The first song Phil Collins ever wrote for Genesis
When you look back on everything Phil Collins has done throughout his musical career, even the most critical of critics would admit, it’s pretty impressive.
Regardless of whether he was working as a solo artist, in Genesis or with another musician, he always gave his everything to the songwriting craft. His knowledge of music is mightily impressive, as he has always been one of those rare breed of artists who can take a step back from a song, to disengage with his own instrument and consider how everything was coming together as a whole.
During a recent interview with the band NewDad, their lead singer, Julie Dawson, spoke about how there is no place for egos when working collaboratively on a project. “There’s no place for ego when you’re creating music,” she said, “You can’t have something in there because you want to be the one playing it, it’s not about that. It’s about what makes the song the best possible version of the song, so there’s definitely no room for ego when it comes to creating music.”
Now, I’m not saying that Genesis were a band completely immune to the poison that can be ego, but one of the best things Phil Collins brought to the band, or to any project for that matter, is his ability to remove drum parts and change songs around for the benefit of the track. This might mean he’s waiting minutes before hitting a single note, but so long as it was for the benefit of the track as a whole, Collins was happy.
When he joined Genesis in 1970, the band already had a good songwriting unit in place in the form of Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, so much so that Collins didn’t initially consider himself a songwriter at all. Instead, he prided himself on his ability to put pieces of music together, and ensure a track ran as smoothly as possible.
“The spirit of Genesis was Tony, Mike and Peter,” he said, “I didn’t regard myself as a songwriter then. But there were things in Genesis I was highly influential in. My strength was arranging […] I was very into the first line-up of Yes – the one with [guitarist] Peter Banks. I remember listening to them and loving the way they took other people’s songs […] And did something different with them.”
While he might have been good at arranging, as mentioned previously, when we look back on Phil Collins impressive career, we don’t just see the work of a musician who spent his time moving existing songs around. Collins was a songwriter, always has been. The first track he ever wrote was composed in his room at 15 years old. Written in D minor, which Collins referred to as “the saddest of chords,” his song ‘Lying, Crying, Dying’ was what he nostalgically called “A very naive but heartfelt ballad.”
Regardless of his efforts, this song didn’t quite make it into the Genesis roster; however, one of the songs he worked on before actually joining the band did. When he was taking a break from specifically pursuing creative endeavours and was instead just pottering around with music, Collins came across a track that would find its way onto a Genesis album.
“Around that time I wrote a thing that later became ‘Lilywhite Lilith’ on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway,” he explained. Not only that, but during this time, Collins also put together some music which would eventually be released by another band he was in. “I also had a bit of something,” he said, “That later became ‘Why Should I Lend You Mine (When You’ve Broken Yours Off Already)’ for Brand X.”
From early on, regardless of whether he was pursuing something specifically creative or not, Collins was always harnessing an inner songwriter. “It’s funny,” he admitted, “How those bits only surfaced in later life.”
