After listening to Trick of the Tail for the millionth time, but for the first time since the 80s, I would just like to remind everyone that after Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford were the 2nd and 3rd greatest members of Genesis.
Phil Collins only sucked as a front man. As drummer on that album, he was
excellent. Collins should go down in musical history as a great talent who simply didn't have the intellectual or moral chops to be a lead man. But it would be unfair not to acknowledge that he was part of a great band's greatest album, even
after that band's heart and soul departed, and that isn't nothing.
I am reading up on the album, and
Mad Man Moon, which has always been a dear favorite of mine, is even more piquant. The first phrase and frame is cliche, and I remember the first time hearing I rolled my eyes. But Jesus f-ck, what happens then. The consensus is Banks wrote it as a plea to Gabriel to think again. The rough structure is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but that's just the bones, which are austere (like the book). Inside the structure, when we fall through with Spanish guitar, the song which is sweet and vulnerable, and is Banks telling Gabriel he thinks he has made a mistake, albeit understandably, and it's not too late. In the event it either was not heard or it was already too late.
