It's become arguably Phil's best known and most loved song ever, thanks to its haunting lyrics and incredible drum solo, but did you know its history? What does the song mean? How was its distinctive sound created? Find out all you need to know right here:.
What a way to start! By , he had been part of Genesis for nearly eight years, and had reluctantly accepted the role of frontman following Peter Gabriel's departure. He had been planning to do a solo album for some time by Phil said at the time: "One ambition is to do my own album which will have a lot of variety.
The album, when it does come out, will have a lot of different styles on it. Phil wrote the song during the grief he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertorelli in The divorce contributed to his hiatus from Genesis, until the band regrouped in October of that year to record the album Duke.
All of the original songs on the Face Value album, including follow-up hit 'I Missed Again', were intended to be "messages" to his first wife, in an attempt to lure her back to him. Phil said in "I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I'm not quite sure what the song is about, but there's a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration.
The story goes that Phil watched as a man who once attacked his wife drowned. Another version was that Phil wrote the song about a man who watched another man drown, and sang it to him at a concert. Yet another version claims that when Phil was a young boy, he witnessed a man drowning someone but was too far away to help. Later, he hired a private detective to find the man, sent him a free ticket to his concert, and premiered the song that night with the spotlight on the man the whole time.
The song is known for its atmospheric production and rather macabre theme, and was thought to have been influenced by the likes of Brian Eno and his ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel.
It consists of a series of ominous chords, played by a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 over a drum machine pattern the Roland CR Disco-2 pattern , processed electric guitar and vocoded vocals. The song builds up until an explosive burst of drums releases the tension. Phil improvised the lyrics during a songwriting session in the studio. He said: "I was just fooling around. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing. The lyrics you hear are what I wrote spontaneously.
That frightens me a bit, but I'm quite proud of the fact that I sang Phil's use of the song's drum beat came via an unintended use of studio technology. Before he became a solo singer-songwriter, he was also the lead singer with the band Genesis. He had been the drummer in the band since but he took over as lead singer when Peter Gabriel left the band in When his first wife left him, he wrote several songs about how he felt.
When he started his solo career, these songs were recorded as part of his first album Face Value. One of the most famous of them was In The Air Tonight. Find out from Phil Collins himself how the song was written and learn about the lyrics. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. You are in:. Phil Collins reads the lyrics especially for us.
See if you can fill in the gaps in the lyrics. I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord, I've been waiting for this moment all my life, oh Lord.
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight? Well if you told me you were I wouldn't I've seen your face before, my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am. Well, I was there and I saw what you did, I saw it with my own two eyes. So you can Well, I remember, I remember, don't worry. How could I ever forget? It's the first time - and the last time we ever met. Check answers.
Find out how Phil writes his songs. See if he thinks he's a good songwriter and find out what his song 'In The Air Tonight' is all about.
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