Has Peter Gabriel ever commented at length on the Victoriana aesthetics of early Genesis?

This is true. I hadn't considered that. I was more thinking about decapitation via croquet mallet!

It is a distinct possibility that Python and Whistle test were scheduled back to back though both shows were shifted around the schedules a fair bit to accommodate the likes of Showjumping, Floodlit Rugby League (mud, mud and yet more mud) and Pot Black (a one-frame snooker league IIRC)

 

The Lamb not withstanding, everything they released through 1976 was incredibly English, starting with Selling England with the two 4 man albums are drenching in complete romanticism.

 

It was a pretty much tribal thing: one bunch liked ELP, so some of the rest of us couldn't as we didn't get on with them, so they decided that they didn't like Yes. Then there were 2 of us who liked VDGG and another 2 of us who liked Gentle Giant and another handful of us who were into Crimson, but didn't admit it, and then there were the more heavy rockers who thought all this prog stuff was just too fiddly and one weirdo who was into Mahavishnu...

Great being a teenager in the early-mid '70s, eh?

 

Not completely. Gabriel made the change on TLLDOB as he was the main (almost sole) lyricist on the album. Once he left they to an extent reverted to what came before the Lamb, but they were still definitely making changes/moving with the times. They traded their earlier Greek mythological creatures for the American mythological creature "The Squonk". In fact I can't think of much in the way of overt Englishness in the lyrics for the Trick album. Phil's exaggerated accent on some of the lines in Robbery, Assault & Battery (and the "English" spelling of jail - gaol - on the lyric sheet) are the only real overtly English-centric aspects of the album that come immediately to mind. Some romanticism in the music (not so much the lyrics) of some of the songs - sure - but even the Lamb album had that.

W&W has more moments of Englishness than that to be sure, but also several moments that are not. The subject matter of two songs in particular that stand out are the (highly unusual for them at the time) standard love lyrics of 'Your Own Special Way' and the awkward substitution of what would have likely been a story based on Greek mythology had the song been written a couple years earlier, for the story of a 'Tom & Jerry' cartoon on 'All In A Mouse's Night'.

So they were definitely in the process of moving on and away from their old lyrical methods/subject matter - somewhat awkwardly at times, but still...

 

God, I remember the rows about the relative merits of various guitar players in particular! Though at our school Rock was one broad church. There were definitely people who preferred Quo, Rory and SAHB say to the more musically obtuse stuff but everyone was interested in exploring pretty much everything and we would go to a lot of the same gigs.

The main divide was between the humanities oriented kids (and general layabouts like myself) who had graduated from Bowie and Mott to Yes and Zeppelin (without leaving the former behind) and the highly self-motivated science and maths kids who showed no sign whatsoever of liking music prior to A Night At The Opera and (oddly) Crisis What Crisis. They loved that bloody record! Their other big interest was the technical minutiae of what I think were called muscle cars.

I don't remember there being a single devout ELP fan or anyone ever going to see them live though I think we had all owned an album or two at one time or another. Brain Salad Surgery was a massive album for five minutes and Pictures at an Exhibition too (cos it was cheap). They weren't a band that really stuck with us. Genesis and Yes did and well into the Punk era too.

 

^ Oh yeah, all the guitarist arguments...I really don't miss them (coincidentally playing Rory Gallagher's 3 CD Blues set just now).

Most of us science types also liked music: my cohorts in VDGG and GG were both in either my A-level chemistry or biology groups; my practical partner in chemistry was a guitar player on the side; the gig going group was a mix, but included a few of us science bods.

 

Play me old King Cole, that I may join with you.

I fail to see why 'playing to the street' has more value then celebrating the English aristocratic experience. I'd love to dress up in the finery and do fox hunts while being served champagne on my horse.

 

The TOTL title track is very English. Then ATTWT is a weird one, but continuing with the Americana theme with Deep in the Motherlode.

 

TOTL

If you mean TOTT (A Trick Of The Tail) I don't get how that song is "English" - unless England has a literal "city of gold" inhabited by creatures with horns and tails.

As for the ATTW3 album, in addition to 'Deep In The Motherlode' you can add the song 'The Ballad Of Big' with its wild west/cowboy theme.