Christopher Rush

I Knew We’d Get There Somehow

See, I told you.  It took an extra year, but we managed to find time to talk about Genesis’s first post-Gabriel-era album, A Trick of the Tail.  As we’ve said elsewhere, it would be fatuous to contrast different albums from the same artist as if they are in competition, and certainly comparing or contrasting different eras of Genesis’s long, multifaceted career, would be especially fruitless.  Some people prefer the Gabriel era, some the Collins era — neither is “wrong” in that preference.  Both are wrong to say one era is “better” than the other.  Different eras, we also said, were marked by different creative tendencies — so we are not here to say A Trick of the Tail is anything other than a great album marked by many continuing elements from the Gabriel era as well as the nascence of new artistic directions (though the radio-friendly “pop music” version of Genesis most know best did not really come about until the line-up was down to Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford — and even then not until their late ’80s releases).  We begin in 7/8 time…

“Dance on a Volcano”

In a complex junction of rhythm and accent, Genesis proves they have not any musical talent in the intervening period transitioning from the Gabriel era to the Collins era (and we would do well to remember Phil Collins didn’t want to be the new vocalist in the first place, so any charges against him of greedily turning a great progressive rock band into a mainstream pop machine are thoroughly ungrounded in reality).  They are truly superlative musicians.  The message of the song is clear enough, once we have waded through the conflicting musical and lyrical barriers intentionally constructed to mimic the ideas presented: life is full of complications and dangers, but it is important.  “You better start doing it right.”  From the very beginning of the album we are reminded why we should always listen to more Genesis: their music is superb and their lyrics are true.

“Entangled”

“Entangled” is another great example of Genesis’s ability to create a thoroughly musically enjoyable song while simultaneously singing about something frightening or miasmatic.  “Miasmatic” works especially well here, considering the song is about a virulent plague and a medical staff only too eager to experiment on patients to find, essentially, a nostrum.  On the other hand, we can’t question how beautiful the music is.  This album is full of songs aesthetically superior to many albums, including other Genesis albums.  The weight of this song increases throughout, making the experience of it exponential until the, as Tony Banks himself put it, “cathedral-like” conclusion.  It is reminiscent of “Comfortably Numb” in a loose way, but it never gets as rock-heavy as Pink Floyd’s song.  Instead the weight comes from the cohesion of various musical lines, driven by the keyboards and not a guitar solo.  It’s still excellent, though.

“Squonk”

“Squonk” is one of those songs you think, from afar, that can’t really work that well, can it? people aren’t going to like it that much, are they?  But somehow, Genesis made it work.  Dipping back briefly into their “songs inspired by myth” mode, Genesis crafts a multi-sectioned song using typical fairy tale accoutrement alluding to the squonk (a ferocious animal in the forests of Pennsylvania that dissolves into tears when captured, according to some), though in typical Genesis fashion, the squonk captured here is not ferocious after all, but a simple, quiet creature preferring to be left alone, afraid of everything, likened to an ugly duckling.  It’s not an anti-hunting song, it’s not a pro-forestry song … it’s another impressive Genesis “getting you to think about it” song, driven by musicianship.

“Mad Man Moon”

Continuing the construction premise of multiple musical sections, “Mad Man Moon” is a kind of ternary form.  I’m tempted to call this song more “conventionally pretty” than “Entangled,” but I don’t want that to be taken as a slight against “Mad Man Moon.”  It truly is a lovely song — Tony Banks’s lyrics are typical Genesis, in that they are evocative and sweet and painful and revivifying at once.  The opening section of longing tinged with regret slowly blends into the middle section of the Sandman, whose castanets and syncopation bring the dreamer/narrator back to the opening melodic section, forcing him and us out of our dreams.  We, too, are “forever caught in desert lands,” but we should heed their warning and not “disbelieve the sea.”  There is more to life than this, but we don’t need to dream to find it or escape ourselves now.

“Robbery, Assault and Battery”

The middle “Sandman” section of the previous song feels like it comes back again, mixed with a call-back to “The Battle of Epping Forest” from Selling England by the Pound.  It’s easy to consider this the weak link on the album, but it’s not as easy to support that claim with meaningful reasoning, other than because it feels so much like “Epping Forest” on a localized scale (individual crimes and felonious altercations, not a massive gang war) it’s not outstanding as the rest of the album.  This is not even a fair criticism, I admit — musically it is engaging and full of variety, as so much of the album is.  The atypical syncopation has not gotten tiresome, even after so much use; it’s just one of those songs that doesn’t quite seem to get where it wants to be, but even still the journey there isn’t all that bad.  I know this is faint praise; perhaps the best I can do now is to say the song deserves far more appreciation than I have given it.  Give it a go yourself.

“Ripples…”

Though most of our collections don’t have the ellipsis, it was there originally, and likewise this song does a tremendous job reminding us of the major musical ideas on the album, fitting much better in with the album as a whole.  Again we have a song characterized by the weight of its sounds.  It tries to overwhelm us with beauty, and it comes pretty close.  If you enjoy songs that are beautiful and worth delighting in, you have found another one, thanks to Genesis.  Delight in this song, friends.  The extended musical break toward the close of the song reminds us of “After the Ordeal” and “The Cinema Show” from Selling England, but that can’t possibly ever be a bad thing.  Don’t be bothered by the lyric reminding us the good times of the past leave and don’t come back.  It is never too late to seek a newer world.  The point of life is to move on the beauty to come — take those memories with you as you sail away to a better life to come.

“A Trick of the Tail”

The penultimate song on this potentially-ultimate album sounds like a mix of “Squonk” and “Robbery,” but that is also not intended as a criticism.  It works well, in part because of the shorter length of this song — it doesn’t allow itself to drag on too long in its imitative mood.  The fantastical lyrics loosely influenced by William Golding’s second novel The Inheritors (again, “loosely”) remind us more often than we like to remember the grass is not greener in other pastures.  If we are not content with what we have now, we will be utterly disappointed wherever we go to find more or other things.  Let’s not be too hasty to leave the cities of gold we are in now, as Candide himself showed us long ago as well.  Better to dream of unnamed streets of gold, anyway.  Leave the searching for cities of gold to Esteban and his friends.

“Los Endos”

Leave it to Genesis to conclude an album driven mostly by beautiful sounds with an instrumental displaying once again their musicianship.  Combining various motifs of most (if not all) of the other songs on the album, “Los Endos” is a perfect “exit music” piece recalling to our aural memories some of the highlights of the forgotten gem we have just heard.  Perhaps more impressive is that the song works by itself, even if you haven’t heard the original sources.  Banks, Collins, Hackett, and Rutherford blend the best bits of previous material into an enjoyably new musical experience in its own right.  We should expect nothing less from these masters of music.  If you are wary of Peter Gabriel’s concept album era, if you are tired of Phil Collin’s radio-friendly pop era, well, first of all, quite frankly, that’s rather silly.  Stop that (I say to you in love).  Then give this middle period album, A Trick of the Tail, a try.  It has a great deal of the best of both other eras with very little of the potential drawbacks.  You will really enjoy this forgotten gem.