From the Sappy Song Department
“In Your Eyes”, Peter Gabriel, (1986)
I remember wearing the cassette tape out of this album in my knock-off ‘walkman’ tape player. I played the crap out of the “So” album. I loved “Red Rain”, “Sledgehammer”, “Don’t Give Up”, and “Mercy Street”. The one that struck me the deepest was “In Your Eyes”. I played this tape walking, doing my laundry, washing my dishes, driving my car, in a plane, on a train. I believe I liked it Sam-I-Am!
Peter Gabriel, (already hugely famous in Genesis1), left the band to pursue his own projects in 1975. His wife had a very difficult pregnancy and he opted to stay home with his subsequently sick daughter and wife. The rest of the band resented it, but that was the end of Genesis. The song “Salisbury Hill”, his first solo single is about leaving Genesis. It seems to me that Gabriel made the right call.
Gabriel used to recite dream-like stories before songs on stage with Genesis. His work is deeply emotional and symbolic, even spiritual. The sound darkly engineered at times – he worked with Robert Fripp, who was highly experimental with the production of sound. Add some Afro-World percussion and the soulful Senegalese Youssou N'Dour, and you have a monumental, unforgettable song.
