“Sits in the shadow”: the one artist Peter Gabriel said eclipses all others
Rock and roll has a complicated relationship when it comes to great lyricists. There are many people who like the idea of singing their hearts out whenever they write, but there are others who would gladly take an axe to the Bob Dylans of the world and make the most nonsensical lyric sheet that anyone has ever heard. There aren’t too many rules when it comes to making music, and Peter Gabriel took that concept and ran with it whenever he made one of his projects, whether in Genesis or solo.
The whole formation of Genesis was about pushing things forward, and that usually meant making songs that didn’t fit into the typical pop song structure. Anyone could have tried writing the same baroque pop songs that they had been known for on From Genesis to Revelation, but when they started making tracks like ‘The Knife’, Gabriel had free rein to go in whatever direction he wanted to.
But there’s a fairly stark difference between his lyrics in Genesis and what he would do in his solo career. There are a lot of fanciful tales throughout records like Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and while they’re still present on tracks like ‘Solsbury Hill’, Gabriel seemed more interested in singing about the world that was happening around him than works of fiction when he recorded.
He knew he had a massive voice in the music world, and ‘Biko’ was an example of him using it to its fullest extent. Even when he did write songs that dealt with someone else’s experience, it was easy for anyone to attach themselves to the struggling couple trying to find where they belong in the middle of ‘Don’t Give Up’. Not everyone has to lose a job that drastically, but something about the song cuts to the root of how desperate life can feel sometimes.
There are many ways that people can try to put their emotions into words, but by Gabriel’s metric, none of them did the heart justice like Leonard Cohen. From his first record to his swan song, You Want It Darker, Cohen was willing to open his heart to every single person who bothered to listen, often using only a few musical brushstrokes to paint a vivid picture of what romance was like in his eyes.
And while Gabriel did have his fair share of heartfelt songs in his catalogue, he knew that no one should bother trying to run from Cohen’s influence in the singer-songwriter sphere, saying, “Anyone looking at an empty page trying to write a song lyric sits in the shadow of the mountain that was Leonard Cohen.” Compared to the songs Gabriel had under his belt, that wasn’t simple lip service, either.
Many of Gabriel’s best songs have complicated sections, but Cohen was the one who helped teach him what it could be like if he made things simpler. It might seem easier not to rely on as many words, but it’s like pulling teeth when breaking everything down, as if every single syllable has to line up perfectly with the point you’re trying to make in a song.
But given how Gabriel is one in a long line of fellow fans like Lou Reed and Joni Mitchell, Cohen was more than someone who wrote a bunch of great singer-songwriter tunes. He was teaching everyone who came after him how to approach the language of love in a way that everyone could understand.
