making that up: I was there, it happened. Nine beautiful minutes". "The Waiting Room shows a side of Genesis that, hardcore fans aside, everybody forgets about or hasn't listened to. And it's the way we would have started composing later on" (jamming from scratch).
We also have the Waiting Room (Evil Jam) which i assume is the b-side ... Please correct me if I am wrong
and here are a series of three variations, so far as I can tell. I was looking for the original the band talks about. For all you knowledgeable folks, please let us know which is what
The "true" Evil Jam it's a live recording that should be the same as the one on the live Lamb on the Archives. But there are boots out there with the same title for the track and a different recording. The original jam Tony talks about was not recorded (os so he says in that snippet).
The Waiting Room gets two thumbs up from me. I would have loved to have heard more of this type of jamming by the band
I used to hate this tune, now I find it somewhat enjoyable, but easily one of the things that keeps this album from being a complete masterpiece (when looking at it track by track that is).
I’ve grown to love The Waiting Room over time, at first it was just something I tolerated as an interlude - now I see what they were going for with the evil/spooky parts and the sun suddenly coming out, and I especially like the last few minutes. It really grew into something during the tour, too - by the time they got to the U.K. dates in ‘75, the “melodic part” was almost unrecognisable.
This is a great example. Start from 4:00 if you can’t take the atonal cacophony and skip right to the juicy stuff.
