SUPPER’S READY
Foxtrot, 1972
Not just the big daddy of Gabriel-era Genesis epics but the peerless pinnacle of prog. Over 23 minutes, its seven sections wonderfully weave together echoing motifs, fusing elements of classical symphony and rock vigour with almost absurd ambition. Each new passage builds on its predecessors and, against all logic, it works, climbing to a peak of emotion and grandeur as it constructs “a new Jerusalem”, no less. Ask Tony Banks why people rarely make music like this any more and he’ll shrug, “Well… you’re not allowed to. We wanted to go further, to push away from the regular structures.” All change!
Peter Gabriel has hinted that the lyrics were prompted by nightmares his wife had and by the Bible’s Book Of Revelations. There’s also a liberal lashing of surrealism, which might have come out of a game of free association between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud – ‘the frog was a prince, the prince was a brick, the brick was an egg – and the egg was a bird. Hadn’t you heard?’ We visit Willow Farm, Lover’s Leap, and an apocalypse – in 9/8 time, naturally – for good measure. This is high drama.
It is therefore all the more amusing that the song was conceived and put together not atop a windswept mountain or in the Palace of Versailles, but during rehearsals in a refectory beneath the delightfully named Una Billings School Of Dance in London’s Shepherd’s Bush. As Steve Hackett has recalled, the sound of girls upstairs learning tap dancing would “clumpety clump” down through the ceiling. “It was all a bit strange, and the atmosphere influenced our subsequent efforts… you couldn’t be too serious for long.” Mike Rutherford has said luck played a role, because they weren’t always sure what they were doing. “For my part,” Gabriel told this writer, “it was influenced by John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, as later was The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. We were consciously, then, trying to break out of tradition, tossing together different ideas and influences to see if there was a fresh way of putting them all together.
I still enjoy it now.”
And who doesn’t enjoy a curious tale of good versus evil featuring Winston Churchill dressed in drag, the Antichrist and Narcissus turning into a flower? Perhaps the key moment, where everything lurches up a gear
“P eter Gabriel is one of my favourite singers, but I never liked him in Genesis, and their best studio albums for me were always Wind
& Wuthering and A Trick Of The Tail.
Because of this, my best Genesis album is Seconds Out – it features some of the great songs of the first era but played/ recorded better; in particular that live version of Supper’s Ready. It’s probably the only Genesis song I still listen to. The greatness of the songwriting really emerges in the feeling on the live version. There’s something magic in it, and the way Phil delivers the epic finale is just incredible every single time!” – GIANCARLO ERRA, NOsOuNd
and adds impact to all the music that’s come before and is now to come, is the climactic ‘666’ section. “That happened effortlessly, as good music often does,” Rutherford’s said. “When Pete put that ‘666’ vocal over that passage, it felt a bit special. It wasn’t how we’d imagined it. The game got raised.” Banks was at first peeved that his school friend was trying vocals over where he’d planned keyboard solos, but conceded that “there’s a lot of drama in the chords themselves, then what he did on top just took it to another level.” In fact, he’s added, “That half-minute or so is probably our peak.” Most Genesis fans would agree that the whole 23 minutes or so are Genesis’ dazzling zenith. Every time you hear it, it’s “a brand new tune”. CR