Nevertheless, the sheer power of the words on In The Air Tonight – particularly when matched with its suspenseful synthscapes and doom-filled drum fills – are hugely evocative, so it’s hardly surprising that the song has led people’s minds to run wild. “The verses have a bit of a storyline,” Collins admitted, “but there’s no link necessarily between them and the anger.” “I opened my mouth and they came out.” The singer has refused to give credence to any conspiracy theory – such as one where he invited the drowning man’s murderer to a concert and then singled him out in the crowd – instead claiming the song’s lyrics are just an abstract expression of his rage following his split from his wife. “The lyrics you hear for In The Air Tonight, I just sang,” Collins revealed. Astoundingly, however, the truth behind the song is far more mysterious. With its dark and haunting lyrics (“If you told me you were drowning/I would not lend a hand”), countless urban legends have sprung up claiming that the song was inspired by an incident in which Collins witnessed a man drowning, but did nothing to save him (even rapper Eminem has been guilty of spreading this myth, in his famous hit Stan). There has been much speculation as to what In The Air Tonight is actually about. All that stuff is in In The Air Tonight,” Collins said on the Face Value episode of the British TV documentary series Classic Albums, “and then finally losing your temper at the end when the drums come in.” The inspiration: “The lyrics you hear for In The Air Tonight, I just sang. Loud and echo-laden, the drum fills Collins launches into see him channel his marital woes into an era-defining classic, heavy with deep-seated emotion and gravitas. It was in this moment that Collins well and truly thundered into the 80s, introducing the world to the new drum sound that he and Padgham had pioneered. Despite being so sparsely-arranged, imbued as it is with a hypnotic and slow-burning atmosphere, In The Air Tonight’s memorable vocal hook (“I can feel it coming in the air tonight”) proves indelibly captivating for the song’s three and a half minutes, building a weight of unbearable anticipation before its earth-shattering drum break. “I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing.” With only a lo-fi drum pattern to guide his vocal, Collins described the song as being “99.9 percent sung spontaneously, the words dreamt up from out of nowhere.” However, the trauma of Collins’ divorce seemed to be creeping into his psychology – in 2016, the singer noted that In The Air Tonight contained “a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration”.Īs the time came to record his debut solo album, Face Value, at Townhouse Studios – again with producer Hugh Padgham – Collins was keen to embrace the gated reverb drum effect they’d discovered. “I was just fooling around,” Collins later explained. Turning his master bedroom into a makeshift studio, Collins demoed In The Air Tonight at some point in 1980, eschewing the prog-based complexity of Genesis in favour of a simple three-chord structure and a decidedly minimalist arrangement. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing” The recording: “I was just fooling around. “If you don’t know the rules,” the musician wrote in his memoir, Not Dead Yet, “you don’t know what rules you’re breaking.” Capturing material that was largely informed by the personal turmoil he was going through following the breakdown of his marriage to Andrea Bertorelli, Collins began tinkering around with a CR78 drum machine, aided by ethereal Prophet-5 synth backing. This new sonic discovery – seemingly stumbled upon by accident due to a quirk in Padgham’s SSL console – inspired Collins to lay down some demos at home. “Phil was a guest player on the album and he was mucking around with a drum sound.” ![]() ![]() “The whole sound really was discovered when Phil was in playing drums on a song called Intruder,” Padgham later explained. The seeds of his sonic volte-face – the soon-to-be iconic gated reverb drum effect – were planted after Collins participated in recording sessions for Peter Gabriel’s self-titled 1978 album with producer Hugh Padgham. With his bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford branching out into solo work, Collins began to consider embarking on a project of his own. Having been promoted from drummer to lead singer in Genesis since the departure of their original frontman, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins had well and truly found his voice by the late 70s. The drum sound: “If you don’t know the rules, you don’t know what rules you’re breaking”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |