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intruder |
From the very first poundings of Peter Gabriel you are aware of a rather dramatic change in the sonic landscape. The intense noise of this record is thanks to the pioneering techniques of producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgam (see the gated reverb employed on Intruder). Peter was becoming more confident in his abilities both as songwriter and career musician. he had the confidence to pluck Steve Lillywhite from the then obscurity of new- wave-post-punk scene (Lillywhite had previously produced Siouxsie and the Banshees and XTC, and went on to produce bands such as Talking Heads). A basic rule was established: if it sounded normal, don't use it. In this spirit PG stipulated the "no cymbals" policy for drummers Phil Collins and Jerry Marotta (sorry, it was too tempting to classify Phil simply as a drummer). This marked the first collaboration between Peter and any Genesis member on record since 1974. Phil joined Peter (again as just another drummer) for a set at the 1979 Reading Music Festival somewhere in the time this record was being recorded. Some of the songs from the third album (with altered words or Gabrielese) were premiered at this performance.
But underlyingthis dramatic shift in sound world was a more essential change in the songwriting technique and song structures. This can mainly be attributed to the invention of the first programmable drum machines. These machines in themselves were quite a paradigm-slapping innovation as the only drum machines which had existed prior to that date were of the hammond- organ-bossa-nova-switch variety. Now any rhythm imaginable could be programmed and saved on this little box costing a mere £60. Peter wanted to create a new sound for the 80s and building songs from the ground up (as in establishing a rhythm and then structuring chords and melody around it) was, he decided, the way to do it. Songs such as I Don't Remember (the first song written in this way) could never have existed following the old method of sitting at a piano and building songs around chord structures and changes. The new songs were starker and simpler, and in response the lyrics were much harsher and more direct.
If Atlantic Records in the States were nervous about Peter's collaboration with Robert Fripp for the second album, they were positively foaming at the mouth over what they were hearing in the third. Enter one of the most despised men in the study of Gabriology: John Kolodner. Kolodner was an A&R man and wanker extraodinaire sent over from the USA to check up on Gabriel's progress. He wasn't happy with the choice of Steve Lillywhite. He thought And Through the Wire could sound like the Doobie Brothers if treated correctly. He had a great big ol' beard. He was from California. He branded the third album "commercial suicide". The label's indifference towards Gabriel was not helped when Peter's manager Gail Colson played the entire album to Kolodner, Atlantic's managing director Jerry Greenberg and president of the company Ahmet Ertegun. Unimpressed with what they heard, they dropped Peter from the label (they subsequently tried to buy him back for $750,000 two years later, some people have no scruples).
Despite its dark shadows and often quietly unnerving subject matter, the third album became Peter's biggest seller to date. The single, Games Without Frontiers, reached number four in the UK and the album made its UK chart debut at number three, headbutting the number one spot in the second week. On the Mercury label, the album sold 250,000 copies in the States. Almost double that of the second album. In the space of one record PG established his uncompromising stance towards his music and paved the way for his metamorphosis from a curiosity from the 70s into a globe-straddling commercially viable art-rock entity.
Picture a B-grade jungle movie. Remember when the British explorer with the pith helmet would turn to the camera and say, "My god...the drums!" Listening to Intruder for the first time can have the same effect. Apart from being pushed up very high in the mix (especially for the first few bars), the immense sound of the drums is largely the result of the gated reverb system. Like all wonderful advances in music and other areas, gated reverb was the result of a happy accident. Due to the difficulty he experienced arranging his regular band for sessions on this record, Peter asked Phil Collins to do some of the drum tracks for Jerry Marotta and John Giblin to replace Tony Levin on bass. Genesis had been officially "on holiday" after Phil's first marriage crisis. While Mike and Tony busied themselves with solo projects, Phil found himself generally arseing around, looking for some projects to take up time in his workaholic lifestyle. Intruder's origin is in another as yet unreleased song called Marguerita. Phil was working on a drum part for that track, the sound being recorded via a cheap microphone and gate compression unit. Lillywhite and Padgam were fiddling with these devices through a brand spanking new solid state logic desk. Because of the famous "no cymbals" policy, Phil was more than a little disoriented, but he played away with this "boom boom phtsch, boom boom phtsch" line. Peter was in the control room saying, "Fucking hell, listen to that!" Everyone seemed to agree that it sounded pretty cool. Peter instructed Phil via the intercom to play for five minutes or so. By the end of that session Peter said, "Thank you very much, I'll go home and write a song to that."
At the risk of sounding obsequious, what a song! Musically Intruder is as jarring as PG's music gets. The tremendous drums and scraping wiry noise (actually the sound of a guitar plectrum scraped along a copper-wound guitar/bass string at high volume) giving way to angular dissonant chords before a melody of sorts is tainted by wailing/screaming backing vocals. Along with The Rhythm of the Heat, this is a song to scare children with. Scary too are the lyrics and PG's delivery of these as he turns his sinister dial to eleven. The first verse serves as the Intruder's statement of competence, approaching its most claustrophobic air as PG sneers, "slipping the clippers through the telephone wires", although taking a wild left turn at the sense of inspiration this engenders. However this is just the beginning. If you were disturbed by PG's presence in the first verse, the perverse delight he takes in invading your most personal details is enough to make you get up and lock the door. There is a vague ripperesque tone in the "touch and the smell of all the pretty dresses you wear" sexual suggestion that sends a chill up the spine without fail. But with a short flair he's gone, whistling into the night and all you are left with is bitter, painful memories. The last few bars of music offer enough infomation to complete the piece. The Intruder will never be caught and the victim will be forced to live with the video-loop image of the intrusion playing itself eternally in the mind's eye (perhaps the reason for the repetitive drum pattern's solo fade out).
While there may be some minor controversy as to the brains behind the song's origin (Is it really Phil's song? Was he consciously nicking the idea on In the Air Tonight? Perhaps it's really the brainchild of the production team for creating the immense sound in the first place.), there is no doubt as to the owner of the final product. This song has Gabriel's fingerprints all over it and it is hardly surprising that it was a (rather loud) fanfare for Western music's obsession with drums and rhythm (or groove) which has continued to this day.
From thunderous drums to the sinister sound of distorted synthesiser melodies darting across the sound picture. in keeping with the ‘no cymbals’ policy, the energy behind this track’s breakneck speed comes from the marimbas, played with gusto by Morris Pert. An african wooden xylophone, the marimbas have featured heavily in the Peter Gabriel catalogue post 1980 and have since become a fairly standard peripheral percussion instrument in Western studios since then. To base a song around marimbas and to layer it with distortion, clipped and varispeeded vocal tracks and finally another tremendous drum performance from Phil Collins is further proof of a revolution in Peter’s music.
Similarly souped up are Gabriel's lyrics. Peter has described the change in his writing style as affecting both music and lyrics. No Self Control is a case in point, the music is harsh and naked and the lyrics are raw and emotional. You would be hard pressed to find any previous Peter Gabriel song that communicates as directly and honestly as this one. Not even Peter's most emotional songs to date (Solsbury Hill and Mother of Violence) present such a "warts and all" policy. The portait being sketched here is an ugly one: simultaneously desperate and gluttonous, but suffering all the while from an overactive conscience. Is Peter singing about himself here? It's possible, but regardless of thoughts on who is being caricatured here, Gabriel's lyrics and soaring vocal suggest he is sympathetic to the words. At the very least he understands No Self Control, even if he does not live it. No Self Control was released as a single to coincide with the release of the third Peter Gabriel record (Games Without Frontiers was released earlier in February). It is now barely remembered as a single such was the lack of impact it made. Even now it seems a brave choice for single material; one would assume something lighter such as And Through The Wire would be more radio-friendly than this slice of pure paranoia.
A personal note: the first time I heard this song was on the POV video in a slower more melodic version, still intense, but more consonant with the sound of So. suffice to say the first listen of the version on Peter Gabriel bordered on epiphanic. But despite the arguably "softer" approach on POV, the images associated with it have a far deeper impact: Gabriel rolling, screaming on the stage being tormented by demonic stage lights (Yikes!).
Occasionally retitled "The Start" on the B-side of the Games Without Frontiers single, Start is a slightly lame short saxophone solo. A product of its time. Enough said.
First Marotta's drums, closely miked and dry. And Levin's stick (the first appearance of many on Peter Gabriel records). Then the guitars. Three guitarists appear on this song (Dave Gregory, Robert Fripp and David Rhodes) and it shows particularly in the choruses. The wall of sound technique applied to the drums and percussion in the first two tracks is here transported to the guitars and the effect is spine chilling. Heavy distortion fades into nothingness as Peter revisits the whoops and screams from Solsbury Hill. Peter's vocals are drained of any bass and midlle tones, giving the impression he's singing through a cheap AM radio. When he reaches the second half of the verses (Empty stomach, empty head/I've got empty heart and empty bed), the effect is genuinely exciting. Then comes the chorus (ie. multiply the guitars tenfold) where Peter and David Rhodes half scream the lyrics over the din. It's as sonically extreme and as satisfying as Peter Gabriel's music can be.
Lyrically, the song revolves around an interrogation and an amnesic subject. The lyrics and the vocals that deliver them are left very plain and dry; Peter here allows the music to tell the story, which it does more than effectively. However by far the masterstroke of the song is its ending where the layers of distortion are slowed down, a technique that adds depth to the sound heard (see The Beatles' Ticket to Ride), and then, just for fun, drowned in even more distortion. And underneath it all, barely audible, is Peter whispering something (who knows what, it could be his shopping list) as the noise fades away.
The video for I Don't Remember, directed by Marcello Anciano, was unfortunately set to the music from the far inferior version from Peter Gabriel Plays Live. However it's an extremely interesting, if slightly cracked affair involving Gabriel running from anything and everything, being interrogated by a bunch of men in hats before they shoot at him with poison darts, discovering that he himself is one of those men inthe hats, being swallowed by a couch, trying to fall asleep in a room with dripping water and finally (but certainly not least) being mocked constantly by a bunch of bald nude albinos. The video is very similar in feel and look to Brian Grant's video for Shock the Monkey and is just as bewildering. Although the overall feel of the video is certainly effective in providing compatible images to this very alarming song, it would have been far more alarming with the original music found here on Peter Gabriel.
This is the second song in Peter's series of "semi-instrumentals" and in hindsight acts as a fairly heavy precursor for what to expect in Peter Gabriel and particularly Birdy.
Lead a Normal Life is based around a piano line and a simple marimba rhythm and it seems likely that the song was composed using these elements (piano & drum machine). In many ways Normal Life represents the epitome of Peter's new writing technique; the song would sit very uncomfortably in either of Gabriel's previous outings. From its simple beginnings, the song was built up in the studio to a heavily textured and layered recording including drums, guitar, percussion and saxophone. A last minute rethink at the mixing stage though brought Normal Life around full circle, finally resting on the ingredients that constructed the song's backbone. A short burst of the song's full hi-fi sound can be heard in the fade out.
Lyrically, we witness a dispassionate visit to what one assumes to be a psychiatric institution, although the lyrics remain vague enough for the setting to be any kind of institution (eg. nursing home, prison, etc). The lyrics are unique in that they deal with incarceration without resorting to any editorialising or histrionics. They make virtually no statement on their subject, which in itself is quite revealing about the author. When Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records in the United States, listened to the third Peter Gabriel album in its entirety prior to release, he was shall we say, less than impressed. By the time he had arrived at this particular track he enquired as to the state of Gabriel's mental health (perhaps he thought he'd discovered the reason why, in his opinion, this record stank). Thus Ertegun inadvertently began a completely baseless rumour that Peter was hospitalised with some kind of psychiatric illness, a rumour that persists to this day.
Written by Mercutio
while he had too much time
on his hands. Thankfully this has now been rectified.