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One important thing about a song have always been its lyrics. That is why I will now state on some of Collins\' words and then let him explain himself what is meant.
CHORUS:
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord
I\'ve been waiting for this moment, all of my life,
Oh Lord
You can feel it coming in the air tonight,
Oh Lord, Oh lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I\'ve seen your face before my friend
But I don\'t know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own to eyes
So you can wipe of that grin, I know
where you have been
It\'s al been a pack of lies
CHORUS:
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight,
Oh Lord
I\'ve been waiting for this moment for all my life
Oh Lord
I feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
I\'ve been waiting for this moment all my life,
Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Well I remember, I remember don\'t worry
How could I ever forget, it\'s the first time,
the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up
no you don\'t fool me
The hurt doesn\'t show; but the pain still grows
It\'s no stranger to you or me
(REPEAT CHORUS AND FADE...)26
4.1. \"In The Air Tonight\"
When you listen to this song and feel the tense atmosphere, the lyrics seem to be some kind of a prayer. I have tried very often to make some sense out of the words, as every-body said to me that there is always a meaning behind the words, but I have never really found one. Meanwhile I know the reason. Collins:
\"That song there is a song with many faces. And the truth is, that I don\'t know what it\'s about. The way I write lyrics is I open my mouth and see what comes out.
I was going through a unpleasant divorce and I guess I was very angry, I was very bit-ter, I was very upset. I think you can probably tell that from the song. But all these sto-ries - it\'s like \'Chinese whisper\' - whenever I come to America I hear a new bit. [...] [e.g.] I saw someone drowning and I witnessed this thing and then I invited the guy to the concert and I set him down in the front row and sang this song. [ P.C. shakes his head] All I did was write the song, really. [...] But anything you hear about this song is not true.\"27
And that is why I won\'t tell any more about it.
\"It seems in a moment, your whole world can shat-ter
like morning dreams they just disappear
like dust in your hand falling to the floor
how can life ever be the same
cos my heart is broken in pieces
yes my heart is broken in pieces
since you\'ve been gone
It\'s all too easy to take so much for granted
oh but it\'s so hard to find the words to say
like a castle in the sand the water takes away
but how can life ever be the same
cos my heart is broken in pieces
yes my heart is broken in pieces
since I\'ve lost you
oh now you\'ll never see
oh you\'ll never know
all the things I planned for you
things for you and me
4.1. \"Since I lost you\"
Held your hand so tightly
that I couldn\'t let it go
Now how can life ever be the same
cos my heart is broken in pieces
yes my heart is broken in pieces
since you\'ve been gone
cos my heart is broken in pieces
yes my heart is broken in pieces
since I\'ve lost you
cos my heart is broken in pieces
yes my heart is broken in pieces
since you\'ve been gone\"28
When I first heard this song from the Genesis album \"We Can\'t Dance\", I thought of someone that is bewailing that his love has left him, but I was not right in the way I thought I was. Collins: \"This is probably one of the heaviest things - one of the heaviest things I\'ve ever written or had a part in writing. [...] One night after a rehearsal I went home and a friend rang me up and said: \'Have you heard about Eric [Clapton]?\' So I said: \'No, what do you mean?\' He said: \'His son is dead!\' So I couldn\'t believe it \'cause I obviously knew, well, I knew Eric very well and I knew Connor very well.
So we were recording in New York. I found out were he was, and that it was true. The next day we went to the rehearsal. Mike and Tony also knew Eric very well. And we\'ve been writing this song, but we didn\'t have any lyrics and didn\'t at all - lyrically. And we played this song, because, you know, work went on. And the lyrics to this - the chorus to this, anyway, came straight away; and when we\'d finished that song I took it to Eric to play it to him, because I wanted him to like it before we would have released it, you know - if he didn\'t like it, we wouldn\'t have released it. And I played to him and he had tears in his eyes.\"29 This is why I prefer sleeve notes: with them you cannot go wrong. I love these lyrics because of the images Collins uses, they are very poetical.
4.1 \"No Son Of Mine\"
This is one of my favorite songs, maybe because it is so easy to understand. In my opin-ion, it was about a person who had left home when he was young because his father beat up the family. When he was older he went back to settle this argument, but it was point-less.
Collins:\" [In the rehearsal for \"We can\'t dance\"] I started singing \'no son, you\'re no son of mine\' for some reason. I don\'t know why - I had a very happy childhood. And I started with these lyrics, and of course this subject matter is very dark. It\'s - as soon as you got something like that \'you´re no son of mine\' to hang something on, then you know exactly what you are gonna writing about. And so it\'s a song about a boy that lives in a house; and he can\'t stand he is terrified every night, because there is some kind of physical abuse. And it\'s not quite sure in the song whether it\'s he who is being abused or whether is\'s the mother that is domestically physically abused. That\'s what the song ended up being about - a very dark subject.\"30
\"
Well the key to my survival
was never in much doubt
the question was how I could keep sane
trying to find a way out
Things were never easy for me
peace of mind was hard to find
and I needed a place where I could hide
somewhere I could call mine
I didn\'t think much about it
til it started happening all the time
soon I was living with the fear everyday
of what might happen that night
I couldn\'t stand to hear the
crying of my mother
and I remember when
I swore that, that would be the
Last they\'d see of me
And I never went home again
they say that time is a healer
and now my wounds are not the same
I rang the bell with my heart in my mouth
I had to hear what he\'d say
He sat me down to talk to me
he looked me straight in the eyes
he said:
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
You walked out, you left us behind
and you\'re no son, no son of mine
oh, his words how they hurt me, I\'ll never forget it
and as the time, it went by, I lived to re-gret it
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
but where should I go,
and what should I do
you\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
but I came here for help, oh I came here for you
Well the years they passed so slowly
I thought about him everyday
what would I do, if we passed on the street
would I keep running away
in and out of hiding places
soon I\'d have to face the facts
we\'d have to sit down and talk it over
and that would mean going back
they say that time is a healer
and now my wounds are not the same
I rang that bell with my heart in my mouth
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine - oh, oh
I had to hear what he\'d say
He sat me down to talk to me
he looked me straight in the eyes
he said:
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
When you walked out, you left us be-hind
and you\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
oh, his words how they hurt me, I\'ll never forget it
and as the time, it went by, I lived to re-gret it
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
But where should I go and what should I do
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine
But I came here for help, oh I was look-ing for you
You\'re no son, you\'re no son of mine - oh
You\'re no son - ha yeah, ha yeah, ha yeah, ha yeah\"31
5. Epilogue
Now that I have covered Collins\' career, his music and his lyrics, there is only one thing left to tell. I went to the concert in Stuttgart, a few months ago. In my pocket I had six envelopes, each containing the following letter:
Dear Mr. Collins,
my name is Felix Knöchel, I am 19 years old and in the last year of the Gymnasium, a german Grammar School. In May I\'m taking my A-level exams. In Germany we have to write a (very important) piece of homework, called \"Facharbeit\" in order to be admitted to the exam. The topic of my \'Facharbeit\' is \"Phil Collins, his career, his music, his lyrics". Whereas it is very easy to get information about your life (e.g. in the Internet), it is very difficult for me to interpret your lyrics or to find someone \"who dunnit".
So in a nutshell, I need your help. Don't worry, I'm not one of those who try to meet their idol every minute of their life. I would be very happy, if it was possible just to exchange a couple of letters with you.
In the Schleyer-Halle the stage was built up right in the middle. The audience were standing all around. On one side of the stage there was the entrance for the musicians and the crew. I gave a copy of the letter to the sound engineer, the stage manager, the light engineer and Brad Cole, the keyboarder (not without shaking everybody\'s hand; you never know).
Collins entered the stage on the other side. During the show I changed my location to the other side. Shortly before Collins left the stage the security guards divided up the crowd using two ropes in order to create an alleyway for Collins. Of course I was standing very close to this rope (my stomach was divided up, too!). Then Collins left thestage, running. In front of me stood one of the security men, just like a rock. Because of him I had to lean over the rope so that Collins could see me. I stretched out my hand holding the envelope. When Collins was two metres away he could see me. He looked into my eyes - a little bit sceptical - grabbed the envelope and was pushed forward by his bodyguards at the same moment. The enevelope fell to the floor!
I got no answer to my request, but at least I can say: HE LOOKED INTO MY EYES!
6. Quotations
(1) Transcript by Knöchel, F., Storytellers: Phil Collins, VH-1 , 1997
(2) Seibold, Phil Collins, p. 8, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(3) Milowsk, Phil Collins - Genesis of a drummer, in: Downbeat magazine, p.1
(4) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.27, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(5) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.28, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(6) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.28, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(7) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.30, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(8) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.35, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(9) Milowsk, Phil Collins - Genesis of a drummer, in: Downbeat magazine, p.1
(10) Seibold, Phil Collins, p.18, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(11) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.40, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(12) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.55, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(13) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.56, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(14) Zeitz, Genesis - Eine Biographie, p.58, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(15) Atlantic Records Publicity, Phil Collins: Biography, p.2
(16) Salewicz, Genesis Of A Solo Career: Phil Collins Has His Way, p.1
(17) Seibold, Phil Collins, p.23, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(18) Atlantic Records Publicity, Press Release, p.1
(19) Seibold, Phil Collins, p.46, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(20) Seibold, Phil Collins, p.31, sinngemäß übersetzt von F.K.
(21) Collins, Both Sides, in: Booklet of the CD \"Both Sides\", p.3
(22) Atlantic Records Publicity, Phil Collins: Biography, p.1
(23) Atlantic Records Publicity, Phil Collins: Biography, p.1
(24) Milowsk, Phil Collins - Genesis of a drummer, in: Downbeat magazine, p.2
(25) Atlantic Records Publicity, Phil Collins: Biography, p.1
(26) Collins, In The Air Tonight, in: booklet of the CD \"Face Value\", p.6
(27) Transcript by Knöchel, F., Storytellers: Phil Collins, VH-1 , 1997
(28) Collins, Since I Lost You, in: booklet of the record \"We cant\' dance\", p.4
(29) Transcript by Knöchel, F., Storytellers: Phil Collins, VH-1 , 1997
(30) Transcript by Knöchel, F., Storytellers: Phil Collins, VH-1 , 1997
(31) Collins, No Sone Of Mine, in: booklet of the record \"We cant\' dance\", p.1
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