it's May 1974 Genesis i've just played the
last show of their Selling England tour in new york's academy of music this venue is just
20 minutes walk away from the Elgin Theatre this was a cinema that was known for its
late-night avant-garde movie screenings one such film that was shown there was
El Topo by filmmaker Alejandro Jodarowski it's highly probable therefore
that this is where peter Gabriel first watched the film El Topo
it had a big effect on him after watching it with the movie palace now
undone Gabriel will probably have walked back through the neon-lit streets of new york back to
his hotel with El Topo's surrealist images moving in the sidewalk steam it's easy to see how the
lamb came together in Peter's mind at that time El Topo is a bizarre western typical of
our house movies from this period it has a rambling nonsensical narrative highly overt sexual
imagery and an almost improvised feel about it I've saved you the misfortune I haven't to sift
through this nonsense and highlight here the similarities between it and what became the lamb.
Strap yourselves in folks! This is a weird film... We have a flute playing maverick.... People
who find themselves stuck in a cage... There's a grand parade. We have stalactites -
they're the rock formations that hang down from the roof of a cave, and stalagmites they're the
rock formations that come up from the ground and then.... you get the idea. There's a lilywhite
lilith type character, who leads someone passed a group of crawling people onto a tunnel of
light, where the chamber is said to be... Rael cools off with the lamia of the pool.. as they nibble the fruits of his flesh he feels
no pain... yes, you really are watching this! Someone dies in a rapids and there's even a raven and to top it all you've guessed
it Doktor Dyper appears to whip off someone's windscreen wiper
there's even a Lamb in it! Bearing in mind that in May 1974 peter
Gabriel's wife was back in England and seven months pregnant it doesn't
take Sigmund Freud to work out what was probably going on in this 24 year
old songwriter's mind at that time.. "I had to get it out of me if you know what
I mean"... yes Peter, we get the drift! by contrast, the lamb's origins also owe a debt
to the classic novel pilgrims progress by John Bunyan this is a classic Christian allegory
of self-discovery the story takes place as a narrator's dream similar to what Gabriel would
tell in the mid-concert interval stories unlike el toppo it's full of the concepts of temptation
and guilt and strange otherworldly creatures it could have been a lot different if
banks and rutherford had had their way their suggestion for a concept was
the 1943 novel "The Little Prince", a coming of age tale that has a character on a
similar philosophical journey had this been chosen the Lamb would have probably had a more pastoral
feel to it it's thought that the Banks song Mad Man Moon was based on the Little Prince
novel and perhaps this style of sound which is similar to Selling England may have been
what the band had stayed with at that time? Peter's story however was to be set
on the mean streets of New York. Its central character a Latin-American street kid. Gabriel has often noted that he wanted a much
grittier tone to this next album it was a move that was starting to be made by musicians that
would have been known to peter at that time with Peter Hamill, Brian Eno and later Robert Fripp
all starting to sense a musical change in the air. The story aspect of the album and Gabriel's
insistence on writing all of the lyrics are still a bone of contention with the rest of
the band with Banks in particular astutely commenting that the narrative thread robs
many of the tracks of existing in isolation. He does have a genuine grievance for although
the lamb's lyrics contain some of the most vivid images in the band's catalogue they
ultimately hinder and dominate the album somewhat perhaps the most telling inditement of the lamp's
concept is that Collins himself has admitted that he's never been bothered to read the story that's
printed on the album's inner sleeve! And so, in June 1974, with half a story for an album, the
band headed off to the affluent and leafy country village of Hedley in Hampshire. The perfect
setting to write a gritty urban street opera... Headley grange was an old stately home that fell
into disrepair during the 1960s and had been rented out first to students before it was then
turned into a rehearsal studio supposedly by a young Richard Branson. This rat-infested squalor
had been used and abused by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and Bad Company prior to
the upper middle-class public schoolboys arriving. Their time there was largely spent with the band
in one room laying down the instrumental tracks and Gabriel in a separate room writing the lyrics.
The tensions between Gabriel and the rest of the band were further exasperated when Gabriel's first
daughter was born in July. To this end he would spend a lot of time traveling back and forth from
the band in Hampshire to see his wife in London. Communication with people beyond Headley Grange
was difficult as it didn't have a telephone installed and Gabriel has later recalled the
journeys that he would take armed with a pocket of coins to the local village phone box. This phone
box still stands there today and it's strange to think that back in July 1974 Peter Gabriel would
have stood in this phone box and dialed California to talk to the noted film director William
Friedkin about a potential script collaboration. Hot off the success of The Exorcist, Friedkin
was searching for new talent to work with his attention was drawn to Gabriel after reading a
short story on the back of the GenesisLive album. Gabriel temporarily left as bandmates
for a few weeks to brainstorm ideas with Freidkin. That script
idea was probably to have been for a film called The Devil's Triangle, a script
idea that Freidkinwas working on at that time. Freidkin's plan was to create a production
team with Gabriel the band Tangerine Dream and graphic artist Philippe Druillet but it failed to
materialize. In an interview for the sounds paper around this time, Gabriel openly makes reference
to wanting to work with different artists and this had all whet his appetite
for the possible future beyond genesis soon after this Gabriel returned to his bandmates
to start the actual recording of the album Some six hours worth of rehearsal recordings
somehow found the way out of Headley Grange and into the hands of collectors. These tapes can now
easily be found on youtube and careful listening to them reveals some intriguing insights into
how the final album could have been sequenced... Let's look at the final tracklisting
that we know and love today Firstly we're going to remove the tracks
that were not recorded at Headley Grange. These were tracks that were put together
whilst allowing actually being recorded a few months later those tracks are: Cucco Cocoon, Grand Parade, Carpet Crawlers, Anyway ,
Silent Sorrow, Ravine and Riding The Screen. They were all late additions to the album setlist
and drafted in to plug gaps in the "story". Next up for the cul is Lillywhite Lilith. Now the basis
for this track stems from a song called The Light that the band actually played live
back in the Nursery Cryme tours. It's perhaps the first track that Phil Collins
ever wrote for the band the piece of music you're going to hear next is a small riff from
Lillywhite Lilit sandwiched into In The Cage If this was Lillywhite Lilith's original use
then it's doubtful that the band would have developed the riff into a fully-fledged song
therefore this track also goes from our listing. The next track to either be
removed or moved is The Lamia now originally this was by the part of
or segued into the Chamber of 32 Doors let's take a listen. Now remember that these
are the original unedited Headly Grange demos this is how the band would imagine these songs
would glue together at certain points in time. It appears that the band didn't
quite know how to end side one as the Chamber of 32 Doors is also merged
into Counting Out Time in another take. I'm proposing that if it was used, The Lamia would
have been a better closing to side one of the album than perhaps Counting Out Time, which would
have been a better opener to side too certainly the screams and voices at the end of Counting Out
Time will have merged well into The Waiting Room Looking at this revised track listing its
immediate issue is that it's too long for a single album we, therefore, have
to imagine that many of these tracks would have been shorter than what they
originally ended up on the final album so what you're going to hear next is an
example of this so now that we've got In The Cage and Back in NYC next to each other
on the same side they can naturally glue together more seamlessly and it seems to be that this
was the original intention for these two tracks. Another example of songs being cut together
differently was the part in the Fly On a Windshield which goes.. "something solid
forming in the air" - this doesn't appear to have been part of the original design
as the "On Broadway" coda to The Lamb track blends directly into the part where the
fly 'hits the windshield' as it were. All of this suggested a much tighter and
faster-paced album than what originally turned out with songs being blended
together more in the manner of medley something that the band would
enjoy doing more in the future. It's hard to say if this more concise
incarnation would have been any better because I feel it's a sense of space and distance
on the album that makes it work with the strange ambient pieces that join the songs together
being almost important as the songs themselves. In August the band left Headley Grange and
travelled to a similar old stately home in the Welsh countryside. Like Headley Grange, Glaspant
Manor was regularly used by other musicians such as Black Sabbath and Queen, and it's thought
that the band recorded there for two months using the Island Records mobile recording
studio. It's unclear as to what was actually achieved in Wales as the band ultimately ended
up moving back to a more traditional setting of the island studios in Bashing Street, London.
By now, this was September 1974 and Gabriel was still working on new lyrics for the album also
in the island studios at this time was Brian Eno recording is "Taking tiger mountain by strategy"
album. Gabriel approached Eno and asked him to help with production effects on the Lamb album,
and in return, Collins would play drums for Eno. Tony Banks has dismissed the influence
of Eno's involvement in the final mix but I'm inclined to disagree. There's a
fundamentally different tone and feel to The Lamb than anything before or after and i'm
with the opinion that Eno's ideas and technical expertise probably had quite a lot to do with
the final sonic qualities of The Lamb record. With the UK tour only weeks away fans started
hurried around the clock mixing sessions to complete the album matters were further
complicated when Steve Hackett suffered an injury to his hand. This caused the postponements
of those initial uk dates it's also at this 11th hour that Gabriel finally discovered that the name
of the central character Rael had also been used by The Who on their Sell Out album, something that
he'd been completely unaware of up to this point. It's during these final mixing stages that Gabriel
actually suggested issuing The Lamb as two single records part one and part two issued six months
apart. This admission may account for the somewhat lack of parity between the two halves of the
album, sides three and four are notably weaker than sides one and two. It's sides three and
four that also have more of the ambient padding. Although these segments may have been added later
to account for costume changes within the live show. Furthermore, sides 3 and 4 contain more
of the older recycled songs with both Lilywhite Lilith, Anyway and parts of Slipperman being
written some four to five years previously. You could argue also that "It" has something of
a rushed anti-climatic feel to it. On the eve of the album's release the track Counting Out Time
was released as a single but it failed to chart and received largely negative reviews. In
late November the album was finally released the band by now were on tour in America playing
the whole album to an audience that had yet to buy in the shops. Let's now examine these live
shows and see how The Lamp came to life... The live show opens with slides of early morning
Manhattan. The actual projectors seldom worked as planned but either way this talk probably
represents the most ambitious theatrical show where tempted in rock up to this point arguably
eclipsing what even Floyd were doing at the time Sadly the show was never
fully filmed professionally. What exists from over 100 shows is about
30 minutes of mostly poor quality audience cine film that's been bounced onto video and then
into the hands of collectors. We'll look at about five to ten minutes here and trust me these
are probably the best five to ten minutes there are numerous editions of this
lamb footage in circulation on youtube. Credit here has to be given to i
believe a person called Chris West who I understand is the main person responsible
for painstakingly syncing up the original silent footage to an actual soundtrack, something
that is believed to have taken months to do! The only pro-shot footage of the show
was actually an except from a German documentary about a music promoter and
nothing to do with the band themselves. This film team shot a few seconds worth of In The
Cage , Slipperman and Musical Box, thus proving they were at the whole concert. Now i can't
believe that a film crew would go to that time and effort and view a spectacle like this only to
film a few minutes worth of footage and I'm a firm belief that the whole show MUST have been filmed
that night now whether or not this is still owned by someone. If it will ever be released is of
course you know the Holy Grail for Genesis fans. With him telling stories in between acts, Gabriel
is by far the standout element of this show and he commands the stage fully he hides on
the floor playing his flute in Cuckoo Cuccon, he acts out the Grand Parade drones and
even explodes a petrol bomb in Back in NYC. As opposed to on the actual album, it's
the latter half of the show which feels much stronger than the first and in particular,
The Waiting Room is something that far exceeds the studio version this track was
sometimes extended up to nine minutes and has a loud and terrifying freeform
nightmare with lots of tape effects going on the secret shot here is actually
footage from the trippy by the Musical Box as there really is only a few seconds worth of
original footage existing they managed to recreate the Lamb show with astonishing accuracy and with
full support of Gabriel on the band themselves. Aside from Gabriel obviously it's collins who
I feel is the standout figure on these nights using his largest and most wide-ranging drum kits
ever it's just phenomenal playing and collins is the one who is also the most critical of
the costumes that were used in the shows he astutely states that the slipper man costume
was really where Spinal Tap got their ideas from one can almost sense Hackett and Rutherford's
sheer embarrassment of what's going on and Banks' probable rage as a slipperman emerges from
what is basically a huge inflatable cock... The fans, however, loved it and although
the tour left the band with massive debts one feels that for every person who saw it
they must have gone home and told 10 others because as a result the Trick of the Tail tour
and album sales were far more profitable the shows certainly got the band noticed and we should be
really thankful for what is really just a handful of individuals who took along a cine camera on
a few nights and gave us something to remember. The tour left a vivid image in the
minds of all who saw it and during 1979 ideas for the lamb film were developed Gabriel
wrote a rough movie script with none other than the El Topo director Jodorowsky, according to
Gabriel the only man who could make this movie! Gabriel has also referenced jogging up Salisbury
Hill to get fit to play the part of Rael in the movie the idea however never really made it
past the initial script stages and considering how many bad "album to movie" adaptations there
were in this era it's probably not a bad thing. Overall, The Lamb is an album
that slightly divides fans. For some, it is their best album but then
many genesis albums can stick a claim to that. Some, however, see it as slightly overblown
and difficult to listen to in its entirety. I wouldn't say it's their best, but I would say
that it contains their best moments. Some of the individual musical elements of this and certainly
the lyrics are certainly I think the best that this band ever did it's got to be some of the most
evocative and memorable music from this whole era. I could have made a whole other hour of this
video discussing each of the songs in-depth such as their literary mythological
and psychological reference points and I'm also conscious of not devoting enough time
to discussing the album cover which has got to be one of Hipgnosis best covers. These videos sort of
take on a life of their own and i'm surprised at making this how much overall focus and certainly
images centered around Gabriel himself. If you discount the actual lyric writing his overall
input into the music is not that great and Hacketts is almost non-existent. I still
somewhat consider this to be "Gabriel's album". To my ears, the band that made The Lamb
is almost like a completely different band to what made Selling England and Trick of
the Tail. It's kind of the "missing link" in the Genesis chronology, but if i could write
the history of the band any other way i wouldn't! So there you have it, the 'Story of
Rael' - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
