The musician Peter Gabriel said everyone should follow: “Always admired”
In 1992, Peter Gabriel’s music took a more introspective turn when he wrote Us, an album that contemplated the end of his first marriage, his subsequent relationship’s end and the distance between himself and his eldest daughter.
Leading up to the writing and recording of Us, Gabriel began attending group therapy. “Given that [group therapy] was a preoccupation for a number of years, I thought it was the right thing to put it out,” he explained on the Charlie Rose program in 1993, with him referencing his therapy experiences on the album’s first single, ‘Digging in the Dirt’.
“Stay with me, I need support,” he sings, “I’m digging in the dirt, to find the places I got hurt”. ‘Come Talk to Me’, featuring backing vocals by Sinéad O’Connor, chronicles his and his daughter’s disconnect. O’Connor also sings on ‘Blood of Eden’, utilising Biblical allusions to reflect on his relationship struggles.
Gabriel’s sonic evolution continued on Us, furthering his art rock vision by combining it with elements of world music and progressive rock. Frequently improvising on piano and keyboards, ad-libbing some vocals, Gabriel’s vulnerability within his lyrics on the album was revelatory. Turning his focus inward was a chance to achieve a level of candour that, prior, was unprecedented, even to him.
“As an English male who had a certain amount of cynicism, reserve and fear about doing any work on myself,” he noted, “I actually realised that I got a lot out of it, and I was hoping that it might encourage other people to consider that.”
Gabriel, in turn, not only offered his personal stories to the world but also ushered in a new approach to his songwriting that he hadn’t considered before. As a writer, he recognised that a candid point of view was a necessary risk to take, sitting in the discomfort of revealing a wholehearted portrait of himself. In the process, he looked to musicians who he believed approached the subject best.
“I’ve always admired people like John Lennon, who’ve been able to portray some of the less flattering parts of themselves and include that within the music,” he explains. “And, I don’t think there’s enough male songwriters that deal with those things from a sort of ‘full’ perspective.”
Gabriel’s advocacy to follow in Lennon’s footsteps and write about the more complex facets of one’s personality signals a shift in rock music at the time, offering a sincerity in his work that allowed him to reckon with his past and move forward as an artist.
The musician continued to reflect on the reluctance of male songwriters to write of their emotions with full honesty. “There’s a confusion, I think, with rock ‘n’ roll, between two horses that we try and ride, one of which is to do with message, integrity and trying to say something meaningful,” he posits. “The other is being entertaining and to do with myth-making and image-making. I think we’re trying to ride both horses simultaneously, so there’s a danger of destroying one by honouring the other.”
