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Rating: The story of this album begins right with the title track that Peter Gabriel wrote during the band's American tour at the end of 1973: "I am impressed by New York at dawn, sleepy people coming out on the street after spending the night at the cinema. Shops are beginning to open, the first taxis are running, and our hero, Rael, is slipping out from the subway underpass. There's a lamb on the sidewalk of Broadway and many people are wondering who or what this lamb is, but it's just a lamb, from the sheep family. I liked seeing it there, on the sidewalk, among the steam of the heating systems coming up from below...".
The poetic-musical subject of The Lamb Lies On Broadway begins to take shape in Gabriel's mind: melodies, ideas, scenographies. For months, he works alone on this project, but there's a problem to solve: getting the other band members to accept this "ego trip," especially Banks and Collins, who absolutely don't want to play the part of simple supporting players, even if it will be the latter who delays Peter's departure. Collins would say some time later: "During the recordings, my participation wasn't as decisive as other times; I had other things on my mind and spent a lot of time talking with Brian Eno, who occasionally came to give us a hand. But on that record, there were some beautiful things and especially that opportunity to dissapear into improvisation that was the thing that interested me most back then". So, while Gabriel continues describing the music of The Lamb as a tremendous big jump for the group, the others see it all as a too risky change of course.
Genesis is already a band gratified by the success of Selling England By The Pound, which has definitively imposed them on international attention, and by the enthusiastic responses of their live act (the Los Angeles Times described it as the "best example of theater ever offered by rock, a collage between fairy tale and science fiction lived in a mythical key"). And then why abandon finally victorious choices, in a moment of such great popularity, in favor of an originality perhaps difficult and ungrateful? It is precisely the miraculous sales of Selling England that act as a glue within the group because if it's true that Banks and Rutherford created Genesis expressing their musical style, it's equally true that Gabriel's admirable visual-theatrical art has "saved" the group from oblivion in the challenging years preceding the commercial breakthrough.
So, retiring to the tranquil Welsh countryside with Island's mobile studio, the five begin to record what will be one of the wonders of rock; a courageous work, completely different from their discography and also the last one by Gabriel with his old companions. For three weeks, working sometimes up to twenty hours a day, the artistic divergences between Gabriel and the others emerge sharply: on one side the frontman who sees music as an element not an end in itself, but in function of an ever more scenographic-spectacular role, almost like a soundtrack, on the other four musicians increasingly striving towards refinement, especially stylistic-musical. In the end, a sort of coup that Gabriel imposes on his companions, for the first time almost entirely responsible on a compositional level for the whole album. Particularly struck by the film El Topo, Gabriel gives free rein to his creative selfishness by overturning the band's classical and folk roots in favor of a new more rhythmically concise sound sometimes close to funk-soul, other times imbued with strong electronic echoes with meticulously arranged arrangements and great synthesizer work. A true sonic adventure with free instrumental research far removed from the "progressive" rock that at that time was moving towards a slow decline.
Gabriel finds the right pace even in the lyrics, bypassing the old stylistic elements of the epic novel and symbolist fairy tales linked to that English literary avant-garde that refers to writers like Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Barker, adopting a visionary poetics, a demystifying surrealism where a world dehumanized by progress and full of false heroes is exposed in a irreverent and clear way as happens in Broadway Melody 1974. The unease of man imprisoned in a consumerist and value-arid society wandering in search of itself and its illusions: "They say the lights are bright on Broadway, they say there's always magic in the air". After four months a atypical concept double-album comes out: four sides, all linked to each other, by a kind of "musical scheming", as Rutherford said at the time, and not a true suite, as for example was the second part of Foxtrot. The compositions, despite having a unitary story, can equally free themselves from the original context and assume a well-defined autonomous form. In 36 episodes is narrated the story of a young Puerto Rican thug named Rael who travels between dreams-nightmares of his subconscious in the meanders of an unsettling New York. The music moves in step with the images evoked by the lyrics that develop through a series of oppositions of archetypes full of allegories, dark symbols as in the desolation of "The Light Dies Down On Broadway" and in the visions of "Carpet Crawlers". Genesis broadens and diversifies in various facets the area of expressive possibilities of rock in conjunction with a whole collateral development of harmonies, of rhythmic solutions. The strength of The Lamb lies precisely in this emotional and aesthetic perfection derived from a new sound, in the ability to appropriate the rock idiom to later refine it, elaborate it, and find new suggestions. Here's the importance of this album: to deeply change musical matrices that now stagnate in sound rhetoric as an end in themselves and renew them with surprising eclecticism. In a crescendo of musical chiaroscuros, soul, the avant-garde, pop melody are reviewed, and above all rises Gabriel's voice, with that astonishing expressive charge, that chromatic richness, and that extreme versatility. English critics wrote: "The sound achieved in this album represents the best that music has offered to date". But it's not only the sound of The Lamb that is perfect; it is a masterpiece of musicality that closes, summarizes, and overturns all the sonic contributions from Foxtrot onwards. The meticulous work of choice and selection produces extraordinary effects. The rock of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway with its insistently heavy guitar riff prepares "Fly On A Windshield", where the destructive cloud descending on Broadway is described with black key rhythm and a great work by Collins and Rutherford. An old Hackett melody, expertly played on guitar picks, creates the suspended atmosphere of "Cockoo Cocoon", while right after Banks' ARP is a sound carpet crescendo for "In The Cage".
In Rael, there are a thousand cells of a hypersensitive and hypercomplexioned creature, which is why the moods unfold in a thousand directions, now on the strange "march" of "The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging" where we find very special voice effects cared by Brian Eno, now in the hypnotic aggression of the urban nightmare "Back In N.Y.C."; it is unpredictable music that bends on itself, returns to its principle to snap towards the future as in the splendid instrumental "Hairless Heart" or in the poignant melodies that blossom like memories and advance inexorably through the notes of "Counting On Time". "Carpet Crawlers" is a moving ballad that Gabriel describes as "a Leonard Cohen song arranged by Phil Spector" and the enchanting "The Lamia" with piano and bass that take over everything. Everything is perfect: the country of "The Chamber Of 32 Doors" and two old songs written four years earlier reunited and completely rearranged in jam sessions titled "Lilywhite Lilith". The Latin American rhythms of "Here Comes The Supernatural Anaesthetist", "Anyway" are fragments of another piece dated 1968 and faithfully reproduced on a record with no retouching. "Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats" instead prepares the flashes of psychedelia that break into the formidable pop structures of "The Colony Of Slippermen". The anguish, the search for a way out, the remedy of Doktor Dyper and again the curse of the thieving crow, the rescue of John (Rael's brother) are the descriptive musical drawing of "Ravine", the piece closest to the old Genesis style, and of "The Light Lies Down On Broadway" which resumes the title track theme. Then comes "Riding the Scree" and "In The Rapids" where Rael looking at John's face sees himself. "It" is the end of the journey, but the end is merely another beginning: "It is the spirit inside everyone of us, with that much force to survive. If you think It is pretentious you have been fooled: look through the mirror before you decide".
With this visual-musical treatise that crosses the history of Genesis like lightning, ends the cycle of romantic-impressionist rock opened by King Crimson. At the end of a mega tour of 102 dates in just four months, in May 1975, the Archangel leaves the band after a memorable concert in St. Etienne. Gabriel will explain the reasons for his farewell in a long open letter: "I had a dream, a dream with eyes wide open. Then I had another dream, with body and soul of a rockstar. When it became unpleasant I packed it up and threw it away. Examining its reasons, musical and otherwise, these are the conclusions. The vehicle we had built as a cooperative to serve our music had become our master, had trapped us in the success we wanted, influenced the attitude and spirit of the whole group. The music had not dried up yet and I respect the other musicians, but our roles had stiffened. I believe that the use of sound and visual image can be developed to achieve much more than we have done".
Time will confirm an undeniable truth that escaped contemporaries: Gabriel was Genesis and Genesis was Gabriel.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (04:45)
The lamb lies down on Broadway
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Early morning Manhattan,
Ocean winds blow on the land.
The Movie-Palace is now undone,
The all-night watchmen have had their fun.
Sleeping cheaply on the midnight show,
It's the same old ending-time to go.
Get out!
It seems they cannot leave their dream.
There's something moving in the sidewalk steam,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Nightime's flyers feel their pains.
Drugstore takes down the chains.
Metal motion comes in bursts,
But the gas station can quench that thirst.
Suspension cracked on unmade road
The trucker's eyes read 'Overload'
And out on the subway,
Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid
Exits into daylight, spraygun hid,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
The lamb seems right out of place,
Yet the Broadway street scene finds a focus in its face.
Somehow it's lying there,
Brings a stillness to the air.
Though man-made light, at night is very bright,
There's no whitewash victim,
As the neons dim, to the coat of white.
Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid,
Wipes his gun-he's forgotten what he did,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
Suzanne tired her work all done,
Thinks money-honey-be on-neon.
Cabman's velvet glove sounds the horn
And the sawdust king spits out his scorn.
Wonder women draw your blind!
Don't look at me! I'm not your kind.
I'm Rael!
Something inside me has just begun,
Lord knows what I have done,
And the lamb lies down on Broadway.
On Broadway-
They say the lights are always bright on Broadway.
They say there's always magic in the air.
02 Fly on a Windshield (02:45)
There's something solid forming in the air,
and the wall of death is lowered in Times Square.
No one seems to care,
they carry on as if nothing's there.
The wind is blowing harder now,
blowing dust into my eyes.
The dust settles on my skin,
making a crust I cannot move in.
And I'm hovering like a fly,
waiting for the windshield on the freeway.
04 Cuckoo Cocoon (02:11)
Rael regains consciousness in some musky half-light. He is warmly wrapped in some sort of cocoon. The only sound he can hear is dripping water which appears to be the source of a pale flickering light. He guesses he must be in some sort of cave - or kooky tomb, or catacomb, or eggshell waiting to drop from the bone of the womb.
Wrapped up in some powdered wool - I guess I'm losing touch.
Don't tell me this is dying, 'cos I ain't changed that much.
The only sound is water drops, I wonder where the hell I am,
Some kind of jam?
Cuckoo Cocoon have I come to, too soon for you?
There's nothing I can recognise; this is nowhere that I've known.
With no sign of life at all, I guess that I'm alone,
And I feel so secure that I know this can't be real
but I feel good.
Cuckoo cocoon have I come to, too soon for you?
I wonder if I'm a prisoner locked in some Brooklyn jail
- or some sort of Jonah shut up inside the whale.
No - I'm still Rael and I'm stuck in some kind of cave.
what could've saved me?
Cuckoo cocoon have I come to, too soon for you?
Resigning himself to the unknown he drifts off into sleep.
05 In the Cage (08:14)
I got sunshine in my stomach
Like I just rocked my baby to sleep.
I got sunshine in my stomach
But I can't keep me from creeping sleep,
Sleep, deep in the deep.
Rockface moves to press my skin
White liquids turn sour within
Turn fast - turn sour
Turn sweat - turn sour.
Must tell myself that I'm not here.
I'm drowning in a liquid fear.
Bottled in a strong compression,
My distortion shows obsession
In the cave.
Get me out of this cave !
If I keep self-control,
I'll be safe in my soul.
And the childhood belief
Brings a moment's relief,
But my cynic soon returns
And the lifeboat burns.
My spirit just never learns.
Stalactites, stalagmites
Shut me in, lock me tight.
Lips are dry, throat is dry.
Feel like burning, stomach churning,
I'm dressed up in a white costume
Padding out left-over room.
Body stretching, feel the wretching
In the cage
Get me out of the cage!
In the glare of a light
I see a strange kind of sight;
O cages joined to from a star
Each person can't go very far;
All tied to their things
They are netted by their strings,
Free to flutter in memories of their wasted wings.
Outside the cage I see my brother John,
He turn his head so slowly round.
I cry out "Help!" before he can be gone,
And he looks at me without a sound.
And I shout out "John please help me !"
But he does not even want to try to speak.
I'm helpless in my violent rage
And a silent tear of blood dribbles down his cheek.
My little runaway.
In a trap, feel a starp
Holding still, Pinned for kill.
Chances narrow that I'll make it,
In the cushioned straitjacket.
Just like 22nd St,
And they got me by my neck and feet.
Pressure's building, can't take more.
My headache's charged. Earaches roar.
In this pain
Get me out of this pain.
If I could change to liquid,
I could fill the cracks up in the rock,
But I know that I am solid
And I am my own bad luck.
Outside John disappears and my cage dissolves,
And without any reason my body revolvess.
Keep on turning
Keep on turning
Keep on turning
Keep on turning
Keep on turning
Turning around
Just spinning around.
Down, down, down..........
06 The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging (02:45)
When all this revolution is over, he sits down on a highly polished floor while his dizziness fades away. It is an empty modern hallway and the dreamdoll saleslady sits at the reception desk. Without prompting she goes into her rap: "This is the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging, those you are about to see are all in for servicing, except for a small quantity of our new product, in the second gallery. It is all the stock required to cover the existing arrangements of the enterprise. Different batches are distributed to area operators, and there are plenty of opportunities for the large investor. They stretch from the costly care-conditioned to the most reasonable mal-nutritioned. We find here that everyone's looks become them. Except for the low market mal-nutritioned, each is provided with a guarantee for a successful birth and trouble free infancy. There is however only a small amount of variable choice potential - not too far from the mean differential. You see, the roof has predetermined the limits of ac
tion of any group of packages, but individuals may move off the path if their diversions are counter-balanced by others."
"It's the last great adventure left to mankind"
- Screams a drooping lady
offering her dreamdolls at less than extortionate prices,
and as the notes and coins are taken out
I'm taken in, to the factory floor.
for the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- All ready to use
the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- I just need a fuse.
Got people stocked in every shade,
Must be doing well with trade.
Stamped, addressed, in odd fatality.
That evens out their personality.
With profit potential marked by a sign,
I can recognise some of the production line,
No bite at all in labour bondage,
Just wrinkled wrappers or human bandage.
Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- All ready to use
it's the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- I just need a fuse.
As he wanders along the line of packages, Rael notices a familiarity in some of their faces. He finally comes upon some of the members of his old gang and worries about his own safety. Running out through the factory floor, he catches sight of his brother John with a number 9 stamped on his forehead.
The hall runs like clockwork
Their hands mark out the time;
Empty in their fullness
Like a frozen pantomime.
Everyone's a sales representative
Wearing slogans in their shrine.
Dishing out failsafe superlative,
Brother John is No. 9.
it's the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- All ready to use
it's the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- I just need a fuse.
The decor on the ceiling
has planned out their future day
I see no sign of free will,
so I guess I have to pay,
pay my way,
for the Grand Parade...
it's the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- All ready to use
it's the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging
- I just need a fuse.
07 Back in N.Y.C. (05:34)
No-one seems to take up the chase, and with the familiar faces fresh in his mind he moves into a reconstruction of his old life, above ground - Too much time was one thing he didn't need, so he used to cut through it with a little speed. He was better off dead, than slow in the head. His momma and poppa had taken a ride on his back, so he left very quickly to join The Pack.
I see faces and traces of home back in New York City -
So you think I'm a tough kid? Is that what you heard?
Well I like to see some action and it gets into my blood.
The call me the trail blazer - Rael - electric razor
I'm the pitcher in the chain gang, we don't believe in pain
'cos we're only as strong, yes we're only as strong,
as the weakest link in the chain.
Only after a spell in Pontiac reformatory was he given any respect in the gang.
Let me out of Pontiac when I was just seventeen,
I had to get it out of me, if you know what I mean, what I mean.
You say I must be crazy, 'cos I don't care who I hit, who I hit.
But I know it's me that's hitting out and I'm, I'm not full of shit.
I don't care who I hurt, I don't care who I do wrong.
This is your mess I'm stuck in, I really don't belong.
When I take out my bottle, filled up high with gasoline,
You can tell by the night fires where Rael has been, has been.
Now, walking back home after a raid, he was cuddling a sleeping porcupine.
That night he pictured the removal of his hairy heart and to the accompaniment of very romantic music he watched it being shaved smooth by an anonymous stainless steel razor.
As I cuddled the porcupine
He said I had none to blame, but me.
Held my heart, deep in hair,
Time to shave, shave it off, it off.
No time for romantic escape,
When your fluffy heart is ready for rape. No!
Off we go...
Your sitting in your comfort you don't believe I'm real,
You cannot buy protection from the way that I feel.
Your progressive hypocrites hand out their trash,
But it was mine in the first place, so I'll burn it to ash.
And I've tasted all the strongest meats,
And laid them down in coloured sheets (laid them down in coloured
sheets).
Who needs illusion of love and affection
When you're out walking the streets with your mainline connection?
connection.
As I cuddled the porcupine
He said I had none to blame, but me.
Held my heart, deep in hair.
Time to shave, shave it off, it off.
No time for romantic escape,
When your fluffy heart is ready for rape. No!
09 Counting Out Time (03:41)
The palpitating cherry-red organ was returned to its rightful place and began to beat faster as it led our hero, counting out time, through his first romantic encounter.
I'm counting out time,
Got the whole thing down by numbers.
All those numbers!
Give me guidance!
O Lord I need that now.
The day of judgement's come,
And you can bet that I've been resting,
for this testing,
Digesting every word the experts say.
Erogenous zones I love you.
Without you, what would a poor boy do?
Found a girl I wanted to date,
Thought I'd better get it straight.
Went to buy a book before it's too late.
Don't leave nothing to fate.
I studied every line, every page in the book,
Now, I've got the real thing here, I'm gonna take a look, take a look.
This is Rael!
I'm counting out time, hoping it goes like I planned it,
'cos I understand it. Look! I've found the hotspots, Figs 1-9.
- still counting out time, got my finger on the button,
"Don't say nuttin - just lie there still
And I'll get you turned on just fine."
Erogenous zones I love you.
Without you, what would a poor boy do?
Touch and go with 1-6.
Bit of trouble in zone No. 7.
Gotta remember all of my tricks.
There's heaven ahead in No. 11!
Getting crucial responses, dilation of the pupils.
"Honey get hip! It's time to unzip, to unzip, zip, zip-a-zip-a-zip.
Whipee!"
(Take it away Mr. Guitar)
- Move over Casanova -
I'm counting out time, reaction none to happy,
Please don't slap me,
I'm a red blooded male and the book said I could not fail.
I'm counting out time, I got unexpected distress from my mistress,
I'll get my money back from the bookstore right away.
Erongenous zones I question you -
Without you, what would a poor boy do?
Without you, what would a poor boy do?
Without you, mankind handkinds thru' the blues.
10 Carpet Crawlers (05:14)
There is lambswool under my naked feet.
The wool is soft and warm,
-gives off some kind of heat.
A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed.
Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid.
The fleas cling to the golden fleece,
Hoping they'll find peace.
Each thought and gesture are caught in celluloid.
There's no hiding in my memory.
There's no room to void.
The crawlers cover the floor in the red ochre corridor.
For my second sight of people, they've more lifeblood than before.
They're moving. They're moving in time to a heavy wooden door,
Where the needle's eye is winking, closing in on the poor.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
"You've got to get in to get out
You've got to get in to get out."
There's only one direction in the faces that I see;
It's upward to the ceiling, where the chambers said to be.
Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree.
They are pulled up by the magnet, believing that they're free.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
"You've got to get in to get out
You've got to get in to get out."
Mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite,
And the wise and foolish virgins giggle with their bodies glowing bright.
Through a door a harvest feast is lit by candlight;
It's the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
"You've got to get in to get out
You've got to get in to get out."
The porcelain mannikin with shattered skin fears attack.
The eager pack lift up their pitchers- the carry all they lack.
The liquid has congealed, which has seeped out through the crack,
And the tickler takes his stickleback.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
"You've got to get in to get out
You've got to get in to get out."
11 The Chamber of 32 Doors (05:40)
At the top of the stairs he finds a chamber. It is almost a hemisphere with a great many doors all the way round its circumference. There is a large crowd, huddled in various groups. From the shouting, Rael learns that there are 32 doors, but only one that leads out. Their voices get louder and louder until Rael screams "Shut up!" There is a momentary silence and then Rael finds himself the focus as they direct their advice and commands to their new found recruit. Bred on trash, fed on ash the jigsaw master has got to move faster. Rael sees a quiet corner and rushes to it.
At the top of the stairs, there's hundreds of people,
running around to all the doors.
They try to find, find themselves an audience;
their deductions need applause.
The rich man stands in front of me,
The poor man behind my back.
They believe they can control the game,
but the juggler holds another pack.
I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I'd rather trust a countryman than a townman,
You can judge by his eyes, take a look if you can,
He'll smile through his guard,
Survival trains hard.
I'd rather trust a man who works with his hands,
He looks at you once, you know he understands,
Don't need any shield,
When you're out in the field.
But down here,
I'm so alone with my fear,
With everything that I hear.
And every single door, that I've walked through
Brings me back here again,
I've got to find my own way.
The priest and the magician,
Singing all the chants that they have ever heard;
and they're all calling out my name,
Even academics, searching printed word.
My father to the left of me,
My mother to the right,
Like everyone else they're pointing
But nowhere feels quite right.
And I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I need someone to believe in, someone to trust.
I'd rather trust a man who doesn't shout what he's found,
There's no need to sell if you're homeward bound.
If I choose a side,
He won't take me for a ride.
Back inside
This chamber of so many doors;
I've nowhere, nowhere to hide.
I'd give you all of my dreams, if you'd help me,
Find a door
That doesn't lead me back again
- take me away.
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Other reviews
By Mr_Iko
I love to call it 'Music-All': a watershed between a rock opera and a musical to be performed on a Broadway stage.
Should you not like this album, I recommend consulting a good doctor for an otoscopy.
By Mariaelena
"This double album is astonishingly difficult, progressively dilatable and becomes unique because it is full of merits, flaws and double meanings both for the lyrics and the music."
"Rael and John dissolve because maturity will have been reached due to a fundamental choice transforming them into a single complete man... You are free to interpret, and this is what Peter Gabriel wanted to convey to us."
By Old King Cole
"The Lamb is something more... too varied, containing too many different elements to be classified in a genre that is undoubtedly open but still has boundaries that delimit it."
"The main instrument in 'The Lamb' is [Peter Gabriel's] voice, which finally reaches its peak of technique and, above all, of expressiveness."
By paolofreddie
The album ranks among the most interesting in progressive and rock music in general.
The Lamb is one of the most complex and difficult to analyze albums in the history of prog and that is what enhances its intriguing nature.
By EverardBereguad
"The result was a carpet of 'pure anxiety' on which all the songs were built."
"It is a mistake to look for what Genesis had to say with this album in the moral of the story or the meaning of the lyrics."
