Song Lyric Sunday: Solo Gabriel

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As my title may have suggested to you, this week’s invitation from Jim for Song Lyric Sunday is to play a song from a solo album made after an artist left a band. His post Creative People tells all. I had several candidates in mind for this, and at one point was thinking of playing songs by three different artists, but in the end I am going with just one. He has been a favourite of mine ever since he left Genesis and branched out on his own, so today I am featuring Peter Gabriel. Having said that, I guess you might be expecting to hear Sledgehammer, or Solisbury Hill, or Games Without Frontiers, or Red Rain, or Shock The Monkey, or… but I have a feeling others may choose him for today and might play some of those.

So I’m sorry if I’m disappointing you, but I’m going instead for a couple of his less well-known songs, which I think are lovely and deserve to be heard. Leaving out so many great songs shows you how much Peter Gabriel has given us through his solo career, which began in 1977 after he left the afore-mentioned Genesis, the band he co-founded with mates from Charterhouse School – one of those ‘posh’ places! The track I have chosen to start with is from So, his fifth album – the cover of which is my header picture. It starts quietly and slowly, but is worth your patience:

Try telling me that isn’t beautiful and expecting me to believe you! As you may have noticed, it is quite a long song, and its lyrics match that:

 

Looking down on empty streets
All she can seeAre the dreams all made solidAre the dreams made real
All of the buildingsAll of the carsWere once just a dreamIn somebody’s head
She pictures the broken glassPictures the steamShe pictures a soulWith no leak at the seam
Let’s take the boat outWait until darknessLet’s take the boat outWait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridorsOf pale green and grayNowhere in the suburbsIn the cold light of day
There in the midst of itSo alive and aloneWords support like bone
Dreaming of Mercy StreetWear your inside outDreaming of mercyIn your daddy’s arms again
Dreaming of Mercy StreetI swear they moved that signDreaming of mercyIn your daddy’s arms
Pulling out the papersFrom the drawers that slide smoothTugging at the darknessWord upon word
Confessing all the secret thingsIn the warm velvet boxTo the priest, he’s the doctorHe can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tendernessThe tremble in the hipsOf kissing Mary’s lips
Dreaming of Mercy StreetWear your inside outDreaming of mercyIn your daddy’s arms again
Dreaming of Mercy StreetI swear they moved that signLooking for mercyIn your daddy’s arms
Mercy, mercyLooking for Mercy Street
Looking for mercyMercyLooking for mercyLooking for mercyLooking for mercyOh, looking for mercyLooking for mercy
Anne, with her fatherIs out in the boatRiding the waterRiding the waves on the sea
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Peter Gabriel
Mercy Street lyrics © Real World Music Ltd

 

So was released in May 1986 and was a huge commercial success, selling more than 5m in the US (5x Platinum) and 900k in the UK (3x Platinum): as well as topping the UK Albums Chart and making #2 in the US, it was also a chart topper in many other countries. It spawned five singles, of which the first and most successful was Sledgehammer, which made #1 in both Canada and the US and #4 in the UK, driven no doubt by its superb video, which won a Brit Award and nine MTV Awards.

Mercy Street didn’t feature on a single, either as an A- or B-side, but I still think it is a fabulous song. It was inspired by the personal and confessional works of the American poet Anne Sexton, who wrote a play titled Mercy Street and a poem titled 45 Mercy Street. The “Anne” in the song, in the boat with her father, is a reference to her, of course, which features as the focal point of the video. This was directed by Matt Mahurin and was shot in Nicaragua on a relatively low budget. Upon his arrival in Nicaragua, Gabriel gave Mahurin complete control over the creative direction of the song’s music video after Mahurin informed him of some conceptual ideas that he had in mind. Gabriel said that the music video for Mercy Street was the only one in his discography that lacked any collaboration or creative input from him. He has said that it is “very beautiful” and cited it as one of his favourites. I can see why.

I’m staying in a similar vein for today’s second song, another of Peter Gabriel’s beautiful gems:

Blood Of Eden was on his sixth album, Us, which was released in September 1992, a full six years after So. Whilst not being such a big seller it did well in the charts, peaking at #2 in both the UK and the US, and going Platinum in both. This track was released as a single – the third from the album – in March 1993, but wasn’t a huge success, reaching #43 in the UK but not charting at all in the US. Not even the collaboration with the wonderful Sinead O’Connor could turn it into a hit, but I have always loved it.

Peter Gabriel has always been a perfectionist about his music, and doesn’t release his records until he is completely happy with them. Having started his solo career with four albums in the first five years, there was then a four year gap to So, another six years, as I have noted, to Us, and then ten years until its follow up. But as I’m sure you know he has been heavily involved in projects with world musicians, and has issued many of their records on his Real World label, so he has never been idle!

He is known for his activism and political viewpoints, which he has never shied away from featuring in his music. I was planning on posting just two songs today, but having made that comment about his politics I couldn’t really leave you without playing this one, could I:

In case you have been on another planet for the past 45 years that was, of course, Biko from Peter Gabriel 3: Melt (as it is known from its cover photo). The song is, as Peter says on the video, a tribute to a brave man who was killed by the police in South Africa for being an anti-apartheid activist. If you want to know his full story, you can find it here. I think there are lessons we should all learn from that, though with the recent news of some white South Africans allegedly at risk of genocide (!) being welcomed as refugees into Trump’s USA it would seem that some refuse to understand. But I’m not going to say more: this is, after all, a post about some great music!

And on that cheerful note I am taking my leave of you for today. Have a lovely Sunday, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes – a new theme this week 😊

43 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Solo Gabriel”

  1. Pingback: Rounding Up May | Take It Easy

  2. Well done Spurs! Someone said, at least in footballing terms this year is for the birds- the Liver bird, the magpies, the eagles, now cock o’ the walk. Spurs played to win, Utd couldn’t play with themselves. 👍🍻

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  5. Well chosen picks, and not the ones well picked over.

    (As for those poor hard done-by South Africans, I’d have to say they will be welcomed with open arms by Trumps red-hatted and necked faithful followers. How ironic in a place/base that ain’t keen on letting most foreigners in?)

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  6. I’m glad he had a lot of success after going on his own. I don’t know much of his songs, just Sledgehammer, which I like. Of these three, I tried to listen, twice even, and couldn’t get through them. Just too long and too slow for me. 🙂

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  9. Brilliant three tracks. Gabriel has never failed from his first solo album right through to I/O, all brilliant. As for Biko, the emotion that song stirs up when he plays it live – and I don’t think he dare do a concert without it – is palpable.

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  12. Great selection of Peter Gabriel tunes today; Clive and I am glad that you went deep into his vast contribution of music, as I really only know his hit songs, but all three of these were really lovely.

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    • Thank you, Jim, and thanks for a great prompt. I had a feeling he might be popular today so I deliberately went for some of his album tracks, in the hope of being different. As you say, they are all lovely and I’m pleased you enjoyed them.

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  13. Great picks today Clive. Thanks for Mercy Street – a favorite of mine. The lyrics are fabulous. Peter Gabriel was popular today and rightly so. Genesis had so much talent. Reflecting today made me think of Mike Rutherford too. Mike and the Mechanics and that great song The Living Years. ☺️

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    • Thank you, Christine. Mercy Street is a favourite of mine too – a beautiful sone with a fantastic video. You’re right on Mike Rutherford too: I played that song in the post I dedicated to my father after he passed away.

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      • Yes I featured it some years ago too. The lyrics were beautiful. A lovely tribute to your father indeed Clive.
        PS Don’t get me started on the White SA refugees. Are you kiddiing me? It’s an oxymoron right? How sick is Trump.

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      • Thank you. We didn’t have issues but there were things I didn’t say often enough, and then it was too late.

        I think you’ve probably answered your own question there.

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  14. Wow, I never knew you were a big PG fan. Me too … have seen him three times, since round about 1983 in Bordeaux. … and Mercy Street is right up there … sublime. I wouldn’t think much of later Genesis with Phil Collins leading, but there was good stuff from them earlier on. Also, Phil coming in on harmonies on Carpet Crawl is really special … both voices are complementary and not dissimilar

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    • Since he started! The early Genesis albums were great but I preferred his solo stuff. Some amazing work. You did well to see him three times – I only managed the once, around the Millennium.

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  17. This was a spectacular medley of tunes. Mercy Street is an amazing song, and I really enjoyed the other two although I was not familiar with them. I think Genisis and the solo artists that came from it are all underplayed today.

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