Perhaps appropriately, perhaps inevitably, this review has to be broken up into two parts, it's so long - overrunning the maximum character allowance for one post - and it stands as Genesis's first, and only, double studio album. It also remains to this day their most controversial and debated one, and provides the swan song for their leader and founder, main man, vocalist and principle lyricist, as he departs these shores, perhaps with a manic sense of satisfaction that he has left behind him a conundrum as impossible to unravel as the Gordian Knot.
There has been endless debate as to what this album's concept is about, and even its writer will not come clean, if he even knows. Very much the baby of Peter Gabriel, it was he who wrote all the lyrics, he who created the concept and he who kept extremely tight control over what would turn out to be the last Genesis album he would work on, the controversy over which rages even to this day among Genesis fans. In the seventies, concept albums were cool. Pink Floyd, Yes, Jethro Tull and David Bowie had all released concept albums, some of which had gone on to become classics. With their love of storytelling, their passion for long, epic, multi-part suites and their education in the classics, Genesis seemed the perfect band to follow, or even redefine, this practice.
But there's a problem. Most concept albums have a story or plot you can follow, or try to piece together. This one, frankly, still bewilders me. Which is not to say that it's not a great album, because it is, but when you write a concept, it's a good idea I feel to let the listeners and fans in on your thought processes, even a little. As far as I can see, Gabriel played his cards so close to his chest here that he virtually excluded his fanbase, and left a lot of people wondering what the hell was
that all about?
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974)
It's a rippling piano that opens the album with the title track, and you definitely get a sense of a movie or a theatre production as the music swells and bursts into the boppy melody, in which we're introduced to the protagonist, a Puerto Rican street punk who goes by the name of Rael (an anagram for real? Like just about everything about this album, I don't know but it's possible) as he emerges from some vandalism in the local subway -
”Rael, imperial aerosol kid/ Exits into daylight, spraygun hid” and witnesses the very odd phenomenon of a lamb appearing and lying down before him. On, you know, Broadway. This song rides on a hard guitar line from Steve Hackett but in the middle it falls to Banks to take the sprinkling, shimmering melody as Gabriel tries to put into words what Rael sees. With a group vocal singing
”On Broadway”, Gabriel purloins The Drifters' “On Broadway” for the ending of the song, and things, already a little weird, go completely off the rails.
“Fly On a Windshield” (the use of the Americanised word, whereas we would say windscreen, lending some credence to the fact that Genesis were trying to appeal to an American audience, but then after all, this does all take place in New York City so, you know, when in Rome. Or on Broadway...) comes in on a soft piano and choral vocals on the Pro Soloist with acoustic guitar, very ethereal and almost spiritual, as a cloud forms around Rael and moves towards him, he being apparently the only one who can see it, and filching from the midsection of “Harold the Barrel” Hackett softens the mood even more before hitting with an unexpected punch as the verse ends. A big, booming, driving drumbeat now takes the tune, stomping along as the cloud envelops Rael and crashing musically at least into the “Broadway Melody of 1974”. Still thumping along, there are many references to the old movie stars, like Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce and other figures of the time such as Howard Hughes and even the Ku Klux Klan. It's a confused and confusing song, deftly written yes, and I'm sure there's some sense in it but I can't make any out.
To be fair, the guy who writes the Wiki page for this album makes a good stab (whether correct or not I have no idea) at understanding/explaining it, and his take is that while Rael is enveloped in the mysterious cloud that only he can see, these images play out across the moviescreen-sized viewer in front of him. Hey, it's as good an explanation as any, and better than any I could come up with! A short, sweet and laidback guitar etude, presumably meant to represent Rael falling asleep, takes us then into “Cuckoo Cocoon”, where he awakes to find himself encased in a chrysalis, deep underground. A truly gorgeous piece of guitar from Hackett opens the song, a short one at only two minutes and change, but it runs then into one of the standouts on the album, “In the Cage”, where everything changes and the music takes on a much more manic, frenetic tone, semi-carnival with a real underlying element of horror. With a slow bassline resembling a heartbeat and swirling keys, its starts gently enough, but Banks's Mellotron soon begins the
carnivale and dark voices issue from the Pro Soloist, as things begin to take shape. Trapped in his odd cage, Rael looks beyond its bars and sees others imprisoned like him, then beyond them, he catches sight of the figure of his brother, John. He entreats him to help him, but John just looks at him and runs away, leaving Rael to his fate.
The sense of panic woven by the music here is a credit to Genesis, who really create an almost claustrophobic atmosphere, with keyboard flurries by Banks almost taunting Rael with their power to run free and do as they please. As the music slows into a grand almost waltz, dark and doomy, Rael realises that the cage is dissolving, but he himself is now beginning to spin, as the music resumes the carnival tempo, fast, energetic, crazy, spiralling, spinning; unable to do anything, he staggers and faints. When he comes to, he finds himself in a factory, where he watches “The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging”, human bodies being packaged up as product. This is I believe the first and possibly only time Genesis invited another performer onto their album, and here it is Brian Eno, whose weird soundscapes (he or they call them Enossifications) really paint a vivid picture of the weird assembly line. Gabriel's voice is distorted by Eno to make him sound quite alien, and the music trips along on a sort of shuffle, only short of finger-clicks, building towards something as Rael watches the odd spectacle of
”People stocked in every shade/ Must be doing well with trade/ Stamped, addressed in odd fatality/ That evens out their personality” and for the first time in a while Gabriel gets to unleash the manic side of his voice.
What this is about, of course, I have no idea, although it could be a clever comment on the wasting of human resources, or how people are treated like commodities. “Back in NYC” is new wave ten years before it hit, with a burbling synth from Banks leading the line, and Gabriel screaming the vocal, which seems to look back to Rael's start as a street gang member. Interesting possible irony when he snarls
”Your progressive hypocrites hand out the trash/ But it was mine in the first place/ So I'll burn it to ash!” This is indeed suddenly a very different Genesis, and it's obvious to see that Gabriel was, through his bandmates, trying out ideas that would surface on his own solo albums, as this in particular reminds me of the main melody from “On the air” off his second one. It's also clear from the lyric here that Rael is not anyone's hero; in fact, if anything he's an anti-hero, as he spits
”I don't care who I hurt/ I don't care who I do wrong!”
It's also worth noting that this is an album that uses the word “rape”, and although music uses that liberally now, in 1974 this was surely a big culture shock, especially from a band who had, up to that time, not been known for their abrasive lyrics. To put it simply, through Gabriel's acerbic lyrics Genesis had got angry all of a sudden. It's very raw, very in-your-face; for a band more used to gentle acoustic interludes and songs about nymphs and wolves, this is a major change for Genesis, which may be one of the reasons why it didn't sit too well with the other bandmembers. At least there's a guitar instrumental in “Hairless Heart” before Gabriel pushes the envelope further with a wickedly tongue-in-cheek but risque song about sexual practices in “Counting Out Time”, with a real rocking beat and a sly grin and a twist of the lip in a devil-may-care vocal from Gabriel.
”Erogenous zones I love you!” he exults.
”Without you, what would a poor boy do?” And those who have been brought up on albums like
Selling England by the Pound, Foxtrot and
Nursery Cryme shake their heads and wonder what the world is coming to when a band like Genesis can sing about teenage sex?
Genesis! Is
nothing sacred? It's got a very poppy, almost David Cassidy style about it, which jars violently with the OTT lyric and the unexpectedly harsh guitar that punches through, reminding us this is a
rock song, dammit, not pop! Something like a kazoo leaves us wondering though. We may also wonder where the story has gone at this point, and don't ask me because I really have no idea, but this attempts to get it somewhat back on track, with the return of that soft, rippling piano from the opener and another standout, “The Carpet Crawl”.
A gentle vocal from Gabriel tells us that Rael has found himself in a chamber, along the floor of which people crawl, trying to reach the door, which is at the top of stairs they cannot climb. Opinions differ wildly about what the chamber is, but I like the idea that it is the womb, where fertilised eggs struggle towards the light to be born. Or maybe not. In any case, it's driven, once it gets going, on a lovely guitar melody, and paraphrases Hawkwind's
Choose Your Masques when he sings
“We've got to get in to get out” as its main chorus motif. It really is a beautiful song, the first ballad on the album and a fine example of Steve Hackett's unbridled talent. There's a slight increase in intensity as the song progresses, perhaps to reflect the anxiety of the carpet crawlers as they try to reach the faraway door, but basically it keeps the same melody throughout until it fades out at the end. I should also mention there is some truly stunning backing vocalwork here from the others, notably Collins.
Rael, of course, not having to crawl, is easily able to reach the portal and walking through it finds himself in “The Chamber of 32 Doors”, unsure which one to exit via. Around him, people rush to and fro, trying different doors, trying to find the right one. A metaphor for decisions made, perhaps, or the fear in all of us of taking the wrong path at a crucial time in our lives? There's also cold irony in the discovery that those who manage to make it out of the room below only really exchange one prison for another, as they wander here through door after door, returning to the same place every time, trapped in almost a repeating loop. A powerful guitar kicks the melody off, and Rael, just like everyone else, finds that it's hard to pick the right door. Bells peal and choral vocals then give way to a rising, urgent keyboard line and a hopping bassline as Gabriel considers the merits of country folk and workingmen, preferring to trust
”A man who works with his hands” than a businessman, perhaps a shot at their treatment by record companies in the past? Nice piano lines from Banks, and for a six-minute song it goes through many changes. In the end, Rael sinks down, exhausted, as
”Every single door that I walk through/ Brings me back here again” and he prays for
”Someone to believe in/Someone to trust.”
This brings to an end the first disc, and rather appropriately too, as we leave Rael confused and alone, desperate, not knowing which door to choose, literally at a crossroads in his life, trying to find the path that will take him away from this eternal loop of time.