If you take a passing glance at Peter Gabriel’s discography over the past 24 years, it seems more than respectable: 12 albums in total. But look closer and you’ll see less than meets the eye. There’s the album of music created for London’s Millennium Dome, much of which features singers other than Gabriel (Ovo). There’s a mostly instrumental movie soundtrack (Long Walk Home, from the Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence). There’s a compilation of various songs made for other movies, or at least heard in them (Rated PG). There’s the album of other people’s songs arranged for orchestra and voice (Scratch My Back). There’s the album of his own older material arranged for orchestra and voice (New Blood). There’s the live album featuring the arrangements of his and others’ songs for orchestra and voice (Live Blood). There are two additional live albums (Growing Up Live and Back to Front: Live in London). There’s a rarities collection (Flotsam and Jetsam). And, of course, there’s a best-of (Hit).
You can find some great stuff in this pile of product if you dig a bit. Gabriel’s version of the Elbow song “Mirrorball” on Scratch My Back is exceptional, and the songs “Father, Son” and “Downside Up” on Ovo are worthy additions to the canon, though you can only hear PG sing the latter tune himself on Growing Up Live. (The Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan, not a shabby twosome, share vocal duties on the studio version.)
Let’s be honest, though. Only the devotees are going to listen to these albums more than once or twice. For all intents and purposes, Peter Gabriel has made just two real records since 1992’s Us: Up (2002) and this year’s i/o. The former is a challenge to sit through all the way—it’s been labored over to the point that it can, paradoxically, often feel unfinished—yet it still contains gems like “I Grieve” (see Part 4) and the tracks listed below. The latter is more approachable by far and, as of this writing, is the No. 1 album in the United Kingdom, Gabriel’s first chart-topper there in 37 years. It’ll never be my favorite work of his, but I’ve grown to like it a lot.
“My Head Sounds Like That” (Up, 2002)
I love many things about this song: the surprising chord choices, the clever mix of Salvation Army-style brass band with organic and synthetic percussion, the nightmarish explosions in the bridge, the way the theme of the lyric seems to expand, smartly, on a single couplet from a PG song of two decades before, “Lay Your Hands on Me” (“Reaction levels much too high/I can do without the stimuli”). But most of all I love what happens at about 2:04 into the recording. Gabriel is holding a falsetto G-sharp over an F-sharp minor chord—already a tasty interval—when he (I think) puts his hand over his mouth rhythmically to approximate the wah-wah effect that a trumpeter gets from a plunger mute. (He may also be closing his lips slightly to make a w sound. Or it might be studio trickery.) My interpretation could be wrong, but I’ve always considered this subtly off-the-wall moment a tribute to another English prog-rock vocalist, the remarkable Robert Wyatt, who long ago mastered the whole mouth-trumpet thing; for just one example, check out his “Born Again Cretin.” It’s well known that Wyatt has major respect for Gabriel—he covered “Biko” back in the ’80s—and I’d say the feeling is mutual.
“The Drop” (Up, 2002)
The shortest song on Up closes the album in a state of what seems at first to be absolute simplicity—one voice, one piano—but the elliptical lyrics complicate matters quickly. Why are people jumping from an airplane? Why are the city lights below going out one by one? The fact that this song was released just a couple of weeks after the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks heavily influenced my (and, I presume, just about everyone’s) reaction to it. Gabriel’s singing is quiet, haunted. His words break apart in the middle. The vocal persona from the beginning of “Humdrum” (see Part 1) has returned. Underneath the simple beauty of the music, something is happening, and it’s not good. Maybe the best one can do at a moment of crisis, when all communication becomes a struggle, is to sing oneself a lullaby.
“Courage” (Flotsam and Jetsam, 2019)
This song first appeared as a bonus track on the 25th-anniversary edition of So, which was released with typical punctuality 26 years after the original album. Gabriel and co-producer Daniel Lanois recorded it during the So sessions but set it aside unfinished. Some work was done years later to complete it, but the extent of that work is unclear. The vocals sure sound like ’80s PG—in fact, they sound like early-’80s PG, cut with the same paranoid edge that distinguished Melt’s “I Don’t Remember” and Security’s “The Family and the Fishing Net.” The opening line certainly grabs a listener’s attention: “I’ve been beating my head against a rubber wall,” sung to a high pleading melody that plunges down a seventh on “wall” as if to underscore the seriousness of the situation. And the way Gabriel repeats the words “pumping out,” with a cracked insistence that makes you question his sanity, is very “Shock the Monkey.” Clearly, “Courage” wasn’t necessary for So, but it’s a top-notch tune nevertheless and I’m glad it got resurrected.
“Four Kinds of Horses” (i/o, 2023)
Gloom-laden brooding of the classic PG type, with Gabriel doing his best to lay on the sinister in the early going. Listen to the line that ends the first verse: “They fill your head.” The h in “head” is introduced with so much excess air that it hisses like an accusation. Between the trademark yelps, craggy cries and slips in and out of falsetto, Gabriel’s voice courses with an anger—and a confidence—that’s instantly compelling.
“Playing for Time” (i/o, 2023)
Last on my list, yes, but least certainly not. This is a true highlight of the Gabriel solo catalog, a touching meditation on the passing of the years. And, no surprise, it’s also a staggeringly great vocal performance, packed with meaningful moments big and small. A small moment comes in the line “The young move to the center.” You expect Gabriel to hang on to the final syllable of “center” for a second, but instead he cuts it off with an abruptness that seems almost ruthless, and you’re left to ponder the sudden quiet. A big moment comes when he temporarily abandons language and breaks into two wordless, impassioned up-and-down glissandi, the first ending high, the second ending higher. Longtime fans may feel a light mist around the eyes at this point. Overall, I’m more partial to Mark “Spike” Stent’s “Bright-Side” Mix of i/o than Tchad Blake’s “Dark-Side” mix, but I have to give Blake the edge here, because he cranks PG’s voice up louder than Stent during the big moment.
Gabriel has strongly hinted that another album of new songs will be coming sooner rather than later. But given how long it took him to finish i/o, I wouldn’t bet on that. And if the Fates decree that this is his last work, so be it. With several artful compositions—“Four Kinds of Horses,” “Olive Tree,” “This Is Home,” the title track, and especially “Playing for Time”—Gabriel has only further strengthened a musical legacy that was already unassailable.
In thanks for your indulgence, here’s the full 25-song playlist that I’ve been discussing over these five parts.
Next time: A Hall of Fame songwriter’s unusual interest in a type of edible tuber.