Posts Tagged ‘oldsongs’

Peter Gabriel “Modern Love”

If you’re only familiar with Peter Gabriel’s most popular work – “In Your Eyes,” “Sledgehammer,” “Don’t Give Up,” “Games Without Frontiers,” “Biko” – it may come as a surprise that he actually rocked at one point in the late ‘70s. It was certainly a revelation to me, anyway.

“Modern Love” was released on Gabriel’s first solo album in 1977, which came out a few years after he departed from Genesis after touring for their definitive prog masterwork The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I suppose some of that record ~rocks~, but certainly not in the lusty, thrusting, straightforward way that “Modern Love” rocks. It’s hard to imagine that this song wasn’t directly influenced by Led Zeppelin – the main riff feels very Houses of the Holy/Physical Graffiti-era Jimmy Page to me, and those records came out only a few years before this was recorded. The guitar part – played by Robert Fripp, of course! – is offset by an organ part that nods in the general direction of soul music. This all suits Gabriel’s voice very well, so it’s a shame he didn’t really explore this sound more after the late ‘70s.

Gabriel’s vocal performance is about as raw and passionate as he ever got on tape. He’s howling, he’s shouting, he’s rasping like he’s all tapped out but can’t stop going. There’s a lot of self-deprecating humor in this song, with him portraying himself as this grand romantic fool while dropping witty lines about Venus, Lady Godiva, and the Mona Lisa. This is basically a song about being exasperated by sexual frustration, and while that could be played straight, it’s a lot more sympathetic as a farce.

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David Bowie “Up the Hill Backwards”

It’s funny to me that David Bowie recorded three albums in a row with Brian Eno, but waited until the record after that run was completed to make “Up the Hill Backwards,” basically his own version of an Eno rock song. It’s there in the melody, in the affect on Bowie’s vocal performance, and that solo from Robert Fripp. It’s there in the sentiment of the lyrics too, which approach complicated emotions from a cold, logical perspective without losing touch with humanity.

“Up the Hill Backwards” was written in the aftermath of Bowie’s divorce from his first wife, and he acknowledges the feeling of adjusting to a new status quo at the top of the song: “The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom and the possibilities it seems to offer.” It’s a peculiar turn of phrase, but very evocative. The language is so passive and indecisive, and the construction of the line emphasizes the “vacuum” rather than the freedom or possibilities. The melody seems vaguely upbeat, but paired with the lyric, you get the sense that any optimism in the song has been arrived at by a process of elimination. (“Well, I don’t feel miserable or angry or scared, so I must be feeling OK.”)

The rest of the song is like he’s talking himself out of having an ego. “It’s got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it,” he sings in the refrain, seeming a bit like he’s overcompensating for being self-centered and narcissistic in the past. After all, if this is in fact about his divorce, it has something to do with him, right? The passive voice continues through the song, with Bowie singing about the world moving on regardless of what happens to him or anyone else and sounding rather calmed by the notion that nothing really matters, including the difficulties ahead of him.

The odd neutrality of Bowie’s voice in this is countered by Fripp’s guitar part, which is by far the most expressive element of the song. His solo is very melodic, and starts off with this sort of casual bearing before escalating to this frantic peak that suggests a stronger feeling buried beneath the self-imposed rationality of the song – somewhat ecstatic, and more than a little bit terrified.

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