Solo albums | Take It Easy

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

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 😊