'So I went from day to day, though my life was in a rut. The band could not understand this and that really pissed Peter off. His family was far more important than writing an album. It was a matter of life and death for him. Peter was mad because to him there was no question what his priorities were. They were mad because Peter was gone all the time. No one else in the band had been married or had kids at this point (besides Phil Collins) and so they didn't understand. The band were writing music in one room while Peter was writing lyrics to what was already there in another room or wasn't there at all to attend to his wife. This meant that he was absent during much of the writing.

So Peter was making these long trips back and forth between London and where the band were writing and recording out in the middle of nowhere England. The tipping point came during the writing for 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.' Gabriel's wife was going through a horrible pregnancy and they didn't think his daughter was going to survive. Gabriel was beginning to realize that he could not last for long being 'tied down to the old hierarchy.' His creative ambitions were exceeding those of the rest of the band. It needs one clear and coherent direction, which their democratic system of writing could not accomplish. He also felt that a concept album, AKA a story, should be written by one person. Gabriel wanted to give this album a little bit of 'balls', as he puts it, and no one else in the band was going to deliver that. On top of that, the band had decided to write a concept album - The Lamb. You had to turn up to the studio every morning at 9am and you were either 100% committed or you weren't at all. Gabriel hated knowing exactly where he was going to be in 18 months, as he did with Genesis. They would schedule gigs non-stop with hardly any breaks. He refers to Genesis as 'the machinery.' It was a constant cycle of write, record, tour, write, record, tour. 'To keep in silence, I resigned.'īesides all these internal things, Genesis was getting on his nerves as well. He felt as though he was just going through the motions. The music didn't touch him the way it used to. He no longer got the butterflies before shows. This was far from the truth and Gabriel hated the attention.īut as much as he hated the attention at first, he was beginning to enjoy it, which was taking him away from his audience. Because he and his costumes were the focal point of live shows, everyone assumed Peter wrote all the music, all the lyrics, set up the stage, and that the rest of the band were just his backing band. He was being thrust out as the star of a group whose works had actually been evenly divided between the 5 members. He was fed up with the industry and life as a rock star in general. You could go line by line and it all makes perfect sense considering the situation he was in at the time. But to Peter Gabriel it is about his decision to leave Genesis.

So Solsbury Hill could essentially be about anything you want it to be about. He is never quite literal with anything which means many of his songs have a personal meaning to him just like they may have a completely different personal meaning to you. But he is so good at hiding the exact meaning.

General CommentAnybody who knows Peter Gabriel knows that he likes to take personal experiences of his own (even those in dreams) and write songs about them. 'Hey', I said, 'you can keep my things, they've come to take me home' I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant 'Hey', he said, 'grab your things, I've come to take you home' 'Son', he said, 'grab your things, I've come to take you home'

My heart going boom boom boom lyrics