Deep in the Motherlode, which opens Side 2 of this record, holds a special place in my heart. My first ever gig, 12 April 1980 at the Brighton Centre with Jeremy, standing as close to the front a we could get. And then waiting there for what seemed like an age. It was probably no more than 45 minutes, but the anticipation was almost unbearable, whipped up by the audience catcalls, foot stomps, and occasional scurries of a roadie that we mistook for Mike Rutherford (I didn't know it then, but it turns out all roadies look like Mike Rutherford). Then the lights went down, the goose bumps went up, and suddenly there was Phil Collins in a beard and Hawaiian shirt, banging his tambourine and singing, "Get out of the way, fat man!" to that heavy keyboard riff. I stood there, and drank it all in with the biggest gulps I could manage: "This is not a recording, this is actually happening, these are the very same people that made all those records, and have toured the world thrilling audiences… and now they're thrilling me!"
I still like that song. I still like quite a few of the songs on the album: Undertow, Down and Out, Snowbound, The Lady Lies. Those self-important, melodramatic swells and swoops are usually no longer to my taste, but there's something about this album that still (mostly) appeals. It retains the mystery of its cover, dark and vaguely sinister, whereas Duke (the album Genesis were promoting on their 1980 tour) was light, childish and guileless.
The lyrics meanwhile are almost all awful. In one corder are those absurdly portentous pronouncements on the nature of life and how to live it that seem profound — to some boys like me — at the age of fifteen (that Pink Floyd verse about "run and run to catch up with the sun, but the next day you're a day older," or whatever it is, is the template) but are revealed as utterly fatuous when the pubescent scales fall from your eyes a few years later. I suspect Tony Banks is the main offender on that score: Burning Rope is particularly bad, and Undertow not much better, saved only by its music and its opacity. In the other corner there are the jokey narratives that blighted Genesis throughout the career (or the decade of their career that I've heard, 1970-80), from the tosh about the Giant Hogweed to Squonk and Scenes from a Night's Dream on this album.
I haven't mentioned Follow You, Follow Me, and that's partly because it stands apart. It falls into neither of the lyrical traps, it has now great melodrama. It manages to be neither particularly Genesis-like nor Phil-Collins-like. It's wonderful, and I love it. It's up there with The Musical Box and Supper's Ready in my Genesis Chart. (Having just invented this chart, it only has three entries.)
I never owned a copy of this album when I was 14. I think I had a tape of Jeremy's copy. But during a nostalgic trawl of Sheffield record shops 18 months ago (at least one of them has since closed), I snapped this up for a bargain-bin price, and it's in great nick.
![]() Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Listen to this album in full at Last.fm Listen to this album in full at We7 |
Comments