50 Years of Genesis' "Selling England By The Pound"

“It was mostly Tony Banks' song, but then one time I played the piano line on guitar and it came out like this, like a bird flying over the sea. It's a haunting melody and every time I play it, it makes me feel good. In the end, every member of the band coloured in the spaces of Tony's initial piano sketch — it was a group effort.” The story that Steve Hackett shared with us about the genesis of the suite “Firth Of Fifth” explains, better than any other words could, what “Selling England By The Pound” actually was: an extraordinary choral work, a chain reaction in which every member of the band, spurred on by their bandmates, managed to express the full breadth of their creativity. A landmark album, which turns fifty this year. We're deliberately vague, and not by chance: the original release date of the record is a genuine mystery, one to which someone has even devoted a lengthy investigation. It might have been September 28, as some claim, or October 5 or 12, according to others. All armed with solid arguments. What's certain is that even fifty years on, “Selling England By The Pound” remains a masterpiece of progressive and of rock as a whole, a display of extraordinary creativity from the English quintet born in Godalming, Surrey, six years earlier. Fifty-three minutes and forty-one seconds of musical imagination, perfectly balanced between the prog leanings of earlier works like “Nursery Crime” and “Foxtrot” and the more pop-oriented direction that would emerge later, with the handover at the helm from Peter Gabriel to Phil Collins — already traceable here in the single, and future live staple, “I Know What I Like.” With a full, vibrant sound, further improved in the subsequent CD reissues of 1994 and 2007.

Does it feel its fifty years today? Of course it does. It would be absurd, for instance, to expect it to match the post-progressive modernity of King Crimson's “Red.” “Selling England By The Pound” is a historical document of a musical style rigorously sealed within the 1970s, in all its colourful nuances. And yet, listening back to those tracks — even in the recent live performances by their most indomitable interpreter, the aforementioned Hackett's solo work — one can still fully grasp the freshness of the creative spirit that animated Genesis at that midpoint in their journey, still under the enlightened guidance of the archangel Gabriel, yet determined to bring out each member's individuality to the full: from a hugely inspired Tony Banks, who introduces the first synthesized sounds without abandoning piano, mellotron and the ever-present organ, to a more measured Phil Collins, skilled at balancing rhythmic flourishes with calm-before-the-storm passages; from Mike Rutherford's tireless sonic anchor with his pulsing bass, to an unstoppable Steve Hackett, who would find in the aching guitar flight of “Firth Of Fifth” one of his most memorable solos.

And then there's the ringmaster himself, Peter Gabriel, who further honed his vocal artistry and his skill at crafting vivid, imaginative lyrics blending history, religion and current affairs, painting in this case a dark portrait of a Britain in full economic, political and moral decline. This is the true connecting thread, if not an outright concept, running through the eight tracks, tied together by a title — translatable as “selling England by the pound” — taken from a Labour Party manifesto that denounced the “selling-off” of the country for the sake of mere financial and economic interests.

It's no coincidence that the shows on the subsequent tour would open with a kind of brief monologue in which Gabriel declaims: ⟦Q1⟧ before singing a cappella the lines ⟦Q2⟧ (“Can you tell me where my country lies?”), questioning the crisis of the myth of the Old Britannia that was crumbling in those years, caught between ancient glories and recent defeats. This wasn't a nationalist or revanchist nostalgia on Gabriel's part, but rather a denunciation of how consumerist society was eroding the fabric of British society, draining its spirit. In short, almost a more mature version of the sixties utopia of the Village Green of Kinks fame, and its powerless cry of alarm against industrial civilisation. So the mythology of medieval battles is transformed into a gang brawl in London's East End (“The Battle Of Epping Forest”) for control of illicit trade, while the eternal love story of Romeo and Juliet, recast as two working-class kids, tries to break free from the narrow confines of an alienating daily routine in the darkness of a “Cinema Show.” But the theme of England's sell-off, both material and moral, resurfaces in “Aisle Of Plenty” in the form of a bizarre list of supermarket special offers.

“Selling England By The Pound” is also a perfect showcase of Gabriel's lexical playfulness, as he delights in wordplay with verses that can seem incomprehensible at first glance but are actually perfectly decipherable (in Italy, this was helped by the inclusion of Armando Gallo's translations in the original vinyl release). The aforementioned “Firth Of Fifth,” for instance, takes its name from the firth on which Edinburgh sits, into which the Scottish river Forth (pronounced like “fourth”) flows — so, with a river-as-time metaphor, Genesis imagine the birth of a new river, the fifth (“Fifth”). In “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight,” meanwhile, the word “unifaun” alludes to the England of days gone by, while “Queen of Maybe” playfully echoes “Queen of May.” Poised between social satire and borderless wordplay is also the comic tale of a lazy gardener named Jacob, who's content with what he likes and only likes what he knows (“I know what I like and I like what I know”); while the line “It's scrambled eggs” in “Aisle Of Plenty” is nothing but the sardonic answer to the question about dinner left hanging by “Supper's Ready,” the closing suite of “Foxtrot” (1972).

In an album flawless from the first note to the last, the cover art could hardly be anything less than perfect too — the first Genesis sleeve since “Trespass” (1970) not to be created by their trusted illustrator Paul Whitehead. It's the portrait of a greenish-skinned male figure dozing on a bench while a woman with a parasol reaches out her hand to him; beside the bench, a pitchfork and a lawnmower, and behind them, two parallel rows of hedges stretching towards the horizon. This is “The Dream,” a painting by Betty Swanwick, a “Miss Marple of the paintbrush,” according to Peter Gabriel, “full of life, very sharp and mischievous.” Unable to produce a new work in such a short time, the painter reworked one of her own pieces that had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, adding a lawnmower in reference to the lyrics of “I Know What I Like.” An iconography perfectly in tune with the narrative spirit of the record, destined to remain among the most celebrated cover artworks in rock history.

Genesis, with their romantic, baroque sound, had already amply demonstrated their talent. But in 1973 they managed to establish themselves once and for all, sealing a style that would remain among the most influential and imitated in the entire prog galaxy. More polished and refined than its predecessors, partly thanks to John Burns' production, “Selling England By The Pound” would break through in the United Kingdom, climbing the charts to number three (with “I Know What I Like” becoming the band's first single to break into the Top 30), while in the United States — as ever largely unreceptive to prog — it would peak at number seventy.

Critics, on the other hand, were almost unanimous in showering it with praise, destined — as is often the case with masterpieces — to grow over the years, at the expense of the few sceptics of the time, who would eventually come around, if belatedly. And while it's true that that era and that spirit now seem buried under the mothballs of time, today more than ever, in an age of Brexit and dangerous nationalist drift, the cry “Can you tell me were my country lies?” rings out as loud as, if not louder than, it did back then.

(Claudio Fabretti)

THE REVIEW

In 1973, with the release of this album, one of the most brilliant periods of progressive rock came full circle. After the extraordinary debut work of King Crimson (“In The Court Of The Crimson King”), the equally stunning and classically-inclined debut of Emerson Lake & Palmer with their self-titled record, and the symphonic grandeur of Close To The Edge by Yes, along came this “Selling England By The Pound” to seal the golden age enjoyed in those years by one of rock's most elaborate and evocative genres.

Genesis, with their romantic and baroque sound, far more polished and gentle than the three aforementioned works, had already shown they had reached maturity. “Nursery Crime”, “Foxtrot” and, to a slightly lesser degree, “Trespass” were works destined to remain milestones of a certain kind of rock. But it was with this record that Peter Gabriel and his bandmates achieved their most representative work, the album to hand down to posterity with the pride of knowing they had conceived a body of sound whose chromosomes would never be eroded by the passage of time.

The music of Genesis's “golden period” was characterised by a complex, intricately articulated sonic architecture: as in a great puzzle, each instrument triggered an action and reaction in another, generating an interweaving of sounds and melodies both in the background and in full view. In this grand mosaic of sound, everything was crafted with artistry to live a life of its own. You might hear the keyboards acting as the song's guiding thread, while in the background three seconds of guitar embroidery unfold; yet those three seconds were so essential that, had they not existed, the whole piece would have suffered and the entire sonic architecture would have collapsed.

Genesis's music was “colourful”, never the same twice: a triumph of fervid ideas bursting out in tangible, imaginative fashion. Music that immersed the listener in a different world, acting like a time machine projecting them towards remote eras, thanks to its distinctive “baroque quality”, never gaudy or contrived. Listening to these melodies with eyes closed, one is ideally transported into a world populated by dragons and fairies, castles and lush green gardens, as the album cover itself vividly attests.

Besides the lyrics, always mysterious and intriguing, it's also the band's musicianship that stands out: Peter Gabriel's masterful singing, which, like a sprite, hops from one song to the next with his distinctive interpretive grace; Tony Banks's keyboards, never showy or overblown; Steve Hackett's guitar embellishments, sketching sonic filigree with complete freedom; and let's not forget Collins's rhythmic style, which, like a beating heart, always managed to tap into the emotional core of each song.

The album's opening is electrifying: “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight” begins with an emphatic vocal from Gabriel, accompanied by Hackett's guitar, which immediately conjures up a medieval atmosphere, right up until every instrument joins in. Before long, the rhythm becomes urgent and furious, and the electric guitar takes over with genuine flashes of brilliance; but it's only a moment: as in a relay race, the guitar hands off to Banks' keyboards, distinctly progressive in style, with Collins' swirling drum rolls underpinning it all. Suddenly everything calms down, the track no longer feels the same, and we find ourselves projected into a new, reflective dimension: on these notes, the song takes its leave.

In “I Know What I Like”, it's Collins who calls the shots: a spoken intro with rhythmic sounds echoing each other in the background, a few moments, and then everything explodes into a catchy melody, with a chorus that's a genuine ode to joy; between breaks and returns of the main melody, the song moves along light and hummable. It's the album's most accessible track, and one destined to become a live staple.

A skilful piano introduction ushers in the following “Firth Of Fifth”, the album's masterpiece and one of the most memorable compositions in the Genesis catalogue. A break, the piano fades, and the band produces a single unified sound, in which every instrument is in complete harmony with the others. Gabriel, like an Oscar-worthy actor, majestically delivers the main melody, when suddenly everything falls silent, and a gentle flute quietly takes over, rhythmically accompanying the piece, until the eruption of Banks's splendid solo, which quickly passes the baton to Hackett for a supreme guitar lyricism. An absolute masterpiece.

In “More Fool Of Me”, on the other hand, an acoustic opening – with Collins delivering a lilting vocal – leads towards simpler, more pastoral atmospheres: here there's none of the typical Genesis-style orchestration, but rather more intimate, nuanced tones. A small yet great song, imbued with an innocent sweetness. Then, an opening march-like rhythm leads us into a bloody battlefield: that of “The Battle Of Epping Forest”. Gabriel's voice grows more urgent, supported by guitar interludes and piano “entrances”, until, as in a raging clamour of shouts and war cries, the song rises into a whirlwind of fast, refined technical prowess. But it's Gabriel who sings, and above all narrates the deeds he recounts in a style that shifts, as needed, between dramatic, ironic and mocking. This is a highly progressive track, perhaps the most elaborate and complex on the entire album. A suite built from frenzied sonic gallops in which the instruments seem to duel, or rather simulate the very deeds of the characters who populate the song's lyrics.

The following “After The Ordeal” is an instrumental piece, evocative in flavour and Renaissance in atmosphere. Hackett shows off seductive filigree work, the drums support him with a calm rhythmic backdrop, while a flute gathers courage and melodically brings the song to its conclusion.

Another milestone of the album is "The Cinema Show", where everything begins in a subdued, dreamlike way: an outstanding Gabriel is backed by a repetitive, and precisely for that reason sinuous, guitar arpeggio. Amid sudden, abrupt bursts of sound that heighten the sense of anticipation, the listener is carried into a landscape of epic sounds, where a nervous outburst from Collins on drums dictates sharper rhythms and cadences. Banks's keyboard work enriches the song's structure with baroque flourishes. The album closes with "Aisle Of Plenty", a melody that, in a kind of circular journey, brings us back to the beginning of the record, as if urging us never to stop listening to this legendary work.

(Stefano Pretelli)

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