“I cheat”: Peter Gabriel on the song that became difficult to sing
Everything about Peter Gabriel was about pushing music forward. He had already toyed with what was possible with the live show when he made the random wardrobe changes in Genesis, so seeing him go solo should have been the moment that he finally let loose and made the most off-the-wall rock and roll ever conceived. While Gabriel could still deliver some of the zaniest tunes in the rock oeuvre, he admitted that one of the most straightforward songs that he ever wrote took the most out of him when singing.
Granted, was Gabriel ever one to back down from a challenge? The man had already made songs like ‘Supper’s Ready’ and managed to keep the whole thing entertaining across an entire side of vinyl, so it wasn’t like he was afraid to make songs that tested the audience’s patience from time to time. Even when he first started his solo career, tunes like ‘Solsbury Hill’ left some pop fans puzzled over how to move to a song in 7/4 time.
But around the late 1980s, Gabriel started to dip his toes into poppier territory by accident. Even though progressive music was the furthest thing from en vogue in the MTV generation, the latter half of the decade saw the rest of the world catching up to the genre, with Phil Collins now leading Genesis into the charts and Yes having hits like ‘Owner of A Lonely Heart’. Gabriel still had some modest hits with ‘Games Without Frontiers,’ but So marked the moment he went from acclaimed cult artist to a living legend.
While progressive pop was still a relatively new concept, every song had the perfect combination of hooks and quirks to keep audiences on their toes, whether that’s the introduction to world music on ‘In Your Eyes’ or having bassist Tony Levin play bass with drumsticks to get that stuttering percussive roll on ‘Big Time’.
If Gabriel wanted to touch people’s hearts, he couldn’t do it alone, and Kate Bush’s duet with him on ‘Don’t Give Up’ is still among the best tunes of the 1980s. While Bush plays the role of the comforting significant other, reminding us all that things are going to be alright, she does a perfect job of enhancing Gabriel’s vocal as well, especially during the bridge of the song where he goes for those breathtaking falsetto high notes.
As the years go by, though, Gabriel has said that those notes haven’t become any easier for him to hit, saying, “I cheat on occasion. I used falsetto rather than full voice in some bits. There’s a particular high note on ‘Don’t Give Up’. But I think my voice has probably dropped a tone [over the years] and for most of the songs that have high notes, I’ve had to lower a tone for the set. On the other hand you get given some notes down the bottom end.”
But that was only a small serving of what So did to test Gabriel’s voice. While ‘Excellent Birds (This Is the Picture)’ is still one of the stranger moments to be found on a pop album, one of his most beautiful vocal parts comes a few songs later on ‘Mercy Street,’ where he doubles the melody line an octave below in a soft baritone to give the whole track a more ominous feel.
Even though Gabriel might have to drop a few keys here and there when playing some of the songs today, that hasn’t stopped ‘Don’t Give Up’ from being one of the greatest tunes he has ever made. Most people can attempt to make a song of comfort for their audience, but listening to Gabriel find his confidence in the bridge could practically be prescribed to someone suffering from depression.
