Peter Gabriel left the band Genesis in 1975, but not before creating his magnum opus in 1974 with “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.” It is a sprawling gem of orchestral rock (a double album), which brought the idea of the “concept album” to its apex. Rael, the protagonist and narrator, is on a journey, actually several, which begins and ends on the streets of Broadway, New York, with illusions to growth into manhood, and clear allusions to the confusing continuum of psychedelic drugs. Rael is chasing his brother John, in much the same way Alice chases the rabbit through the looking glass in “Alice in Wonderland.” Whenever he seems to get close to catching up to John, who moves through the 90 minutes of musical scenes without uttering a single word, Rael gets slowed down by cages, mazes of rooms, myth-like serpentine sirens, and hallucinations. Finally, at the end of the fading day, the brothers run a series of rapids together and are reunited back on Broadway, with Rael discovering that the reason John never speaks is because he is, in fact, Rael’s alter ego.
The rest of the band (Phil Collins, Michael Rutherford, Anthony Banks, and Steve Hackett), for their part, breathe life into this lyrical Impressionism that reaches a standard only hinted at in their earlier work, and which the band, after Gabriel left, never attempted to duplicate, instead developing an outstanding pop sound in its own right. The drama and suspense infused into songs like “In the Cage,” “Carpet Crawlers,” and “The Lamia” are without parallel in 1970’s orchestral rock.
There is in my mind no question that Gabriel, who brought significant theatrical props to Genesis’ live shows, used as inspiration the greatest play by the greatest playwright of all time. Shakespeare’s King Lear is forced on an unexpected journey by his two ungrateful daughters, in which he ends up in the howling wilderness, ultimately losing his mind. Finding is third daughter, Cordelia, who Lear mistakenly shuns, becomes the aim of his life in hopes of reconciliation. He seems to succeed at the end of the play, achieving brief lucidity as he finds her, only the fall back into madness as Cordelia is slain.
It would be putting too fine a point on the analogy to attempt to link the lyrics of “the Lamb” to the iambic poem “Lear,” but the parallels of the twin tortured, tragic journeys are unmistakable. And it seems that the mirrored names of Lear and Rael make Gabriel’s intent clear.
Literary themes aside, the album stands on its own as a beautiful example of what British progressive rock could be. Both Peter Gabriel and Genesis moved on the make excellent music throughout the 1980’s, but the excellence of “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” was their finest, collaborative work.
Sources: Harold Goddard’s “The Meaning of Shakespeare,” and playshakespeare.com
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